Are you a “math person”?
It’s a question that gets settled at an early age: Most students have made up their mind about whether they identify as a math person by the time they’re in middle school, according to a new report from the RAND Corporation.
The study, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, analyzed survey responses from a nationally representative group of more than 700 children and young adults between the ages of 12 and 21 from summer and fall 2024. Researchers asked respondents about their attitudes toward math and their comfort with the subject. (The Gates Foundation provides general operating support for Education Week, which retains sole editorial control over its articles.)
The results paint a sobering picture—many students are disengaged in their math classes and don’t feel confident in their abilities.
Thirty-eight percent of respondents said they first identified as a “math person” sometime in or before 5th grade. Another 23% said they first claimed that identity in grades 6-8, while only 7 percent said they started to feel like “math people” in high school. About 1 in 3 said they have never identified with the label.
The end of elementary school represents a turning point that might shape students’ self-perceptions, said Heather Schwartz, the vice president and director of RAND Education and Labor, and the lead author on the study.
“By the time that kids are in middle school, that’s when math courses start to differentiate,” she said. “Are you in the fast track, the advanced track, or are you in regular math?”
These distinctions give kids an “external signal” about what kind of learner they are, she said.
Half of teens say they’re disengaged from lessons
The RAND survey offered a few other major findings. About half of middle and high school students said they lost interest in math lessons at least half of the time. Those students who were most engaged shared some key traits: They were confident they could do well, they enjoyed the subject and felt supported in class, and they reported that they could understand math well.
These results invite the question: Does developing greater math skills make students like the subject more? Or do students who like the subject more tend to engage more deeply?
“The survey doesn’t disentangle the chicken-egg issue,” Schwartz said.
But research does offer clues for how to up student engagement, she added. “We don’t have to throw up our hands and say, ‘Oh well, teens get bored, that’s just how it is.’”
The RAND report offers a list of evidence-based suggestions—which includes teachers modeling excitement about, and engagement in, the math students are learning, starting at a young age.
“That comes from teachers themselves knowing the content,” Schwartz said. “That content expertise is so important for elementary math teachers.”
States vary on requirements for elementary math teacher-preparation programs
Studies have found that teachers’ knowledge of, and attitudes toward, math can affect their students’ achievement in elementary school. When teachers have a deeper understanding of elementary math and how to teach it, students do better.
But not all prospective elementary school teachers get the same grounding in math content and pedagogy.
A separate recent analysis from the National Council on Teacher Quality, a research and advocacy organization, found that only 21 states provide “clear, detailed” guidance to teacher-preparation programs for what content to cover in four main areas of elementary math: numbers and operations, algebraic thinking, geometry and measurement, and data analysis and probability.
Fifteen states didn’t outline what future teachers should be taught about math pedagogy—how to convey the knowledge and skills to students.
“Without clear, detailed guidance on what teachers are expected to know, aspiring teachers may not learn essential math concepts during their training, ultimately weakening the quality of instruction they provide to students,” according to the report.
Despite the lack of specific state guidance, it’s likely that most future math teachers are trained in some of the same pedagogical skills, data from the EdWeek Research Center suggests.
A nationally representative 2023 survey of postsecondary instructors who teach math education asked how often these instructors taught their students how to implement different approaches in the K-12 classroom.
When asked about the skill of connecting new math content to prior knowledge, 96% of instructors said they discussed this extensively in class, with most also offering opportunities for students to practice. Eighty-eight percent said the same for identifying and responding to math misconceptions.
