By:  Maya Listman

As math can be an anxiety-provoking subject for children, the topic must be approached with particular care and sensitivity.

A recent study performed by researchers at the University of Washington, and published in the October 2015 issue of the journal Learning and Instruction, found a link between how strongly children identify with math and how well they actually perform in math. The study also found that the stronger girls feel that “math is for boys,” the weaker their own math self-concept. Andrew Meltzoff, a co-author on the study noted about children: "They have an implicit identity of 'me is math' or 'me is not math.' This self-concept matters because it is correlated with actual behavior, such as math achievement."

At the end of the school year, the first, third and fifth grade students who participated in the study took a standardized math achievement test. While girls and boys alike performed well on the test, when the researchers factored in math-gender stereotype and math self-concept beliefs, they discovered that the children's implicit beliefs did affect their math scores. Because math-gender stereotype and math self-concept are implicit and not detectable by self-report measures, this means that kids can be affected by these factors without even being aware.

Aunt should be encouraging of their nieces’ math abilities just as much as their nephews’. Discourage a “math self-concept” that could cause lower math achievement in your nieces  - and nephews.

Photo: Tom Wang
Published: October 6, 2015