One lesson on why math is useful made teens rate math as more useful

The study

1. 01

   Who took part

   1,744 ninth-grade students in 78 classes at 28 schools in Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany. They were about 15 on average, and just over half were girls.

2. 02

   What they did

   Classes had one 90-minute lesson, taught by trained university students or by their own math teachers. For about 45 minutes, it covered effort, how students judge their own skill and how math is useful. Then for about 40 minutes, students read quotes from young adults about how math helped them. They thought about how math fits their own lives. The other classes waited and got the lesson after the study.

3. 03

   What happened

   About 4 weeks later, students in both lesson groups rated math as more useful than the waiting classes. Three months later the gap was smaller and no longer clear, though the paper's summary says it held. Interest in math and belief in their own math skill did not change. Students in the lesson groups said math cost them more effort and time.

What the study found

1. Helped

   About a month after one lesson on math's real-life uses, students rated math more useful than the waiting classes.

   • Action: List the benefits of finishingtested
   • Action: Learn how the problem workstested

   Large randomised trial of 1,744 ninth-grade students in Germany · vs classes still waiting for the lesson · they rated themselves · ⚠ whole groups were assigned, not people; summary claims more than the results show

2. No difference

   The lesson did not raise interest in math or belief in math skill, and students said math cost them more.

   • Action: List the benefits of finishingtested
   • Action: Learn how the problem workstested

   Large randomised trial of 1,744 ninth-grade students in Germany · vs classes still waiting for the lesson · they rated themselves · ⚠ whole groups were assigned, not people; summary claims more than the results show

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