L’évolution de la motivation pour les mathématiques au second cycle du secondaire selon la séquence scolaire et le sexe

Researchers have recently been interested in the evolution of student motivation in mathematics during the high school years. Many findings have underscored gender differences in student motivation. Research has yet to consider motivational differences according to skill level in mathematics during the final years of high school. Because performance-based streaming in mathematics is a conventional educational practice in its system, the Canadian province of Quebec offers an excellent opportunity to study such student differences over time, according to gender.  Thus, the main objective of this study is to document the evolution of student motivation in high school mathematics while attending to mathematics skill level and gender. Based on existing performance-based educational policy, participants (1864 girls and 1576 boys) were already grouped in two skill levels of mathematics courses: advanced and basic. They were enrolled in one of 30 French-language public high schools in the Montreal area. Between ninth and eleventh grade (mean ages 14.60 and 17.84, respectively), students completed a self-report questionnaire at five different time points. The questionnaire addressed the following five motivational variables at all five time points: competence beliefs, performance anxiety, perception of mathematics utility, interest for mathematics, and accomplishment goals (mastery-based, performance-based, and avoidance-based approach goals). Grade 11 represents the final year of high school in Quebec.   Hierarchical linear modeling analyses were employed to achieve the objective of this study. The results indicate that student motivation generally decreased by the end of high school. However, this decrement was particularly remarkable for students at the advanced mathematics skill level. More specifically, students in the advanced level showed a steeper decline in self-perceived competence, expressed interest, and perceptions of usefulness of mathematics at the end of high school. Their performance anxiety also increased during the same developmental period. Although the results revealed decrements in mastery-based approach goals for all students, those at the basic skill classification maintained generally lower levels of such goal-directed behaviors at the end of high school. Conversely, only students at the advanced skill level reported decreased performance-based approach goals. They also showed important increases in avoidance-based goals. Though students registered in the basic mathematics skill stream consistently reported lower motivation scores, their counterparts at advanced skill levels reported comparatively more important motivational decrements by the end of high school. Therefore, the results of this study suggest that decreases in mathematics motivation by the end of high school particularly affect students at more advanced mathematics levels. As for gender, motivational differences between girls and boys were not often found significant. This finding is above and beyond the fact that girls consistently maintained lower motivation scores than boys registered at the same mathematics skill level. This finding highlights the importance of considering possible gender differences when facing the challenges of the high school math curriculum, regardless of skill level. The most important findings suggest that pedagogical interventions be prospectively adjusted in tenth grade in order to circumvent decreases in student motivation at advanced levels by the end of high school.

Keyphrases: school motivation, gender, school level, high school, mathematics