This study investigates Finnish, Norwegian, and Swedish first-year engineering students' task performance in mathematics and examines how it relates to their motivational values and beliefs about the nature of mathematics. In a set of seven mathematical tasks, female students outperformed male students, for example, in the simplification of…

We examine a group (N = 88) of Swedish first-year engineering students, their motivation, self-efficacy, and beliefs about the nature of mathematics, and how these relate to their task performance in mathematics. In our data, engineering students who emphasized the exact reasoning in their view of mathematics performed significantly better in a…

The aim of the project was to motivate school students to learn about the national literature of their own and others' countries. Engagement was fostered via the creation of digital artefacts (or "e-artefacts") such as online comic strips, live videos or animations. The pedagogical rationale was based on Papert's constructionism and…

Background: In Sweden, the introduction of new national curricula for primary and secondary schools has implied, for example, that programming has become a compulsory part of mathematics education since August 2018. We study Swedish fifth and sixth graders and the distributions of their motivational values related to studying mathematics with…

This study examines different factors' relative importance for students' performance in the transition to university mathematics. Students' characteristics (motivation, actions and beliefs) were measured when entering the university and at the end of the first year. Principal component analysis revealed four important constructs:…

Students' educational motivation is significant for performance and achieving learning, but little is known about what fuels such motivation. Educational motivation is regarded as the drive and inner state that energise educational activities, facilitate learning and channel behaviour towards achieving educational goals. Educational motivation…

Research shows that teachers' grading is influenced by non-achievement factors in addition to official criteria, such as knowledge and skills. Some grading criteria are internalised by the teacher, who is sometimes unable to verbalise the criteria used and refers to what is called a "gut feeling". Therefore, transparency, validity and…