Internationally, associations between mathematics achievement and various beliefs and attitudes related to learning are well established. In this article, the findings of five studies are examined to identify patterns in New Zealand students' mathematics-related beliefs and attitudes, and their relationships with achievement. Each study included…

In this paper, I report on doctoral research in which I investigated the relationships between student approaches to learning, conceptions of mathematics, mathematical self-efficacy, personal factors and examination results. Using seventy-three post-secondary mathematics students, some pertinent findings were: self-belief in selection processes…

Background: There is substantial evidence indicating that various psychological processes are affected by cultural context, but such research is comparatively nascent within New Zealand. As there are four large cultural groups in New Zealand, representing an intersection of individualist, collectivist, indigenous, colonial, and immigrant cultures,…

This study used data from the Assessment Tools for Teaching and Learning project, which involved data on the academic performance of more than 90,000 New Zealand students in six subjects (i.e. reading, writing and mathematics in two languages). Two sub-samples of this dataset were included for detailed re-analysis to test the general applicability…

In this New Zealand study, the maths self-efficacy and achievement of Year 4-10 students is being tracked over 3 years. A particular strength of this study is that maths self-efficacy is being measured in relation to items that have been psychometrically located on a difficulty scale, enabling students' self-efficacy responses to be interpreted in…

While in most countries today women attain higher levels of education than men, on average, they are less likely than men to be employed and they earn less. There are many reasons why these gender gaps open; some are apparent in secondary school. For example, even when they outperform boys academically, girls are less likely than their male peers…

This study investigated the relation between multidimensional aspects of high school students' perceptions of their parental involvement and their achievement. It explored differences in socio-economic backgrounds, ethnicity, gender, and higher and lower achieving students, and a structural model was developed to further investigate these…

Research indicates that affective attitudes such as liking of a subject and confidence in one's ability within a subject predict academic performance. Generally, immigrant minority students have positive attitudes and often have low academic performance. This study examines the self-efficacy and liking of subjects of New Zealand students and…