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Students' self-beliefs about mathematics, such as mathematics self-efficacy and mathematics anxiety, can interact with each other in the explanation of mathematics achievement. The present study aimed to identify mathematics self-belief profiles (derived from combinations of mathematics self-efficacy and mathematics anxiety) and their relationships to mathematics achievement in a sample of secondary-school students. The participants were 2,365 students who completed a self-report instrument for the assessment of mathematics self-efficacy and mathematics anxiety. A latent profile analysis was conducted to identify the participants' mathematics self-belief profiles. The relationship between the profiles, mathematics achievement, gender and school year, was determined. Six student profiles were identified based on combined levels of mathematics self-efficacy and mathematics anxiety. Specifically, three patterns were found based on the combination of low, medium-low and high levels of mathematics self-efficacy with mathematics anxiety. While the detected profiles indicated statistically significant differences in the explanation of mathematics achievement, gender and school year were not relevant to the relationship between mathematics self-belief profiles and mathematics achievement. The study provides insights into the importance of students' beliefs, and perceptions in the explanation of academic achievement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Creativity has been studied in relation to academic performance, usually from the perspective of the creative result, with fewer studies focusing on the creative process and the student's awareness of that process, known as meta-creativity. This study aimed to analyze differences in meta-creativity based on academic performance groups (high or low) and determine the predictive power of meta-creativity belonging to the high or low academic performance groups. A total of 172 university students participated. Meta-creativity was assessed using a Meta-Creativity Questionnaire, which evaluated three dimensions (creative motivation, creative leadership, and divergent thinking). Additionally, academic performance was recorded, allowing for the classification of students based on high and low academic performance. The results of the analysis of variance indicated statistically significant differences between students with high and low academic performance in the three dimensions. Discriminant analysis indicated that the dimensions of meta-creativity were able to predict who belonged to the high and low academic performance groups. The model correctly classified 86.6% of the sample. It can be concluded that academic performance is a good indicator of the level of meta-creativity, and, additionally, meta-creativity has a beneficial effect on academic performance. There is a bidirectional relationship between the two variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Academic achievement in general, and in mathematics in particular, is positively associated not only with cognitive abilities, but also with emotional and motivational skills. The objective of this study was to analyze the prediction strength of cognitive, motivational, and emotional variables in mathematics achievement throughout high school, considering students' gender and age. A large sample of 2,365 Spanish students from the 4 years of high school (12–16 years old) participated in the study. Students provided information about their intellectual skills, perceived competence in mathematics, perceived utility of mathematics, intrinsic interest in learning, mathematics anxiety, and their causal attributions (for failure and for success), and of their achievement in mathematics. Data showed differences according to gender and the school grade level. The motivational and affective variables did not seem to play an important role in this relationship as predicted in the current study. The results of this study are discussed in light of previous research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Students commonly struggle with mathematics and mathematical problem‐solving. Therefore, it is necessary to design and implement interventions aimed at improving these essential components of learning. Furthermore, the outcomes of these interventions can vary significantly and appear to be a function of a student's initial competencies in mathematics. Aim: This study attempts to analyse the influence of initial levels of mathematics competency with respect to the benefits of a specific intervention known as the Integrated Dynamic Representation (IDR). Sample: Participants were 288 students (aged 6–8 years) who were divided according to their levels of mathematics competency (low–medium–high). Methods: Students were assigned to the two primary intervention groups, experimental group (EG; students who received the IDR intervention) and control group (CG; students who followed the traditional instructional methods). All participants completed the Test of Early Mathematics Abilities (TEMA‐3) both before and after the intervention. Results and conclusions: Although all the three competency levels of the EG improved, the progression was different for each level. Results showed that students with low competency level improved substantially more than the students with medium and/or high baseline competency level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: In this paper, we analyze the effectiveness of the Integrated Dynamic Representation strategy (IDR) to develop basic math skills. Method: The study involved 72 students, aged between 6 and 8 years. We compared the development of informal basic skills (numbers, comparison, informal calculation, and informal concepts) and formal (conventionalisms, number facts, formal calculus, and formal concepts) in an experimental group (n = 35) where we applied the IDR strategy and in a Control group (n = 37) in order to identify the impact of the procedure. Results: The experimental group improved significantly in all variables except for number facts and formal calculus. Conclusions: It can therefore be concluded that IDR favors the development of the skills more closely related to applied mathematics than those related to automatic mathematics and mental arithmetic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]