Middle School girls’ self-efficacy and motivation toward Mathematics before and after attending an all-girls summer Mathematics camp

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of a five-day summer residential mathematics and technology program on the mathematics motivation and self-efficacy of 210 middle-grades girls who participated in this female-only event. Entrance measures and gain scores were examined for the study sample as a whole and for demographic groups formed by race/ethnicity, family socioeconomic status, and grade level. The results show that this program favorably influenced participants’ short-term self-efficacy and motivation for learning mathematics. Overall, significant increases appeared in self-efficacy, intrinsic motivation, and extrinsic motivation from program beginning to end. Self-efficacy showed the strongest improvements, followed by intrinsic motivation, and finally extrinsic motivation. Some differences appeared among demographic subgroups.

Keywords

• summer programs
• females
• mathematics
• middle school
• motivation
• self-efficacy