Detection and treatment of fake math-dislikes among Japanese junior high school girls by utilizing the implicit association test

2016 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 26560083
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Science education
• Research Institution: Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology
• Principal Investigator: Mori Kazuo 東京農工大学, 工学(系)研究科(研究院), 教授 (30157854)
• Research Collaborator: Uchida Akitoshi 長野県長野市立犀陵中学校, 教諭
• Project Period (FY): 2014-04-01 – 2017-03-31
• Keywords: 偽装数学嫌い / 中学生 / 潜在連想テスト

Outline of Final Research Achievements

We hypothesized there were“fake math-dislikes” among Japanese students who claimed they disliked mathematics explicitly while accepted it implicitly. To examine this hypothesis, we administered questionnaires and paper-based implicit association tests to 204 Japanese junior high school students and found 38 fake math-dislikes. Then, we randomly assigned them into experimental and control groups and informed only the experimental students of their positive implicit attitude toward mathematics we revealed with the IAT. One year later, we found 15 of the 16 experimental students improved their math achievement scores while only nine of the 17 control students did. The simple practice of informing of their implicit attitude worked effectively for improving their math achievement. As hypothesized, it prevented the fake math-dislike students from turning into real math-dislikes.

Free Research Field

教育心理学