Attitudes and Motivation
Students’ attitudes, interests and liking for a subject can have a bearing on their achievement. The mathematics survey sought information from students about their curriculum preferences and perceptions of their own achievement. The questions were the same for year 4 and year 8 students. The survey was administered to the students in an independent session (four students working individually on tasks, supported by a teacher). The questions were read to year 4 students, and also to individual year 8 students who requested this help. Writing help was available if requested.

Science Surveys
The survey included 11 items which asked students to record a rating response by circling their choice, one item which asked them to select three preferences from a list, one item which asked them to nominate up to six activities, and three items which invited them to write comments.

In the Social Studies survey, administered during the 2005 assessments, students were asked to select their three favourite school subjects from a list of 12 subjects. Full details are in the social studies report, but it is appropriate to summarise here how mathematics fared. Mathematics was second in popularity of the 14 subjects among year 4 students, chosen by 48 percent of them. Physical education and sport was slightly higher, at 53 percent, with a large gap below mathematics to the next subject at 31 percent. Mathematics was third in popularity for year 8 students, chosen by 28 percent of students, but well below the 68 percent for physical education and sport and 44 percent for technology.

Students were presented with a list of nine mathematics activities and asked to nominate up to three that they liked doing at school. The responses are shown below, in percentage order for year 4 students. Comparative figures are given for 1997 and 2001, but it should be noted that four additional choices were available in 1997 and a new one was added in 2005, so the percentages are not strictly comparable.

The most notable changes from year 4 to year 8 are that “maths problems and puzzles” are substantially more popular at year 8 level, while taking maths tests is substantially less popular at year 8 level. Comparing the 1997 and 2005 results, “maths problems and puzzles” and “using equipment” have become more popular at both levels, while taking maths tests has become less popular among year 8 students.

An open-ended question asked students to nominate what they considered to be some very important things a person needs to learn or do to be good at maths. They were asked to try to think of three things. Their responses were coded into eight categories and the results shown in the table adjacent are percentage totals from the sets of three ideas. If a student listed two or more ideas in the same category (such as learning addition facts and multiplication tables), only one was counted. Basic facts and tables were seen by students in both years to be most important, with several other factors given fairly equal importance.