5th and 8th grade pupils’ and teachers’ perceptions of the relationships between teaching methods, classroom ethos, and positive affective attitudes towards learning mathematics in Japan

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relatively low levels of confidence and relatively low self-efficacy in mathematics
learning, despite their relatively good performance.

Bandura (1997) explains that children can have different perceptions of their
competence in relation to similar attainment because individuals have different
interpretation, storage, and recall of failure and success, and society has different
influences on individuals’ processes of assessing their own capabilities. The Big Fish
Little Pond Effect (Marsh et al, 1984), whereby student’s academic self-concept is not
determined by their actual academic attainment but by relative comparison with other
students in school supports these social influences which Bandura (1997) has
suggested.

Bandura (1997) suggested that efficacy beliefs are a driving force, which brings cognitive
skills to actual performance through motivational and other self-regulatory skills. Schunk
(1989) found that pupils’ efficacy beliefs had a greater power of prediction relating to
their intellectual performance than their acquired skills. Pintrich (1996) suggests that
self-efficacy interacts with observed goal progress and in turn, sustains motivation and
improves skills. Therefore, the promotion of pupils’ perceptions of their competence and
self-efficacy must be studied separately from their level of knowledge and skills in
mathematics.

How do children form perceptions of their competence and self-efficacy? Harter’s (1981)
‘effectance motivation’ model proposed that individuals have an intuitive desire to master
their environments and have efficacy in interaction with it. Perception of their
competence in Harter’s (1981) model is one determinant of effectance motivation. The
existence of perception of their competence increases effectance motivation, while lack
of perception of their competence is assumed to decrease such motivation. This
research will be discussed in detail later in relation to self-perception.

Eccles et al.’s (1983) expectancy-task value model emphasises the social influence on
these perceptions, which they term task specific-concepts. Children form task specific-
concepts and perceptions of task difficulty based on the cultural milieu, socialises’
behaviours, past performance and events. These social and environmental factors also
affect children’s perceptions, interpretations and attributions of such social

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