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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Dweck et al. (Dweck et al., 1983; Dweck et al., 1988) argue that students’ beliefs or
perceptions of intelligence influence their goal orientation. Students with an entity theory,
whereby intelligence is seen as fixed, are likely to adopt performance goals. These
students tend to show mastery-oriented behaviour patterns, such as seeking challenge,
and to have high persistence when they have high confidence in their intelligence, but
show helpless behaviour, such as avoiding challenge or low persistence, when their
confidence in their intelligence is low. Students with an incremental theory, whereby
intelligence is viewed as malleable, are likely to focus on mastery goals and mastery-
oriented behaviour, irrespective Ofwhethertheir confidence in their intelligence is high or
low (Dweck et al., 1988).

Research with Western participants has shown that attributionaɪ processes are regarded
as changing according to developmental stage. Young children tend to see ability as
more incremental and changeable (Dweck et al., 1983; Dweck et al. 1988). Older
children have trait-like perceptions of the nature of intelligence. At about 12 or 13 years,
children begin to differentiate between effort and ability (Nicholls, 1990) and believe that
effort cannot make a difference in tasks depending on luck (Nicholls et al., 1983, 1985).
Individuals’ perceptions of intelligence, applying entity and incremental theories are
perceived as part of a continuum rather than being dichotomous, and the applicability of
the two theories may vary according to the task (Pintrich, 1996).

Research on goal orientation has shown that students’ goal orientation is very amenable
to change, depending on environmental cues and presses. For instance, Ames’s (1992)
synthesis of work on students’ goal orientation indicates that reduction in the public
nature of comparison with others, and the introduction of assessment focused on
individuals’ improvement and mastery helps students adopt a mastery goal. This finding
is particularly applicable to the children after about age 7, because children become
objective and normative about their ability around this age (Nicholls et al., 1983, 1985).

Traditionally, Japanese culture supports the incremental idea of intelligence. This
conception of intelligence is believed to derive from the Chinese Confucian Mencius
(372-289 B.C.) by whom human nature was perceived as fundamentally good. Kojima
(1986) described Kihara’s (1710) theory regarding the Japanese culture of child raising,
whereby all children are perceived to be born with equal virtues and intellectual abilities

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