Akitoshi Uchida & Kazuo Mori PME40 Poster Session TREATMENT OF FAKE MATH-DISLIKES AMONG JAPANESE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS Akitoshi Uchida & Kazuo Mori Sairyo Junior High School 　　 Tokyo University of Nagano, Japan 　 　 　　 Agriculture and Technology　 Distribution of answers of Japanese students to “Do you like mathematics?” in TIMSS 2011. Do Japanese junior high school students really dislike mathematics? Can we rescue them? TIMSS2011. http://timss.bc.edu/timss2011/

Purposes Method We aimed to examine the following two hypotheses. There would be “fake math-dislike” students in Japanese junior high schools. Informing them of their implicit positive attitude would prevent them from becoming real dislikes. Method Participants: Two hundreds and four 7th grade Japanese junior high school students participated in the present study. Procedure: Detection of “Fake / Real Math-Dislikes” Rescue Treatment for a half of the “Fake Math-Dislikes” Pre/Post assessment of their math achievement in school 2

1) Detection of Fake/Real Math-Dislikes Self-ratings on like and dislike of mathematics. 　Participants rated twice on a five-point-scale (2,1,0,-1,-2). 　We classified students into the following three groups: 　Favorable (>= 1); Neutral (= 0); and Unfavorable (<= -1) FUMIE Test (a paper-and-pencil IAT; Mori et al., 2008) 　Participants were classified into two groups: 　　Positive = Those who marked more on the positive task 　　Negative = Those who marked more on the negative task Positive tasks Negative tasks IAQ = (PS-NS) / (PS+NS) /2 が正しいのでは？ Those students who answered they “dislike math” but showed positive implicit scores were regarded as “Fake Math-Dislikes.” 3

1 wk / 2ms / 5 ms / 8 ms / 9 ms / and 1 yr 2) Rescue for “Fake Math-Dislikes” We randomly divided the Fake / Real Math-Dislike students into the Experimental and Control groups, with having their math achievement scores matched pair-wise. Detected “FMDs” Experimental group (13 boys & 7 girls) Control Group (4 boys & 8 girls) 1 wk / 2ms / 5 ms / 8 ms / 9 ms / and 1 yr later assessment Detected “RMDs” Intervention group (12 boys & 6 girls) We informed only the Experimental students of their implicit positive attitudes toward math. We also informed Experimental RMDs the same information. No such information was provided to the Control students. 3) Assessment of the math achievement After the rescue treatment, we repeatedly assessed the math achievement of the Experimental and Control Fake / Real Math-Dislike students for one year. Their achievement scores were compared with their pre-test scores before the treatment. 4

Results There were large between-subject differences among the achievement test scores in math for both the Experimental and Control Fake / Real Math-Dislike students. Therefore, we counted how many students improved their scores than the pre-test scores in each experimental condition. (See the table below.　Note; Five absentees removed.) The frequencies of improved students in the four groups were statistically different (X(3) = 10.02, p < .05, φc = 0.42, X(3) = 12.53, p < .01, φc = 0.47). 5

Conclusions 1) The combination of questionnaires and paper-based IAT successfully detected fake math-dislike (FMD) students. 2) Statistically more Experimental FMDs improved their math achievements after nine mouths and one year of the rescue treatment. Meanwhile, it did not work for the RMD students. 3) Accordingly, informing their implicit attitude worked as a preventive intervention for the fake math-dislikes from becoming real math-dislikes. References Mori, K., Uchida, A., & Imada, R. (2008). A Paper-format Group Performance Test for Measuring the Implicit Association of Target Concepts. Behavior Research Methods, 40, 546-555. Acknowledgments This research was supported by Grants-in-Aid from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (Grants #24907003, 25907011 and 15H00061) to AU and (Grant #23653182 and 26560083) to KM. We obtained the informed consent of the principal and vice-principal of the junior high school before conducting this experimental research. We wish to express our thanks to the students and teachers who participated in and supported this research project. 6