Motivational and gender differences: Sixth-grade students' mathematical problem-solving behavior

Differences in boys' and girls' mathematical problem-solving behavior were studied in relation to 2 types of mathematics tasks: computations and applications. Participants were 79 boys and 79 girls of the 6th grade from 12 regular schools. In 2 separate individual sessions, cognitive and motivational variables were examined before, during, and after task execution. Differences in mathematical problem-solving behavior were dependent on the contents of the mathematics tasks and on gender. Interactions between type of task and gender were also noted. With respect to applied problem solving, girls rated themselves lower on confidence than boys and attributed bad results more often to lack of capacity and to the difficulty of the task. No gender differences were observed in relation to computations. Unexpectedly, girls had higher persistence than did boys, but only during applied problem solving.