How is the students ́motivation affected by the teaching: An action study on the effect of working with motivation and problem-solving

In 2019, more than one in ten students in Sweden lacked a final grade in mathematics and there can be several reasons as to why this occurs. In this field of work, the two aspects focused on were students’ motivation and their problem-solving abilities. The purpose was to attain knowledge about how teaching might strengthen the students' motivation and ability to solve problems, in order to try to increase long-term effectiveness. The students had to fill out a digital questionnaire twice about their own motivation, and in between, the students' motivation and problem-solving strategies were affected in eight actions. Thereafter, the questionnaires were compared in order to draw attention to differences in student responses from instances one and two. The two questions in the study were “What does students' motivation for mathematics look like before and after the intervention” and “What effect does work with mathematical strategies in problem-solving, mindset and motivation theories have on the student”. The results showed that a low initial value for mathematic strategies in the students was significantly increased by the eight actions. Moreover, the study also showed that after the eight actions, the students’ dynamic mindset increased, because they put the reason for their results more on themselves and the amount of training being done. A further effect was that the students worked to a lesser extent to make the teacher satisfied, which meant that the controlled extrinsic motivation decreased. The study displays no evidence that the students’ intrinsic motivation, or desire, was positively affected by the actions