What College Freshmen Believe About Themselves: An Investigation of Mathematical Mindset, Identity, Self-Efficacy, and Use of Self-Regulated Learning Strategies in Mathematics

Abstract

Knowing what first-time freshmen in mathematics believe to be true about themselves as they arrive on a college campus provides valuable perspectives about freshman mathematics learners. We investigated how gender, high school mathematics course history, and university mathematics course placement are related to first-time freshmen’s mathematical mindset, identity, self-efficacy, and use of self-regulated learning strategies. A survey was completed by 293 first-time freshmen at a four-year university in the United States. Participants were enrolled in one of three university mathematics courses and completed a survey during the first week of class in Fall 2018. Results found that students’ mean scores for mathematical self-efficacy and use of self-regulated learning strategies were close to 4, and mathematical mindset and identity were close to 3 on a 5-point scale, where larger values corresponded to a more positive response. A multivariate analysis of variance was conducted on mean subscale scores, followed by analyses of variance. Calculus I students expressed significantly stronger mathematical identity than Intermediate Algebra students, and students who took advanced mathematics courses in high school expressed both stronger mathematical identity and self-efficacy than those who had taken only up to Algebra 2. Gender was not a significant differentiator among students, and neither mathematical mindset nor use of self-regulated learning strategies varied significantly across any subgroups.