![]() ![]() Spanish students’ scores in the mathematics tests in Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2015 ( Ministerio de Educación Cultura y Deporte, 2016) do not help us to be optimistic about the teaching and learning in this subject in our country. Whereas despite girls reporting high rates of anxiety, what may have a negative impact on their results might have more to do with a higher value placed on mathematics, as their perception of control may be low. Boys’ results could be affected by the levels of anxiety inasmuch as they tend to be confident in their abilities, motivated to stand out, and interested in mathematics. In the light of control-value theory, we discuss the contingency of perceived competence and its involvement in anxiety and academic performance. Test anxiety in mathematics seems to only have a negative effect on boys’ grades, as this variable does not appear in the regression equation when explaining girls’ performance. The results of the regression analysis for each sample reinforce the well-known positive impact of perceived self-efficacy on mathematics performance and introduce the effect of achievement emotions of academic performance. Even though there no significant gender differences in academic performance, as expected, the explanatory power of attitudes toward mathematics was clearly more significant in boys than in girls ( R 2 = 0.194 and R 2 = 0.103, respectively). The results confirm what previous research has suggested, that girls tended to exhibit less positive attitudes about mathematics than their male classmates, in particular lower motivation, worse perception of competence, and higher rates of anxiety, although in all cases the effect sizes were small. The sample comprised 897 students in the 5th and 6th years of primary education (450 boys and 447 girls). In addition to attempting to verify gender differences, this study aims to examine the explanatory potential of boys’ and girls’ attitudes toward mathematics on their performance. 3Department of Pedagogy and Didactics, University of A Coruña, A Coruña, Spain.2Department of Pedagogy and Didactics, University of Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de Compostela, Spain. ![]() ![]() 1Department of Psychology, University of A Coruña, A Coruña, Spain.Susana Rodríguez 1*, Bibiana Regueiro 2, Isabel Piñeiro 1, Iris Estévez 3 and Antonio Valle 1 ![]()
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