Document Type

Report

Publication Date

2025

Abstract

The development of the Math Mind Measures survey originated from a research-practitioner partnership (RPP) project funded by The Gates Foundation (namely the R+D Partnership for Math Equity). As a part of the project, our team wanted to understand what contributes to math motivation in students. Unfortunately, when looking for instruments to assess motivation we could find little consensus on which motivational factor(s) mattered most and how to measure them.

Long forms: Consequently, we integrated and strengthened existing measures – where available – of 10 different motivational variables, developing a pool of 138 items. We call this collection of items the MMM – long-forms (MMM-Lf). These were initially piloted using a Qualtrics National Pilot sample of 4th through 8th grade U.S. students who completed a math class in the preceding 2022-2023 school year. Because our project focused on Latine and Black students, the sampling minimum was set at 40% for Hispanic or Latine students. Indeed, the majority ended up being Latine as we were piloting the scales in both English and Spanish.

Short forms: We then further pilot tested the scales with a local sample of 888 5th through 8th graders in the East Baton Rouge Parish school system (EBRPSS). The EBRPSS sample was predominantly African American (69%) with 10% Spanish-speaking. After the second pilot the scales were shortened, and the MMM now had 77 items. We call these 77 items the MMM – short-forms (MMM-Sf). Subsequent tests of the short-form scales were then also conducted in the EBRPSS as part of our longitudinal study (we just finished collection of Wave 4). All samples were equally gender-split.

Brief forms: Based on follow-up requests, we were asked to run additional analyses of our pilot datasets to determine whether we could construct more abbreviated versions of the MMM, heretofore referred to as the MMM – Brief (MMM-B).

Parallel forms: We were also asked to investigate whether we could construct parallel forms of the MMM. Meaning, could we construct essentially two brief versions of each construct that has the same number of items, were highly correlated with each other, and did not significantly differ from one another when means were compared. As the original scales were not developed with parallel forms in mind, this worked for some scales but others were too short or had too many components to reliably split. The advantage of parallel forms is that it enables the user to use different versions of the same scale in a pre-test, post-test design without having to worry that any 6 differences found were due to using different scales, because the scales are completely balanced.

The scales, in their various forms, are presented in this user guide. Spanish versions of the new brief and parallel versions are available in the Appendices (prior Spanish versions of the scales are available on the Open Science Framework site). Future iterations will hopefully also include state measures of math mind measures that allow for the measurement of how a student feels or thinks in the moment. MM Measures currently focus on what a student typically feels or thinks about themselves with regard to math, and is thus considered a “trait” (ex: “I get sad when I think about learning math”) instead of a “state” measure (ex: “I am sad that I am learning math right now”).

Comments

This work was supported, in whole or in part, by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation [Investment ID INV-046378] as well as by the National Center for Research in Advanced Information and Digital Technologies: Digital Promise Global.

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