Transition to secondary school: a help or hindrance to engagement in mathematics?

This study focuses on the development of motivational behaviours across the transition from primary to secondary school, considering whether aspects such as students' beliefs about their own ability level and perceived control in mathematics affect the individual's engagement and performance. The focus of the study is primarily on engagement in learning, where engagement includes behaviours such as persistence, effort and sustained attention to tasks, students' emotional state while doing these tasks, and their psychological orientation as reflected in their preference for challenge, independence and involvement with the tasks. The major research question to be addressed is whether it is possible to identify students who hold particular patterns of beliefs about how to succeed in mathematics that undermine or promote their engagement after transition to secondary school.