1. NZ Maths
  2. Supporting professional practice
  3. Accelerating learning
  4. ALiM resources
  5. Resource 11
  6. Possible causes of avoidance behaviours

Possible causes of avoidance behaviours

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Relevant and up-to-date teaching resources are being moved to Tāhūrangi (tahurangi.education.govt.nz). 
When all identified resources have been successfully moved, this website will close. We expect this to be in June 2024. 
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All students are individuals, so you need to try and get to the bottom of the issue (the cause of this behaviour) for each student before deciding on a strategy. Be aware that “boredom” can be a cover-all excuse for opting out or acting up. Boredom is not a cause as much as an outcome.

Some possible causes include:

  • language skills – for some reason the student can’t read well enough to extract meaning from maths texts or can’t understand teacher explanations or questions
  • mathematical identity – the student’s experiences with maths (or lack of experience with it) cumulatively result in low or no confidence in their ability to make sense of it (Effective Pedagogy in Mathematics/Pangarau BES, pages 54–55, 58–60)
  • personal safety – the student doesn’t feel safe taking the risks needed for learning. They may not feel safe culturally, the class may lack structure, or socio-mathematical norms may not be well established (Mathematics BES, pages 54–60)
  • insufficient challenge – the student may not be challenged enough because the teacher believes they can’t achieve and so gives them low-level tasks (Mathematics BES, page 60)
  • lack of connection to student’s life or needs – they can’t see the relevance or point of the mathematical content because the teaching style is not connecting with them. (See the Effective Teaching Profile in Te Kotahitanga.)

Encouraging and modelling mathematical “discourse” has a positive impact on learning. Students learn how to participate and contribute to the mathematical talk and this builds their confidence. The effective teacher not only facilitates but also participates in the discussion and comments critically on the quality of the talk. In this way, the teacher guides students to learn how to explain and justify their mathematical reasoning and explore and challenge others’ thinking (Hunter and Anthony, 2010).

Teachers have noted that when they succeed in boosting students’ confidence and participation in ALiM groups, students also participate increasingly in whole-class discussions in all curriculum areas.

Back to Resource 11: Addressing avoidance behaviours in mathematics classes