Interests, Gender Differences, Impulsivity and Reflectivity among Year Three Pupils in London (U.K.) Schools

Abstract

The achievement of year 3 pupils in the classroom may be influenced by how they are taught familiar topics. That is, it is suggested that pupils may develop interests such as hobbies which are related to academic studies at school. It is therefore hypothesised that the extent to which year 3 pupils are interested in school subjects is a major factor contributing to performances in terms of time taken to complete tasks, errors made during completion and the type of strategies pupils use for successful completion of tasks. The extent to which pupils make errors and the time it takes to complete matching tasks of interest, is used as an indicator of how ‘reflective or impulsive’ pupils are, and this has implications for academic achievement. Thirty girls and thirty boys, (7-8 years old) were recruited for a study across five primary schools in a London Borough (England, U.K.). Interest and lack of interest in things was elicited using an interview and simple matching tasks were used to establish performance on tasks of interest and disinterest. Boys generally made slightly more errors than girls and were quicker when making matches. Girls used ordered strategies to make matches compared with random/global strategies for boys. The implications for this research are: - training of pupils to problem-solve using appropriate strategies; establishing ways of developing students’ subject interests and encouraging teachers to find ways of using suitable styles for individual students’ needs who are either reflective or impulsive.