Not simply a decline: gendered changes in students’ intrinsic motivation towards mathematics

Abstract This study examines one-year changes in students’ intrinsic motivational orientation towards mathematics and whether these changes are gendered. Drawing on Swedish data from the TIMSS 2023 Longitudinal Study, we analysed two student cohorts, followed from Grade 4 to Grade 5 and from Grade 8 to Grade 9. Building on a theoretical recoding of TIMSS affective questionnaire items, intrinsic motivation was analysed as an overarching category, with cognitive and emotional motivation treated as subcategories. Mean change analyses and categorical change analyses were used to examine both average change and the proportions of students who decreased, remained stable, or increased. The younger cohort reported more positive orientations than the older cohort but declined over the year, while the older cohort started lower and showed weak positive change or stabilisation. Emotional motivation showed more variability than cognitive motivation, and the two subcategories did not move in identical ways. Gender differences in change were small: girls in the younger group were more likely to decrease, especially emotionally, but there were no significant differences in the older group. Findings suggest that mathematics-related affective development is uneven and dimension-specific rather than a simple decline, with gender differences more visible in the younger cohort than in the older cohort.