Doing well in school isn’t just about being able to read dense books and solve complex math problems.
There are other, less tangible qualities that help students succeed, like having the courage to ask a question in front of the class, trying to make connections between new information and prior knowledge, or explaining the thought process used to solve a problem.
Among students across the globe, self-reports of practicing these educational soft skills are correlated with higher academic performance, according to results from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s 2022 Program for International Student Assessment.
But many students struggle with anxiety and motivation, and countries vary widely in how much their students say they’re able to think metacognitively about their work.
The test, known as PISA, assesses 15-year-olds across 81 countries and education systems.
A sample of about 690,000 students took the assessment in 2022. This set of results focuses on students’ academic motivation and ability to drive their own learning, particularly in math. (Achievement results in math and reading were released in December of 2023.)
The report demonstrates that lower-performing students “face a double challenge,” wrote Andreas Schleicher, OECD’s director for education and skills, in the report. “They struggle with both academic achievement and a lack of confidence in their ability to learn.
“Meanwhile, even high-performing students are not always well-prepared for lifelong learning. Identifying and building on students’ strengths—whether in terms of learning strategies, motivation, or self-belief—can create multiple pathways to success.”
Compared to teenagers in other countries, students in the United States are more likely, on average, to say they apply these skills. But economically disadvantaged students don’t use them as much as students from higher-income families—a gap that’s particularly acute in the United States, compared to other countries.
“I’m excited about the fact that PISA is bringing this conversation forward for us,” said Temple Lovelace, the executive director of Assessment for Good at the Advanced Education Research and Development Fund, or AERDF, a national nonprofit dedicated to research and development in pre-K-12 education.
There are a host of skills that power learning in math, outside of students’ content knowledge, she said. “Math is as much about a process as it is about the final answer.”
How can schools grow student motivation?
Disparities in American students’ reports of self-directed learning could stem from the opportunities afforded to them, Lovelace said.
In classrooms where students are working on basic-skill development, teachers might focus more on memorization and rote learning, and not introduce activities that engage critical thinking. “That type of rich math learning generally only exists in certain types of classrooms,” she said.
The PISA report suggests that getting all students to practice these skills—asking questions when they don’t understand, for instance, and explaining their thinking in solving problems—could have long-term effects.
Teenagers who engage in more self-directed learning behaviors feel more confident that they can apply their math knowledge to real-world tasks, the authors found.
There’s not widespread agreement about the bundle of self-learning approaches that matters most, but cognitive scientists have pointed to some techniques that seem especially promising, like distributing practice tasks over time, and testing oneself on new knowledge.
Assessment for Good, the AERDF program, has identified 30 key academic skills that “sit outside of subject mastery,” Lovelace said. Students’ executive functioning abilities, for example, or their belief that they can succeed in a subject, also play into their outcomes. Content mastery is crucial, but it’s “probably about half the story,” Lovelace said.
The PISA report also examined students’ motivations and attitudes toward math—perspectives that influenced how likely students were to engage in self-directed learning.
On average across countries, students’ math anxiety rose over the past decade. In 2012, about 31 percent of students globally said that they get very nervous when doing math problems, compared to 39 percent in 2022.
Trends in the United States are similar, with 29 percent of students agreeing with the statement in 2012 compared to 38 percent in 2022.
Other research has shown that math anxiety doesn’t just affect how students react to high-stakes situations, like math tests. It can also shape their approach to learning—one 2022 study found that math-anxious students choose less effective methods to prepare for exams, for example.
The findings on motivation and metacognition pose a chicken or the egg problem for educators: Would shoring up students’ content knowledge help them feel more interested and engaged in school? Or should teachers explicitly foster certain learning strategies, under the assumption that they will support students in mastering content?
Both, suggests Schleicher in the report. “Creating education systems that foster lifelong learning requires a holistic approach,” he writes, “one that recognizes the interplay between academic performance, learning strategies, and socio-emotional development.”
