“I would rather die”: reasons given by 16-year-olds for not continuing their study of mathematics

Figures & data

Table 1. Students who considered/intended continuing with mathematics, by grade.

Predicted Grade	A* (n = 115)	A (n = 282)	B (n = 435)	C (n = 621)
Considered continuing with mathematics	90%	76%	34%	13%
Intending to continue with mathematics	71%	59%	17%	4%

Table 2. Student reasons for not continuing with mathematics, by predicted grade.

Predicted Grade	A* (n = 23)	A (n = 96)	B (n = 317)	C (n = 540)
Too difficult	22%	47%	62%	58%
Do not enjoy/ like it	17%	39%	39%	30%
Boring	13%	20%	13%	14%
Not needed for future degree/ career	35%	13%	10%	10%
Not useful in life	9%	6%	3%	2%
Prefer other courses	17%	3%	2%	3%
Note: these are percentages of those students who gave any reason; some gave more than one reason, so percentages may total to more than 100%.

Table 3. Students who considered/intended continuing with mathematics, by gender.

Gender	Male (n = 884)	Female (n = 874)
Considered continuing with mathematics	34%	26%
Intending to continue with mathematics	23%	14%

Table 4. Student reasons for not continuing with mathematics, by gender.

Gender	Male (n = 598)	Female (n = 673)
Too difficult	37%	66%
Do not enjoy/ like it	24%	35%
Boring	12%	15%
Not needed for future degree/ career	7%	10%
Not useful in life	3%	3%
Prefer other courses	2%	3%
Not continuing with education	7%	3%
Note: these are percentages of those students who gave any reason; some gave more than one reason, so percentages may total to more than 100%.

Figure 1.  Mathematics participation across different schools.

Table 5. Correlations between school attitude and participation within mathematics.

	School index for student attitude towards mathematics
	Like	Enjoy	Anxious	Easy	Predicted attainment in maths
Correlation with student intended participation	0.59	0.65	−0.04	0.10	−0.07