Confidence and math skills do NOT mix!

[Newby]

http://www.cnn.com/2006/EDUCATION/10/18/unhappy.achievers.ap/index.html

The nations with the best scores have the least happy, least confident math students, says a study by the Brookings Institution's Brown Center on Education Policy.

Explains me pretty well.

[Rule]

I think the conclusions the author makes are way off.  Confidence really does help you do well, it's probably just that higher achievers have higher standards.  For example, a kid who is bad at math may be happy with a 70% on a test, while an high-achieving student may be panicked if he gets 85% on a test, and think that he's "no good" (when comparing himself to the best students).

[Newby]

I got a 92% on a chapter test today covering the fundamentals of integrals and differentiation, and I feel I didn't do as well as I could have. I felt that after answering all the questions, too. It bugs me. ;/

[d&q]

http://www.cnn.com/2006/EDUCATION/10/18/unhappy.achievers.ap/index.html

The nations with the best scores have the least happy, least confident math students, says a study by the Brookings Institution's Brown Center on Education Policy.

Explains me pretty well.

Not at my school. Everyone's confident and at least 50% deserve to be.

[deadly7]

That has to be one of the stupidest articles I've ever read, or the data was just extremely biased.  If you went to my school and tested the people that had confidence in their mathematical abilities versus those that didn't, you'd notice a huge leap in the scores.

[CrAz3D]

http://www.cnn.com/2006/EDUCATION/10/18/unhappy.achievers.ap/index.html

The nations with the best scores have the least happy, least confident math students, says a study by the Brookings Institution's Brown Center on Education Policy.

Explains me pretty well.

Not at my school. Everyone's confident and at least 50% deserve to be.

So the other 50% should really be hiding under a rock?