Primary School Age Students' Spontaneous Comments about Math Reveal Emerging Dispositions Linked to Later Mathematics Achievement

Table 3

Specificity scores: coding criteria and real examples of math definitions.

Score	Definition	Examples
1	No response, a circular response, a response unrelated to math, or another uninformative response.	“You do your math.”; “I cannot explain it.”; “I do not know.”
2	Response is unspecific or only indirectly related to math as a primary school subject. The response may include references to activities performed in relation to math or in a math class but with no discernible reference to math concepts or procedures.	“You play games and stuff.”; “Science.”; “Like you do something…and you have pennies and money.”
3	Unelaborated basic concepts or mechanics of math. Includes reference to real numbers, operations, math problems, or learning math.	“It has to do with numbers and sizes and fractions.”; “It means taking away, subtracting, and multiplication.”; “When you do all sorts of problems like divide, multiply, fractions, decimals.”; “In my class we do like a drill so it like refreshes our memory from the other day.”
4	Elaborated concepts of math.	“Like if you have a word problem, like Jim has 18 apples and eats 3, you use math to solve it.”
5	Concept of math as a useful tool.	“Math is something that people do and they have to know math to be able to get a job and do other stuff.”