What Do Korean Students Value in Mathematics Learning? Insights into Mathematical Well-Being

Despite growing interest in Korean students’ well-being in mathematics learning, there has been limited insight into their genuine values and content-specific well-being. Moreover, research methods for these values and mathematical well-being remain underexplored. This chapter introduces a framework linking values in mathematics learning to students’ mathematical well-being, organized by three dimensions of cognition, conation, and emotion. We employ this conceptual framework to analyze data consisting of responses to an open-ended survey distributed to 578 Korean students in Grade 5th-6th and 9th-10th. The results reveal that Korean students predominantly associate their values of mathematics learning and well-being with cognitive aspects (65% of responses), followed by conation at 32%. Upon closer examination of cognitive responses, there was a marked emphasis on basic rather than higher cognitive levels. Notably, students value perseverance and a growth mindset in their mathematics learning. The limitation that the data was drawn from a larger study is also discussed. This chapter sheds light on the necessity to re-evaluate and address the unique interplay between Korean students’ mathematical well-being and their values in learning, especially when juxtaposing high cognitive achievements with underlying affective challenges.