Exploring the long-term effectiveness of student-centered pedagogies on mathematics performance and confidence

While student-centered pedagogies have been widely recognized for improving mathematical learning outcomes, most existing studies focus on short-term interventions. This study explored the long-term effectiveness of student-centered pedagogies on students’ mathematics performance and confidence by comparing two Chinese secondary schools (Grades 7–9) that are similar demographically but differ significantly in the extent to which they used student-centered pedagogies ( p < 0.01). A total of 1029 students were assessed after they had experienced secondary education for nearly one and three consecutive academic years, respectively. Contrary to findings on the short-term effectiveness of student-centered pedagogies reported in existing literature, no significant overall difference in mathematics performance was found between students exposed long-term to student-centered versus teacher-centered pedagogies. However, student-centered school showed clear benefits for low-performing students in both Grades 7 and 9, who significantly outperformed their peers in the teacher-centered school. In terms of mathematics confidence, the initial positive effects of student-centered pedagogies were found to diminish over time: a two-week implementation significantly boosted students’ mathematics confidence, a one-academic-year implementation showed modest potential, and a three-academic-year implementation exhibited no advantage as compared to teacher-centered pedagogies. This study calls for a more nuanced understanding of when and for whom student-centered pedagogies are effective in fostering cognitive and affective outcomes.