By Trey Lackey, Dr. Caleb Collier, and Dr. Tyler Thigpen from Institute for Self-Directed Learning
The standard story about struggling math learners goes something like this: they don’t have enough support. Not enough teachers, not enough time, not enough resources. Fix the access problem, and you fix the learning problem.
We spent the last two years testing that story at The Forest School: An Acton Academy in Atlanta, Georgia. What we found should complicate it.
Our new study surveyed learners grades 4 to 12 who scored more than one grade level below their expected track on the IXL diagnostic assessment. These learners attend a self-directed school, which means they manage their own time, set their own learning goals, and choose when and how they work. Math is hard to fake in that environment. Progress is visible and requires consistent, self-initiated effort.
These learners are surrounded by help. Seventy eight percent of surveyed learners said their studio peers could help them with math. 59% named family members at home. Most knew exactly who to call on. They have access to digital platforms, a math specialist, biweekly Math Labs, and a studio full of peers.
And yet: only 28% reported collaborating with others on a regular basis.
That 50-point gap is what we call the access-action gap, and it’s the central finding of this study. What keeps them stuck is a set of beliefs and habits, mostly learned and mostly invisible, that block access to the resources around them.
What’s in the Gap
That something is a cluster of beliefs and habits that operate largely below the surface: beliefs learners rarely name directly, habits they didn’t choose consciously, patterns that feel like personality rather than practice. We identified several through 20 semi-structured interviews analyzed thematically. A few themes stood out to us.
The first is a fixed math identity. Fifteen of our 20 interviewees made some version of the same statement: being bad at math is just who I am. “Math has never been my strong suit.” “I’ve always struggled with it. Even when I had someone helping me, I still struggled.” The framing is passive. Struggle is something that happens to them, not something they’re doing.
Carol Dweck’s research on growth mindset helps explain why this matters. Learners who hold a fixed view of their ability interpret difficulty as evidence of a natural limitation. They stop asking “what strategy should I try?” and start asking “why can’t I just get this?” The struggle doesn’t build anything; it just confirms what they already believe. And when that belief is in place, trying harder feels pointless.
The second pattern is shame around help-seeking. Fourteen of our 20 interviewees described some version of this: they needed help, knew it, and didn’t ask. Not because no one was available, but because asking felt too risky. They didn’t want to ask “dumb questions.” They didn’t want to “burden” the people around them.
The third pattern is the collaboration gap itself. Among thriving learners at our school, studied in a companion paper published last year and highlighted in Getting Smart, 72% turned to peers when stuck. Among struggling learners in this study, that number was 28%. That is the clearest behavioral difference between the two groups, and it’s almost entirely explained by the first two patterns. Learners who believe they’re inherently bad at math don’t want others to find out. Learners who find asking shameful don’t ask. The help stays available and unused.
What Does This Mean for Educators?
The good news is that none of these patterns are permanent. They were learned, which means they can be unlearned. And educators are well-positioned to do something about it.
The most important thing is probably the hardest: pay close attention to how adults respond when a learner struggles. Do you swoop into rescue? Do you respond with frustration? Either response shortcuts productive struggle and fails to build motivation. Over time, that lesson closes down their willingness to ask, to try, and to collaborate. Instead, how might we model curiosity and help-seeking?
Second, don’t rely on struggling learners to seek out collaboration on their own. The data here is clear: the learners who would benefit most from peer learning are the most reluctant to initiate it. Structured, regular collaborative math time, built into the learning environment and not offered as an option, closes the gap more reliably than encouragement alone. If you wait for these learners to self-select into collaboration, most won’t.
Struggling learners also tend to have no real strategy for what to do when they hit a wall. In our interviews, they described staring at the screen, guessing randomly, or closing the laptop altogether. The thriving learners in our companion study had something closer to a protocol: re-read the problem, write it out, try a small step, then find a person. Making that sequence explicit, for example, through explicit coaching, class discussions, and celebrating successful learner strategies publicly, and building it into the learning culture rather than leaving it to individual discovery, gives struggling learners something concrete to reach for instead of giving up.
Another important educator move: hold up a mirror. It’s important to make learners, parents, caregivers, and mentors aware of these unhelpful mindsets/choices. Learners are often not aware that their strategies are unproductive. In the survey and interview responses, many said they had simply never spent a lot of time considering whether their strategies (or lack thereof) were an effective way to learn, and had very little knowledge of what the possible alternatives might be. Awareness enables accountability. A check-in with an educator can prompt learners to reflect on their study strategies or problem-solving methods, giving them an opportunity to celebrate what’s successful and interrogate what’s counterproductive. In conferences with parents/guardians, learners can explain their choices and mindsets. Caregivers can give encouragement and celebrate productive choices, and notice when their learner might be trapped in a toxic mindset.
Finally, help learners find a real reason to care. Only 24% of the learners we surveyed could name a direct, personal connection between math and something they actually care about. Most tied it to grades or college, a motivation that evaporates the moment a concept feels abstract. The goal is to help each learner find a genuine connection that’s actually theirs. A learner who wants to run a business needs more than arithmetic. A learner interested in aviation has real reasons to understand measurement and navigation. When educators surface those connections in individual conversations, they give learners something to reach for on the hard days.
The Deeper Implication
This study was conducted at a self-directed school, but the patterns we found aren’t unique to self-directed learning. Fixed math identity, shame-driven avoidance of help, and reluctance to collaborate show up across learning environments. In more teacher-centric settings, compliance-based pressures like grades, homework, and class attendance often help learners produce procedural knowledge that stays in short-term memory without taking deep root. What self-direction makes visible is how much learners’ math identity, willingness to seek help, and openness to collaboration matter when they have to drive their own effort.
That visibility is useful, in and of itself. It shows us that what keeps struggling learners stuck is mostly internal, and mostly addressable.
For a learner who has decided math isn’t for her, or who has learned that asking for help is shameful, the resources sitting right beside her will go unused.
What changes that cycle is the adult in the room. How they respond when a learner hits a wall. With curiosity. With patience. Without making it mean something about who that child is. Self-directed learning doesn’t mean learning alone. For the learners in this study, it means having a community that helps them believe growth is possible, one conversation at a time.
Trey Lackey is the Apprentice Guide, Math Specialist at The Forest Schools.
Dr. Caleb Collier is the Director of Institute for Self-Directed Learning and Head of Research.
Dr. Tyler Thigpen is the Co-founder & Head of The Forest Schools & Institute for Self-Directed Learning.
