How students view the difficulty of mathematical tasks: factors that influence their perceptions

This paper presents the first results of a qualitative study aimed at characterizing perceived difficulty. The purpose is to identify factors that could possibly influence (grades 9 and 10) students’ perceived difficulty in any task. While the literature extensively discusses factors that influence task difficulty objectively, this study focuses on how students perceive it, by means of questionnaires. In this work, through the analysis of specific questions, we highlight some differences between students’ perceived difficulty related to specific tasks after their resolution (firstly) and in a general sense (secondly).