Confident math students do worse?

Question

http://www.cnn.com/2006/EDUCATION/10/18/unhappy.achievers.ap/index.html

I read this and thought I'd post my FIRST question -- see what everyone thought. Either from an instructor or student -- point of view. I'm sure the answers will be quite interesting.

Personally, I'm not much of a math fan. Actually, I'm surprised I even passed (barely) the subject in school. But I do notice that when I'm faced with some sort of mathematical obstacle (especially when I'm writing computer programs), so far, I'm able to figure the math out. --go figure.

Answer 1

A possibility is that if you shoot for trying to make math palatable, then the kids who won't care either way end up performing worse, because you're not drilling it into their heads.

Another possibility is that it's merely a correlation, and not an actual cause.