Background:
In Sweden, the introduction of new national curricula for primary and secondary schools has implied, for example, that programming has become a compulsory part of mathematics education since August 2018. We study Swedish fifth and sixth graders and the distributions of their motivational values related to studying mathematics with paper and pencil vs. with ICT.

Materials and methods:
We examine, in the framework of Expectancy–value theory, data collected from 93 pupils using Student’s t-test, correlation analysis and binary logistic regression analysis.

Results:
Choosing between traditional and ICT-based approaches significantly affects the distribution of pupils’ motivational values; pupils express higher attainment, utility, and cost values when studying mathematics with paper and pencil is concerned. In general, girls express higher motivation in mathematics than boys do. The utility value is the only significant predictor for the view that studying with ICT makes their learning of mathematics qualitatively better.

Conclusions:
The Swedish fifth and sixth graders also motivated to study mathematics with ICT, yet the distributions of values differ across the genders; boys may benefit more from studying with ICT. Girls seem to need more and a different kind of encouragement than boys to find using ICT in mathematics education meaningful.