Mississippi middle schools frequently fail to improve the intellectual capacity of students who struggle in mathematics. The purpose of this quantitative causal-comparative non-experimental research design was to investigate the impact of math academic interventions on rural Mississippi middle school mathematics students in grades six through eight using ex-post facto data. The experiential learning theory provided the framework for this study. The research questions focused on identifying the factors that positively influence tenacity, including gender differences. Participants included 6-8 grade middle school math students. Data were collected and coded using the Statistics Package for Social Sciences software (SPSS). Descriptive statistics and ANOVA tests were used to measure the impact of academic interventions and gender on low-performing math students' assessments. The findings indicated there were no statistically significant differences regarding pull-out academic interventions and gender with regard to math student achievement. Recommendations for practice include having middle schools provide academic math interventions to students for at least 30 minutes to improve math outcomes. Further research is needed to investigate the limited response to the levels of mathematics intervention as it pertains to increasing the duration, frequency and providing more explicit instruction. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]