The role of epistemic emotions in mathematics problem solving

What is it like to do a visuo-spatial working memory task: A qualitative phenomenological study of the visual span task

Working memory is typically measured with specifically designed psychological tasks. When evaluating the validity of working memory tasks, we commonly focus on the reliability of the outcome measurements. Only rarely do we focus on how participants experience these tasks. Accounting for lived experience of working memory task may help us better understand variability in working memory performance and conscious experience in general. We replicated recently established protocols for the phenomenological investigation of working memory using the visual span task. We collected subjective reports from eighteen healthy participants (10 women) aged 21 to 35 years. We observed that working memory can be phenomenologically characterized at three different time scales: background feelings, strategies, and tactics. On the level of tactics, we identified transmodality (i.e., how one modality of lived experience can be transformed into another one) as the central phenomenological dynamic at play during working memory task performance.

Effects of two types of numerical problems on the emotions experienced in adults and in 9-year-old children

It is widely acknowledged that emotions and cognition are closely related, and that negative emotions are detrimental on school achievement, especially on mathematical performance. On the other hand, positive emotions have a positive impact on motivation and cognitive abilities underlying the learning processes. Nevertheless, studies about the effects of experienced emotions on problem solving, a specific type of mathematical activity, are sparse. The present research focuses on experienced epistemic and achievement emotions after the resolution of two types of numerical word problems: the application problems, that requires the use of a specific and expected algorithm to be solved and are regularly proposed at school; and the non-application problems, which cannot be solved directly but using different solving strategies. This type of numerical word problems appears less frequently in French school curricula. In experiment 1, 105 adults (M = 24.4 years), of which the majority was university students, were involved in an online experiment with APs and NAPs problems and were asked to rate their experienced emotions after the resolution of the problems. In experiment 2, 65 children aged 9-year-old were asked to individually solve APs and NAPs problems with age-appropriate difficulty and then rate their associated emotions. The adults' sample reported higher epistemic and achievement positive emotions towards APs compared to NAPs. In both adults and children NAPs were more associated to surprise than APs. In children anxiety was more experienced after resolution of NAPs than APs. Results suggest the importance of varying the types of problems proposed in school curricula so that children become accustomed to using different solving strategies. This approach could be useful in decreasing negative emotions toward mathematics such as anxiety, which begins to settle as early as elementary school.

Feelings on feedback: Children's emotional responses during mathematics problem solving

Theories of learning emphasize the importance of both the cognitive and affective state of the learner. The current study focused on children's affective reactions to corrective feedback during mathematics problem solving. Eighty-seven elementary school children (M age = 7.6 years, 41% female, 68% White) solved mathematical equivalence problems during an online video call and received trial-by-trial feedback on their answers. Trained researchers used children's facial expressions, tone of voice, and verbal statements to quantify their positive and negative affect on each trial. Overall, children tended to express more positive affect than negative affect. However, negative affect was more prominent when the child was incorrect and received negative feedback, and higher negative affect was associated with lower accuracy and lower persistence on the task. These results provide novel empirical evidence for the role of emotions during children's STEM learning in a non-evaluative context.

Emotions in self-regulated learning: A critical literature review and meta-analysis

Emotion has been recognized as an important component in the framework of self-regulated learning (SRL) over the past decade. Researchers explore emotions and SRL at two levels. Emotions are studied as traits or states, whereas SRL is deemed functioning at two levels: Person and Task × Person. However, limited research exists on the complex relationships between emotions and SRL at the two levels. Theoretical inquiries and empirical evidence about the role of emotions in SRL remain somewhat fragmented. This review aims to illustrate the role of both trait and state emotions in SRL at Person and Task × Person levels. Moreover, we conducted a meta-analysis to synthesize 23 empirical studies that were published between 2009 and 2020 to seek evidence about the role of emotions in SRL. An integrated theoretical framework of emotions in SRL is proposed based on the review and the meta-analysis. We propose several research directions that deserve future investigation, including collecting multimodal multichannel data to capture emotions and SRL. This paper lays a solid foundation for developing a comprehensive understanding of the role of emotions in SRL and asking important questions for future investigation.

The Effects of Teachers’ Error Orientations on Students’ Mathematics Learning: The Role of Teacher Emotions

Several attempts have been made to explore the factors influencing teacher emotions, most of which focus on external factors such as student behaviors and classroom teaching. However, research on the links between internal factors and teacher emotions is scant. Based on the control value theory, this article explored the influence of junior secondary mathematics teachers’ error orientations on their emotions, and how teachers’ error orientations and emotions were related to students’ mathematics learning strategies. A sample of 70 junior high school mathematics teachers and their students (N = 2453) in mainland China participated in this study. Confirmatory factor analysis and multilevel structural equation modeling were used to analyze the data. The results showed that teachers’ positive error orientation increased their positive emotions and reduced their negative emotions, whereas teachers’ negative error orientation increased their negative emotions and reduced their positive emotions. Regarding the effects of teacher emotions, teachers’ positive emotions increased students’ positive mathematics achievement emotions and reduced their negative emotions. Meanwhile, students’ negative mathematics achievement emotions significantly reduced their adoption of desirable mathematics learning strategies. The findings highlight the importance of teachers’ positive error orientation and positive emotion for students’ mathematics learning.

Student's Learning Strategies and Academic Emotions: Their Influence on Learning Satisfaction During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Background: Based on the control-value theory (CVT), learning strategies and academic emotions are closely related to learning achievement, and have been considered as important factors influencing student's learning satisfaction and learning performance in the online learning context. However, only a few studies have focused on the influence of learning strategies on academic emotions and the interaction of learning strategies with behavioral engagement and social interaction on learning satisfaction. Methods: The participants were 363 pre-service teachers in China, and we used structural equation modeling (SEM) to analyze the mediating and moderating effects of the data. Results: The main findings of the current study showed that learning strategies influence students' online learning satisfaction through academic emotions. The interaction between learning strategies and behavioral engagement was also an important factor influencing online learning satisfaction. Conclusions: We explored the internal mechanism and boundary conditions of how learning strategies influenced learning satisfaction to provide intellectual guarantee and theoretical support for the online teaching design and online learning platform. This study provides theoretical contributions to the CVT and practical value for massive open online courses (MOOCs), flipped classrooms and blended learning in the future.

Control and value appraisals and online multiple-text comprehension in primary school: The mediating role of boredom and the moderating role of word-reading fluency

BACKGROUND

Online multiple-text comprehension is a key skill of the 21st Century, yet the study of its relations with boredom in young students has been disregarded. Boredom is an achievement emotion expected to be predicted negatively by antecedents like control and value appraisals and to be associated to a negative performance. Notwithstanding its documented domain-specificity, scarce attention has been paid to investigating these relations with primary-school students in the reading domain, and specifically for online multiple-text comprehension, and to how such relations are moderated by basic cognitive abilities.

AIMS

Considering separately two settings (homework, test), we studied the mediation of boredom in the relation between control-value appraisals and online multiple-text comprehension in primary-school students, focusing on the moderating role of word-reading fluency.

SAMPLE

Participants were 334 fourth and fifth graders.

METHODS

We evaluated students' reading-related self-efficacy and task-value, reading-related boredom for homework and tests, word-reading fluency, and online multiple-text comprehension.

RESULTS

Path analyses revealed negative relations between control-value appraisals and boredom for homework and tests, and between boredom and online multiple-text comprehension for tests only. For the latter, word-reading fluency moderated the relation between appraisals, boredom, and comprehension: Boredom negatively related to comprehension only for students with high word-reading fluency.

CONCLUSIONS

Findings are discussed focusing on antecedents of online multiple-text comprehension as a literacy skill critical in the 21st Century. We underlined their implications for learning in general and specifically for the current educational changes due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Surprise, Curiosity, and Confusion Promote Knowledge Exploration: Evidence for Robust Effects of Epistemic Emotions

Research has started to acknowledge the importance of emotions for complex learning and cognitive performance. However, research on epistemic emotions has only recently become more prominent. Research in educational psychology in particular has mostly focused on examining achievement emotions instead of epistemic emotions. Furthermore, only few studies have addressed functional mechanisms underlying multiple different epistemic emotions simultaneously, and only one study has systematically compared the origins and effects of epistemic emotions with other emotions relevant to knowledge generation (i.e., achievement emotions; Vogl et al., 2019). The present article aimed to replicate the findings from Vogl et al. (2019) exploring within-person interrelations, origins, and outcomes of the epistemic emotions surprise, curiosity, and confusion, and the achievement emotions pride and shame, as well as to analyze their robustness and generalizability across two different study settings (online; Study 1, n = 169 vs. lab; Study 2, n = 79). In addition, the previous findings by Vogl et al. (2019, Study 3) and the present two new studies were meta-analytically integrated to consolidate evidence on origins and outcomes of epistemic emotions. The results of the two new studies largely replicated the findings by Vogl et al. (2019). Combined with the meta-analytic results, the findings confirm distinct patterns of antecedents for epistemic vs. achievement emotions: Pride and shame were more strongly associated with the correctness of a person's answer (i.e., accuracy), whereas surprise, curiosity, and confusion were more strongly related to incorrect responses a person was confident in (i.e., high-confidence errors) producing cognitive incongruity. Furthermore, in contrast to achievement emotions, epistemic emotions had positive effects on the exploration of knowledge. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Epistemic beliefs as predictors of epistemic emotions: Extending a theoretical model

BACKGROUND

The cognitive incongruity model of epistemic beliefs and emotions states that if students' beliefs about the nature of knowledge (e.g., knowledge as simple and absolute) are incompatible with the epistemic nature of learning materials (e.g., complex and contradictory), cognitive incongruity arises. This, in turn, entails negative emotional consequences.

AIMS

The epistemic nature of contradictory learning materials might be perceived differently depending on whether individuals resolve the contradictions or not. Therefore, extending the cognitive incongruity model, the present paper argues that cognitive (in)congruity also depends on how individuals act on the learning materials. We expect that only if students resolve contradictory scientific claims (e.g., by identifying moderators), more advanced epistemic beliefs (e.g., evaluativism) have positive emotional effects and vice versa.

SAMPLE

A field-experimental study with N = 86 undergraduate psychology students was conducted.

METHOD

Using a multiple-texts approach, participants were first presented controversial evidence on gender stereotyping from 18 different (fictional) studies. In contrast to similar multiple-texts approaches, all contradictions could be resolved by identifying the contextual factors that a certain type of stereotype discrimination occurs in ('resolvable controversies'). After reading, the experimental group was asked to resolve the contradictions, whereas two control groups read the same texts, but were not required to resolve the controversies.

RESULTS

Results revealed that absolute beliefs positively and evaluativistic beliefs negatively predict negative emotions, but only if students were instructed to resolve the contradictions.

CONCLUSIONS

Our results suggest that extending the cognitive incongruity model by how students deal with controversial learning materials might be worthwhile.

Which emotional profiles exhibit the best learning outcomes? A person-centered analysis of students’ academic emotions

Previous studies on academic emotions have mostly used variable-centered approaches. Although these studies have elucidated the relationships between academic emotions and key academic outcomes, they cannot identify naturally-occurring groups of students defined by distinct academic emotion profiles. In this study, we adopted a person-centered approach to explore whether students can be grouped in terms of distinct academic emotion profiles and whether these groups differed in terms of key academic outcomes. Cluster analyses showed four distinct profiles across both domain-general (Study 1) and domain-specific (Study 2) academic emotions. Students with high levels of positive academic emotions and low levels of negative academic emotions exhibited the most adaptive educational outcomes followed by students characterized by high levels of positive emotions and moderately high levels of shame. The most maladaptive profile was exhibited by students who are low in positive academic emotions and high in negative academic emotions. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.