Contemporary Educational Psychology最新文献

The association between children’s fraction relational reasoning and their algebraic thinking has not been explored longitudinally. This study used incremental importance analysis and relative weight analysis to examine the extent to which fourth-grade (M=112.3 months, SD=2.25) fraction relational reasoning predicted sixth-grade algebraic performance, compared to an extensive set of cognitive factors. Multiple linear regression revealed that fraction relational reasoning, fraction and decimal magnitude knowledge, fraction arithmetic, attentive behavior, counting recall, and listening recall were significant predictors in the final model. Relative weight analysis indicated the contribution of fraction relational reasoning to algebraic performance did not differ significantly from fraction magnitude knowledge and fraction arithmetic, but was a stronger predictor than the other variables. This suggests the central executive component of working memory, attention, fraction relational reasoning, magnitude knowledge of fractions and decimals, and fraction arithmetic may warrant focused attention when preparing children for algebra.

The growing recognition of the concept of task engagement over the last two decades has made it a popular topic for research in second language acquisition (SLA). Yet, the field of SLA is still in its infancy in understanding engagement. Given its dynamic and malleable nature, investigating what strategies lead to more engagement provides grounds for developing interventions that promote learners’ task engagement and better capturing its essence. To this end, the present study set out to explore what strategies English as a foreign language (EFL) learners use to promote their engagement in data-driven learning (DDL)-enhanced tasks, tasks that require learners to explore authentic examples of particular language forms to discover how they work. Participants of the study were 308 EFL learners. The data were collected through an online open-ended task engagement strategies questionnaire and semi-structured interviews. The results indicated that learners use a wide range of strategies, including agentive, behavioral, metacognitive, cognitive, metaemotional, and social engagement, to maintain their engagement in DDL-enhanced tasks. The findings may be used to inform English language teaching and learning by developing interventions that promote learners’ task engagement.

When researchers intentionally account for the complexities of gendered racism, focus groups can become spaces for healing, community building, information exchange, psychological safety, and support for Black girls and Black women. This approach, when situated within race, gender critical perspectives, presents opportunities for ascertaining Black girls and Black women’s onto-epistemologies in ways that coincide with their identities. Given the alternative possibilities of focus groups, in this paper we advance strategies for employing focus groups as counterspaces, an anti-racist and anti-oppressive research method that educational psychologists can utilize to challenge current methodological approaches related to Black girls and Black women. To transform how educational psychologists spotlight Black girls and Black women as knowledge producers in research, we draw upon guiding theoretical frameworks (Black Girl Cartography and Critical Race Feminism) that highlight their voices and intersectional perspectives. We will (1) explain the theoretical perspectives that center this method as a critical approach for the gendered racialized experiences of Black girls and Black women, (2) share insights from the field where focus groups provide psychological safety and group collectivism, serve as an adaptive coping mechanism, and provide space for authentic communication styles, (3) consider areas for improvement and best practices for focus groups in research design, data collection and analysis, and (4) provide ethical considerations related to focus groups as counterspaces. Implications for critical research methodology approaches centering Black girls and Black women and the broader impact on the field of educational psychology are discussed.

Affect is a critical factor impacting students’ goal setting and goal achievement in learning. While existing studies have demonstrated the vital role of affect in learning and goal achievement, the day-to-day fluctuations of affect and their impact on learning have rarely been examined. This study explored the dynamic relationships between positive affect (PA), negative affect (NA), and daily learning goal achievement (LGA) in 72 college students ahead of a high-stakes test, analyzing 32 days of survey responses totaling 2111 observations. We employed dynamic structural equation modeling (DSEM) to assess the stability, variability, and potential reciprocal relationships of PA, NA, and LGA. Additionally, we investigated the effects of depression, age, and the number of semesters studied on these variables. Results indicated that PA, NA, and LGA remained stable over the observation period, with no systematic changes or trajectories, yet exhibited significant fluctuations within and between participants. All autoregressive effects for PA, NA, and LGA were significant. Both PA and NA were significantly related to concurrent measures of LGA, although no significant cross-lagged relationships between PA and NA were found. Variability in PA, NA, and LGA was significantly explained by students’ age, number of semesters studied, and level of depressive symptoms. Further findings and implications of the study are discussed.

We combine design-based implementation research with a pre-registered RCT to address a long-standing challenge in psychological science: How to use psychological principles to address real-world problems while designing and implementing interventions in the field. We posit this as a design methodology for optimizing the translation between psychological science and real-world applications. We tested the efficacy of an extensively co-designed version of a game-based rational number intervention, Fraction Ball, versus “business-as-usual” math instruction and physical education in a sample of 4th/5th grade Latine students (N = 360). Insights from nine co-design sessions with 20 teachers informed revisions and additions to a previous version of Fraction Ball, strengthening impacts across 10 of 12 rational number subtests. This methodology provides insights for translating psychological science research and scaling it to address real-world educational needs, such as play-based interventions that improve rational number understanding in authentic contexts.

The role of emotions in learning settings such as schools has been widely acknowledged in research and practice. Prior research predominantly follows a variable-centred approach to investigate students’ emotions while person-centred analyses are still scarce. Based on a representative sample of N = 11 131 Swiss students in grade 9, this cross-sectional large-scale study investigates how four trait mathematics emotions (enjoyment, anger, anxiety and boredom) are related to students’ perception of mathematics instruction quality (cognitive activation, lack of classroom management, teacher support) and their mathematics test achievement. Results from structural equation modelling (variable-centred approach) revealed that enjoyment and all three negative emotions are related to two dimensions of instructional quality: cognitive activation and lack of classroom management. Association of emotions with teacher support differed, as associations were not confirmed for enjoyment and anxiety. Enjoyment was not related to achievement, whereas boredom showed positive associations. The results from mediation analyses suggest that the direct associations of perceived cognitive activation and perceived lack of classroom management with mathematics achievement are stronger compared to the indirect associations mediated by student emotions. Latent profile analysis identified four profiles: happy, unhappy, bored, and ambivalent. Students in the happy profile had the highest perception of instructional quality and outperformed the other profiles. Results are discussed in relation to the added value of a person-centred approach to better understand students’ emotions in mathematics education.

Students’ emotions impact their learning and motivation. Yet, little is known about how educators perceive the role of student emotions during learning. In this mixed-methods study, we used Situated Expectancy Value Theory to investigate educators’ perceptions of student emotions during learning. Educators, primarily teachers, (N = 188) completed a survey about one of the following randomly assigned emotions: curiosity, interest, confusion, or frustration. The survey included questions about perceived expectancies, values, and costs associated with supporting student emotions during learning. Open-ended questions probing educators’ explanations of their responses were coded to understand factors associated with expectancy, value, and cost perceptions. From quantitative and qualitative data, we noted three integrative findings. First, educators reported relatively high levels of expectancy beliefs for supporting student emotions informed by their teaching experience and the extent to which they had developed tools and strategies to respond to student emotions. Second, perceptions of value depended on the emotion under consideration; positive emotions were valued more than negative ones, and the ways in which educators understood emotions as facilitating learning was specific to the given emotion. Third, despite identifying challenges such as the time and effort it takes to support student emotions, educators tended to push back against the idea that emotions have a cost during learning. Findings have implications for supporting educators as they navigate student emotions during learning and contribute to ongoing debates about the extent to which certain emotion and motivation constructs, especially interest and curiosity, are differentiated.

National science standards at the secondary level currently recommend that students make sense of data constituting evidence of human-induced climate change; yet, secondary students continue to hold serious misconceptions about the topic. Thus, there is a need to create learning contexts that support climate change understanding, motivation, and data literacy for secondary students. The purpose of this preregistered study was to test an online intervention that presents novel climate change data and uses number-line data visualizations to support climate-change learning and motivation for secondary students. To this end, I conducted an experimental online study with 248 secondary students randomly assigned to either engage with the intervention, the intervention supplemented with number-line visualization feedback, or a control group. Findings revealed that the game conditions improved climate change knowledge and situated interest compared with the control, and knowledge effects were stronger among learners who expressed more openness to reason with belief-discrepant evidence. There were no significant effects of supplementing the game with number line feedback. Exploratory path analyses revealed that there were also indirect effects of the intervention on climate change learning, plausibility, and climate efficacy through epistemic emotions and motivation. Namely, the intervention was linked to these outcomes by decreasing boredom which predicted utility value and science interest. The study contributes to conversations around the role of data-literacy in supporting motivation for science learning and showcases an intervention that can be easily shared online.

Evaluation of plausible alternative explanations of scientific phenomena is an authentic scientific activity. Instructional scaffolding can facilitate students’ engagement in such evaluations by facilitating their reflections on how well various lines of scientific evidence support alternative explanations. In the present study, we examined two forms of such scaffolding, with one form providing more autonomy support than the other, to determine whether any differential effects existed between the two. Nearly 300 adolescent students in middle school, high school, and university courses completed two activities on scientific topics of social relevance (e.g., the climate crisis, fossils and fossil fuel use, water resources, and astronomical origins), with the less autonomy-supportive form being completed prior to the more autonomy-supportive form. In line with prior pilot studies, both scaffold types demonstrated significant pre- to post-instructional shifts in plausibility judgments toward the scientific model and gains in knowledge with small to medium effect sizes. A mediation model provided a robust replication of previous findings showing that the indirect path meaningfully linked greater levels of evaluation to more scientific plausibility judgments and topic knowledge, above and beyond the direct relational path linking greater levels of evaluation to topic knowledge. However, we found no difference in relations between the two scaffold types, counter to our hypothesis that the more autonomy-supportive version would lead to better outcomes. This suggests that the implementation of more autonomy-supportive learning environments may be conditional, opening up a promising avenue for additional research, such as looking at specific contexts and how activities could be sequenced to optimize learning.

Academic achievement depends not only on learners’ skill but also the psychological factors that arise during learning, such as the belief that intelligence improves with effort—a growth mindset. In addition to being guided by their own beliefs, students might use information present in their learning environments to imagine what their instructors believe about students’ abilities, and alter their engagement accordingly. The present study applies motivational climate theory to examine the association between individual and shared student perceptions of instructors’ ability mindset on their academic performance. Data from 5,057 undergraduate students and 94 instructors in a public research university in the United States, across academic disciplines and instructional modalities, revealed that students’ individual and aggregated perceptions of their instructors’ mindset, but not their own mindset or instructors’ self-reported mindset, were associated with final grades. Additionally, a moderation analysis revealed that the association between aggregated perceptions of students’ perceptions of their instructors’ fixed mindset and course performance was significant in STEM courses but not in non-STEM courses, possibly reflecting meaningful differences in disciplinary norms and traditions that could shape ability mindset. Shifting instructors’ framing about ability, classroom practices, and students’ understanding and interpretation of these environmental signals, could improve achievement outcomes.