The Contributions and Consequences of Achievement Emotions in Early Arithmetic Outcomes

University Of Virginia Main Campus, Charlottesville VA

Investigators

Abstract

Young children experience and express many emotions as they learn to make sense of and solve story problems. Mathematics anxiety is the most well-studied and familiar achievement emotion and, as a result there are now teaching practices and policies to reduce its impacts on learning. Yet, much less is known about how basic, universal emotions such as joy, surprise, sadness, anger, and fear impact learning and achievement. This project addresses this knowledge gap through two primary activities: (1) a review of the literature intended to synthesize what is known about the relationship between emotions and mathematics achievement; and (2) investigate which emotions emerge and how they influence important problem-solving outcomes, including solution accuracy, strategy sophistication; and the number of unique strategies used. This project will be a critical first step toward developing teaching practices that can help children manage their emotions as they go through the steps of solving a story problem. This project aims to clarify the contributions of achievement emotions to the development of problem-solving outcomes in the domain of numbers and operations. This will be accomplished through two project aims that leverage an existing database connecting achievement emotions with the microgenetically encoded problem-solving behaviors of 40 kindergarten students (19 girls / 21 boys) as they solve increasingly complex story problems. Aim 1: Characterize the nature, form, and function of achievement emotions that emerge as children learn to solve arithmetic story problems by recording which discrete emotions (e.g., joy, surprise, sadness) and combinations of emotions (e.g., joy and surprise) are present during problem-solving episodes. Functional data analysis tools will be employed to describe their temporal dynamics. Aim 2: Explicate the relationship between achievement emotions and number and operations outcomes, including solution accuracy, problem-solving strategy sophistication, and strategy breadth, using functional regression models. The results of Aim 2 will inform the development of instrumental case studies, which will contextualize the antecedents and consequences of achievement emotions in relation to arithmetic problem-solving behaviors and outcomes. The project is supported by NSF's EHR Core Research Building Capacity in STEM Education Research (ECR: BCSER) program, which is designed to build investigators’ capacity to carry out high-quality STEM education research. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.