Student-Guided Math Practice in Elementary School: Relation among Math Anxiety, Emotional Self-Efficacy, and Children's Choices When Practicing Math

• Main Authors: Aditi Tarkar (Author), Brandie Matalka (Author), Macey Cartwright (Author), Heidi Kloos (Author)
• Format: Book
• Published: MDPI AG, 2022-09-01T00:00:00Z.
• Subjects: article
• Online Access: Connect to this object online.
• Notes: 10.3390/educsci12090611; 2227-7102
• Keywords: self-regulated learning; emotional maturity; autonomy; field study; Education; L
• Source: Education Sciences, Vol 12, Iss 9, p 611 (2022)

In the current study, we explored math anxiety in the context of a special kind of math practice, one that allowed for some flexibility on the part of the students. Such student-guided math practice is conducive to exploring how math anxiety relates to children's day-to-day experiences with math, potentially yielding insights into math anxiety that would not be available otherwise. Students in Grades 3 and 4 (<i>N</i> = 26) could choose math problems that were below, at, or above their proficiency level. They also completed a math-anxiety survey and an emotional self-efficacy survey. Descriptive results revealed that math anxiety was implicated in two negative outcomes of math practice: children's tendency to avoid challenging math problems and children's relatively low success rate when working on class-level math. Finding that math anxiety relates to several negative experiences could explain why math anxiety can persist. Importantly, results show that emotional self-efficacy plays a role in both children's willingness to challenge themselves and their success rate. This adds to the ongoing discussion on whether emotional self-efficacy can compensate for the negative effects of math anxiety.