Anxiety about math is tied to low math grades and standardized test scores, yet not all math-anxious individuals perform equally poorly in math. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to ...separate neural activity during the anticipation of doing math from activity during math performance itself. For higher (but not lower) math-anxious individuals, increased activity in frontoparietal regions when simply anticipating doing math mitigated math-specific performance deficits. This network included bilateral inferior frontal junction, a region involved in cognitive control and reappraisal of negative emotional responses. Furthermore, the relation between frontoparietal anticipatory activity and highly math-anxious individuals' math deficits was fully mediated (or accounted for) by activity in caudate, nucleus accumbens, and hippocampus during math performance. These subcortical regions are important for coordinating task demands and motivational factors during skill execution. Individual differences in how math-anxious individuals recruit cognitive control resources prior to doing math and motivational resources during math performance predict the extent of their math deficits. This work suggests that educational interventions emphasizing control of negative emotional responses to math stimuli (rather than merely additional math training) will be most effective in revealing a population of mathematically competent individuals, who might otherwise go undiscovered.
Although math anxiety is associated with poor mathematical knowledge and low course grades (Ashcraft & Krause,
2007
), research establishing a connection between math anxiety and math achievement has ...generally been conducted with young adults, ignoring the emergence of math anxiety in young children. In the current study, we explored whether math anxiety relates to young children's math achievement. One hundred and fifty-four first- and second-grade children (69 boys, 85 girls) were given a measure of math achievement and working memory (WM). Several days later, children's math anxiety was assessed using a newly developed scale. Paralleling work with adults (Beilock,
2008
), we found a negative relation between math anxiety and math achievement for children who were higher but not lower in WM. High-WM individuals tend to rely on WM-intensive solution strategies, and these strategies are likely disrupted when WM capacity is co-opted by math anxiety. We argue that early identification and treatment of math anxieties is important because these early anxieties may snowball and eventually lead students with the highest potential (i.e., those with higher WM) to avoid math courses and math-related career choices.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
BFBNIB, DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
23.
Math at home adds up to achievement in school Berkowitz, Talia; Schaeffer, Marjorie W.; Maloney, Erin A. ...
Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science),
10/2015, Letnik:
350, Številka:
6257
Journal Article
Recenzirano
With a randomized field experiment of 587 first-graders, we tested an educational intervention designed to promote interactions between children and parents relating to math. We predicted that ...increasing math activities at home would increase children's math achievement at school. We tested this prediction by having children engage in math story time with their parents. The intervention, short numerical story problems delivered through an iPad app, significantly increased children's math achievement across the school year compared to a reading (control) group, especially for children whose parents are habitually anxious about math. Brief, high-quality parent-child interactions about math at home help break the intergenerational cycle of low math achievement.
The view that representations of symbolic and nonsymbolic numbers are closely tied to one another is widespread. However, the link between symbolic and nonsymbolic numbers is almost always inferred ...from cardinal processing tasks. In the current work, we show that considering ordinality instead points to striking differences between symbolic and nonsymbolic numbers. Human behavioral and neural data show that ordinal processing of symbolic numbers (Are three Indo-Arabic numerals in numerical order?) is distinct from symbolic cardinal processing (Which of two numerals represents the greater quantity?) and nonsymbolic number processing (ordinal and cardinal judgments of dot-arrays). Behaviorally, distance-effects were reversed when assessing ordinality in symbolic numbers, but canonical distance-effects were observed for cardinal judgments of symbolic numbers and all nonsymbolic judgments. At the neural level, symbolic number-ordering was the only numerical task that did not show number-specific activity (greater than control) in the intraparietal sulcus. Only activity in left premotor cortex was specifically associated with symbolic number-ordering. For nonsymbolic numbers, activation in cognitive-control areas during ordinal processing and a high degree of overlap between ordinal and cardinal processing networks indicate that nonsymbolic ordinality is assessed via iterative cardinality judgments. This contrasts with a striking lack of neural overlap between ordinal and cardinal judgments anywhere in the brain for symbolic numbers, suggesting that symbolic number processing varies substantially with computational context. Ordinal processing sheds light on key differences between symbolic and nonsymbolic number processing both behaviorally and in the brain. Ordinality may prove important for understanding the power of representing numbers symbolically.
► We examine the impact of attention on the movement patterns and putting accuracy of novice and experienced golfers. ► Expert putting is least accurate when required to make a skill-focused judgment ...early in the stroke. ► When required to stop the putting stroke on some trials performance declines on interleaved non-stopping trials. ► These attention/performance relationships are mediated by changes in movement.
Two experiments examined the impact of attention on the movement and putting accuracy of novice and experienced golfers. In Experiment 1, attentional control was manipulated via two different secondary tasks: (i) an extraneous condition in which participants judged the frequency of an auditory cue presented during their stroke and, (ii) a skill-focused condition in which participants judged whether the cue occurred closer to the starting or end point of the swing segment in which it was presented. For experts, putting performance was least accurate in the skill-focused condition and when the cue was presented earlier. This decline in accuracy was associated with a significant reduction in the relationship between downswing amplitude and distance. Novices showed the opposite pattern. In Experiment 2, we manipulated attentional control indirectly by introducing the possibility that participants would stop their swing mid-stroke in response to an auditory cue, thus pushing participants to exert added control over step-by-step execution. Stop-trials were interleaved with normal putting trials in which no instructions were given. Novices were better able to stop their putting stroke and putted more accurately on non-stop trials than experts. These findings are consistent with recent models of putting control.
School-entry math achievement is a strong predictor of math achievement through high school. We asked whether reciprocal relations among math achievement, math anxiety, and entity motivational ...frameworks (believing that ability is fixed and a focus on performance) can help explain these persistent individual differences. We assessed 1st and 2nd graders' (N = 634) math achievement, motivational frameworks, and math anxiety 2 times, 6 months apart. Cross-lagged path analyses showed reciprocal relations between math anxiety and math achievement and between motivational frameworks and math achievement. Entity motivational frameworks predicted higher math anxiety. High math achievement was a particularly strong predictor of lower math anxiety and less entity-oriented motivational frameworks. We concluded that reciprocal effects are already present in the first 2 years of formal schooling, with math achievement and attitudes feeding off one another to produce either a vicious or virtuous cycle. Improving both math performance and math attitudes may set children onto a long-lasting, positive trajectory in math.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
BFBNIB, DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Although students' motivational frameworks (entity vs. incremental) have been linked to academic achievement, little is known about how early this link emerges and how motivational frameworks develop ...in the first place. In a year-long study (student N = 424, Teacher N = 58), we found that, as early as 1st and 2nd grade, children who endorsed an incremental framework performed better on a nationally normed standardized math test than children who held an entity framework (i.e., believe ability is stable, prefer easy tasks). Furthermore, teachers' self-reported instructional practices (mastery- vs. performance-oriented) played an important role in the development of students' motivational frameworks. The more a teacher reported emphasizing that children demonstrate competence in the classroom (i.e., performance-oriented instructional practices), the more students endorsed an entity framework at the end of the school year, even after controlling for students' beginning-of-year frameworks. These findings have significant implications for theory as well as practice, as they show that even in the early elementary grades, teacher-reported instructional practices are linked to the development of students' motivational frameworks, which in turn, are linked to students' mathematics achievement.
Prior research shows that when parents monitor, check, and assist in completing homework without an invitation, their children's motivation and academic achievement often decline. We propose that ...intrusive support from parents might also send the message that children are incompetent, especially if they believe their intelligence is fixed. We tested whether children's mindsets moderate the negative link between parents' intrusive homework support and achievement among first- and second-grade students followed for one academic year (Study 1, N = 563) and middle and high school students for two academic years (Study 2, N = 1,613). The samples were obtained from large urban areas in the United States. In both studies, intrusive homework support more strongly predicted a decrease in achievement over time for children with a fixed mindset. These findings suggest that the belief that intellectual ability cannot be changed may exacerbate the detrimental effects of uninvited help on academic work.
Public Significance StatementAcross two prospective longitudinal studies, the present study, for the first time, showed that intrusive homework support predicted lower math achievement among children with a fixed mindset but not among children with a growth mindset. These findings show how well-intended parental help can backfire, particularly for children who believe that ability is fixed.
We examined the relation between pressure-induced performance decrements, or "choking under pressure," in mathematical problem solving and individual differences in working memory capacity. In ...cognitively based academic skills such as math, pressure is thought to harm performance by reducing the working memory capacity available for skill execution. Results demonstrated that only individuals high in working memory capacity were harmed by performance pressure, and, furthermore, these skill decrements were limited to math problems with the highest demands on working memory capacity. These findings suggest that performance pressure harms individuals most qualified to succeed by consuming the working memory capacity that they rely on for their superior performance.
Poor performance in pressure-filled situations, or "choking under pressure," has largely been explained by two different classes of theories. Distraction theories propose that choking occurs because ...attention needed to perform the task at hand is coopted by task-irrelevant thoughts and worries. Explicit monitoring theories claim essentially the opposite--that pressure prompts individuals to attend closely to skill processes in a manner that disrupts execution. Although both mechanisms have been shown to occur in certain contexts, it is unclear when distraction and/or explicit monitoring will ultimately impact performance. The authors propose that aspects of the pressure situation itself can lead to distraction and/or explicit monitoring, differentially harming skills that rely more or less on working memory and attentional control. In Experiments 1-2, it is shown that pressure that induces distraction (involving performance-contingent outcomes) hurts rule-based category learning heavily dependent on attentional control. In contrast, pressure that induces explicit monitoring of performance (monitoring by others) hurts information-integration category learning thought to run best without heavy demands on working memory and attentional control. In Experiment 3, the authors leverage knowledge about how specific types of pressure impact performance to design interventions to eliminate choking. Finally, in Experiment 4, the selective effects of monitoring-pressure are replicated in a different procedural-based task: the serial reaction time task. Skill failure (and success) depends in part on how the performance environment influences attention and the extent to which skill execution depends on explicit attentional control. (Contains 2 tables, 7 figures and 1 footnote.)
PDF
