Examining the Mechanisms of the Math Anxiety-Math Achievement Link through a School-Based Grades 2-3 Intervention

通过基于学校的 2-3 年级干预措施检查数学焦虑与数学成绩之间的联系机制

• 批准号: 2201832
• 负责人: Colleen Ganley
• 金额: $ 149.81万
• 依托单位: Florida State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-07-01 至 2025-06-30
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2201832&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Examining; Mechanisms; Math; Anxiety; Achievement

Many children, adolescents, and adults experience math anxiety. Research has shown that math-anxious children typically continue to experience math anxiety as they get older. People with math anxiety tend to perform more poorly in math and are less likely to take advanced math courses or pursue science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) careers. Thus, tackling math anxiety early on is important for mitigating negative impacts later in life. This project will develop and test a school-based intervention to decrease children’s math anxiety. Researchers have suggested that math anxiety leads to lower math achievement because it leads people to avoid math, and because anxious thoughts use the limited cognitive resources in working memory, which are required for solving math problems. Therefore, this project will test whether any reduction in math anxiety from the intervention leads children to avoid math less, have better working memory skills, and perform better in math. This project will produce intervention materials that can be used to alleviate children’s math anxiety and help to better understand long-term effects of math anxiety on math avoidance, working memory, and math achievement.The first goal of this project is to develop the math anxiety intervention. This intervention will adapt an existing classroom-based intervention and add exposure components from cognitive behavioral therapy interventions, which are effective for children with other anxiety-related disorders. The work will involve developing a child workbook, facilitator session guides, and facilitator training materials. During this process, intervention components will be tested with 24-39 children to inform revisions to the materials. The second goal is to test the effect of the intervention on math anxiety and whether any effect leads to changes in working memory and math avoidance, and subsequently math achievement. Second- and third-grade classrooms will be randomly assigned within schools to have their students with high math anxiety (140 students total) participate in the small-group intervention or be in a business-as-usual control group (140 students total). Children’s math anxiety, avoidance, working memory, and math achievement will be assessed before and after the intervention, as well as 3 and 6 months later. Results will be used to test the theory that intervention-induced changes in math anxiety relate to increased working memory and decreased math avoidance, which relate to improved math achievement. The findings from this project will have implications for understanding the role of math anxiety in math achievement, and have the potential to lead to long-term increases in STEM workforce participation.This project is supported by NSF's EHR Core Research (ECR) program. The ECR program emphasizes fundamental STEM education research that generates foundational knowledge in the field. Investments are made in critical areas that are essential, broad and enduring: STEM learning and STEM learning environments, broadening participation in STEM, and STEM workforce development. The program supports the accumulation of robust evidence to inform efforts to understand, build theory to explain, and suggest intervention and innovations to address persistent challenges in education.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.

许多儿童、青少年和成年人都经历过数学焦虑。研究表明，数学焦虑的孩子通常会随着年龄的增长而继续经历数学焦虑。患有数学焦虑症的人往往在数学方面表现更差，不太可能参加高等数学课程或追求科学，技术，工程和数学（STEM）职业。因此，尽早解决数学焦虑对于减轻以后生活中的负面影响很重要。该项目将开发和测试一种以学校为基础的干预措施，以减少儿童的数学焦虑。研究人员认为，数学焦虑会导致数学成绩下降，因为它会导致人们回避数学，而且焦虑的想法会使用工作记忆中有限的认知资源，而这些资源是解决数学问题所必需的。因此，该项目将测试干预是否会减少数学焦虑，导致儿童更少地回避数学，拥有更好的工作记忆技能，并在数学方面表现更好。该项目将制作干预材料，可用于缓解儿童的数学焦虑，并有助于更好地了解数学焦虑对数学回避，工作记忆，本研究的第一个目标是开发数学焦虑干预措施。这种干预将适应现有的基于课堂的干预，并增加认知行为治疗干预的暴露成分，这对患有其他焦虑相关疾病的儿童有效。这项工作将涉及制定一个儿童工作手册，辅导员会议指南，辅导员培训材料。在这一过程中，将对24-39名儿童进行干预部分的测试，以便为材料的修订提供信息。第二个目标是测试干预对数学焦虑的影响，以及是否有任何影响导致工作记忆和数学回避的变化，以及随后的数学成绩。二年级和三年级的教室将在学校内随机分配，让数学焦虑程度高的学生（共140名学生）参加小组干预或进入正常对照组（共140名学生）。儿童的数学焦虑，回避，工作记忆和数学成绩将在干预前后以及3个月和6个月后进行评估。结果将被用来测试的理论，干预引起的数学焦虑的变化与增加工作记忆和减少数学回避，这与提高数学成绩。该项目的研究结果将对理解数学焦虑在数学成绩中的作用产生影响，并有可能导致STEM劳动力参与率的长期增加。该项目由NSF的EHR核心研究（ECR）计划支持。ECR计划强调基础STEM教育研究，产生该领域的基础知识。投资是在关键领域是必不可少的，广泛的和持久的：干学习和干学习环境，扩大参与干，干劳动力发展。该计划支持积累强有力的证据，为理解、建立理论解释、提出干预和创新建议以应对教育中持续存在的挑战提供信息。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。