Dr. Paul Nolting's Academic Success Press Blog: A Publication Dedicated to Math Success |
Dr. Paul Nolting's Academic Success Press Blog: A Publication Dedicated to Math Success |
Consciousness and Cognition recently released an interesting article on how "mindfulness" affects performance in the classroom. We were interested in enough in their results that we thought we would pass on their findings to our readers. Please seek out the original work for further detail in: Bellinger, D. B., Decaro, M. S., Ralston, P., (2015). Mindfulness, anxiety, and high-stakes mathematics performance in the laboratory and classroom. Consciousness and Cognition 37, 123-132. Authors Bellinger, Decaro, and Ralston designed two studies to determine whether mindfulness interventions will benefit math students taking high stakes math. Study one specifically tested the relationship between mindfulness and state anxiety, and subsequent math performance in a laboratory setting. Study two applied the same model to a cohort of first-time freshman who declared engineering as their major and enrolled in a calculus course. Study two also applied the original question to both low -stake math such as homework assignments and high-stake math such as tests and quizzes.
More specifically, Bellinger, Decaro, and Ralston examined the concept that mindfulness improves the emotional response to testing situations that provoke anxiety, which in turn frees up working memory and subsequent higher performance on math tests. They examined whether mindfulness increases performance on high-stake math by reducing anxiety. The researchers were motivated to conduct these studies because too many students in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathmatics) courses underperform due to anxiety. As a result, many of them drop out of the STEM programs. Research Theoretical Basis Bellinger, Dearo, and Ralston based their studies on the same research base as Brunye, T., Mahoney, C., Giles, G., Rapp, D., Taylor, H., & Kanarek, R. (2013). First, mindfulness is a state of mind that focuses on the present experience without bringing in thoughts and emotions from the past into the present experience, as well as not bringing emotions and thoughts about the future into the moment. Mindful people fully interact in the present moment. Since around 2000, research has established that mindfulness psychological well-being decreased anxiety and depression, reduced stress, increased emotion regulation. Mindfulness is associated with decreased negative cognition and rumination. Mindful individuals are able to let anxious thoughts pass through their minds without further rumination and negative thoughts. In addition, mindfulness increases cognition in that it increases self-regulation, attention, and working memory. Based on this research, educational researches began to apply mindfulness in the educational context. Soon, educational researchers found that mindfulness was correlated to the willingness to learn. In the context of academic anxiety, mindfulness has shown to reduce state anxiety like test anxiety. Since anxiety and attention/focus use similar networks, minimizing anxiety frees up working memory, and subsequently can improve academic performance (Brunye, Mahoney, et.al. (2015). Study One This study tested the relationship between mindfulness and state anxiety, and subsequent math performance in high-pressure testing situations in a laboratory. Method Overview Participants were undergraduate students (N=112) in a psychology course who were unfamiliar with the modular arithmetic system and scored 50% or higher on a practice test which was administered after instruction about the rules to complete modular arithmetic. Researchers created the high-stake environment. Participants were told that the computers recorded all their practice work up to this point. Participation payment would be based on whether they improve in speed and accuracy on the test by 20%. Secondly, the participants were told they had a partner in this test situation. Both of them had to perform at least 20% or better than their own individual practice performances in order for them to receive their participation payment. (At the end of the experiment, all received payment despite performance results.) Self-report Measures Researchers used the following self-report measures: Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS; Brown and Ryan, 2003) Toronto Mindfulness Scale –Trait (TMS-T; Davis, Lau, & Cairns, 2009) Toronto Mindfulness Sale – State (TMS-S; Lau et al., 2006) State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI; Spielberger, Gorsuch, and Lushene, 1970) State portion. Post-experiment questionnaires Procedure Participants completed the mindfulness assessments (MAAS, TMS-T). They received instruction in how to do modular math with practice opportunities. Students who scored 50% or higher on the practice test continued on. They were told the high stake cover story, and took a modular arithmetic test. Afterwards, they participated in an unrelated task (post-test questionnaire, TMS-state and STAI). Finally, they were debriefed. Results
Study Two This test applied the same mediation model from study one to a calculus course with students who declared engineering as their major. This study also determined relationship of mindfulness to low-stake math such as homework and high-stake math such as tests and quizzes. This study also explored the general perception of anxiety toward test-taking. Method Overview Participants (N=248) were first-time, full-time freshman undergraduate engineering students enrolled in a calculus course who gave consent to the study.
1 Comment
12/5/2019 11:13:03 pm
Hopefully, more researches that focus on "mindfulness" and people's behavior will be made so that we will understand people's behavior. In my existence, I've been raised with the idea that every student has its own strategy on how they can live their lives in school Well, that is right that's why I want to know more about these behaviors. When I was still a student, I experienced that too, and I noticed that we are all different from one another!
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AuthorDr. Nolting is a national expert in assessing math learning problems, developing effective student learning strategies, assessing institutional variables that affect math success and math study skills. He is also an expert in helping students with disabilities and Wounded Warriors become successful in math. He now assists colleges and universities in redesigning their math courses to meet new curriculum requirements. He is the author of two math study skills texts: Winning at Math and My Math Success Plan. Blog HighlightsAmerican Mathematical Association of Two-Year Colleges presenter, Senior Lecturer-Modular Reader Contributions
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