Findings in Bellinger, Decaro, and Ralston's "Mindfulness, anxiety, and high-stakes mathematics performance in the laboratory and classroom."

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.

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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

1. Greater mindfulness was associated with higher performance on higher level math problems.
2. Greater mindfulness was associated with lower state anxiety scores.
3. Lower state anxiety scores were associated with higher performance
4. There was significant indirect effect of mindfulness on high demand math accuracy through the mediator, state anxiety.

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. Students took the Algebra Readiness Exam within the first week of the semester.
2. Students completed the self-report questionnaire mid-semester.  After the semester, academic and demographic information was connected to survey responses.
3. At the end of the semester, each student’s average homework, quiz, and test scores were used to assess performance.

 Results:

1. Mindfulness positively predicted exam scores.
2. Mindfulness negatively predicted cognitive test anxiety.
3. Cognitive test anxiety negatively predicted exam scores.
4. Mindfulness did not significantly predict quiz scores.
5. Greater cognitive test anxiety significantly predicted quiz scores.
6. Neither mindfulness or cognitive test anxiety predicted homework scores.
7. There was significant indirect effect of mindfulness on exam and quiz scores mediated by cognitive test anxiety, but there was not significance in any direct relationships.