lVMM on Algebraic Anxiety

Standard / by / February 11, 2018 / No Comments

I’m delighted that my paper “Patterns of anxiety in algebraic problem solving: A three-step latent variable analysis” has been accepted for publication in Learning and Individual Differences. The article is part of a special issue on the use of Latent Variable Mixture Models in learning research.

Co-authored with Bob Reeve, this paper involves two studies and has a number of elements to it: math anxiety, algebra learning, accuracy-response time relationships, step-three latent variable mixture models, replication, and age-related-effects.

You can read the article here: link

Some of the main findings are summarised below.

Math anxiety

We show, for the first time, that many students’ anxiety changes in response to math problem type and/or time pressure (see figure below). This contrasts with general math anxiety research, which examines trait math anxiety. These findings may provide insights into how math anxiety may be altered during math classes. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5 math anxiety groups were identified

 

 

Algebraic Problem Solving

We provide demonstrate large inter-individual differences in students algebraic problem solving ability. Notably, we demonstrate how math problem solving is affected by time pressure: some individuals are affected more than others.

We also show a strong relationship between anxiety group membership, and algebraic problem solving group membership.

Replication of Latent Variable Mixture Models

Study 1 focuses on 14-year-olds. Math abilities are characterised with latent class analysis. Math anxiety is characterised with latent profile analyses.

Study 2 examines 13- to 15-year-olds, and replicates the latent class and latent profiles identified in Study 1.

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