Speaking accuracy and fluency among EFL learners: The role of creative thinking, emotional intelligence, and academic enthusiasm.

This study examines the associations between speaking accuracy and fluency among English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners and emotional intelligence (EI), creative thinking (CT), and academic enthusiasm (AE). Quantitative data was used in a thorough analysis that was carried out utilizing a cross-sectional design. Three hundred and twenty EFL learners were chosen as a sample using a multi-stage cluster sampling technique. The creativity questionnaire by Abedi, the EI questionnaire by Schutte et al. and the AE questionnaire by Fredricks et al. were all completed by the participants. Quantitative data analysis was conducted using SPSS 25.0 and AMOS 24.0. The results showed a strong positive association between better speaking accuracy and fluency and greater levels of CT, EI, and AE. More precisely, learners with greater EI were able to control their emotions better, which improved their ability to speak clearly and fluently. Speaking performance was improved by those with higher CT because they showed improved problem-solving abilities and linguistic originality. High AE was also associated with better language practice and competence due to higher desire and involvement. These findings imply that encouraging CT, EI, and AE in language learning settings can greatly improve learners' speaking ability. To better understand the impact of other elements on speaking proficiency, future research should look into motivation, self-esteem, and learning methodologies.

Quantitative evaluation of a theoretical-conceptual model based on affective and socio-behavioral dimensions to explain the academic performance of mathematics students.

Objective: There is evidence that suggests that affective dimensions, personality traits, as well as students' cooperative interpersonal interactions, are an important element in the students learning process. In this work we propose a theoretical model, based on evidence, that shows the direct and indirect relationships between these factors and academic performance in mathematics courses, in undergraduate and school students. Methods: To understand the type of relationships between these variables, the PANAS psychometric test of positive and negative affect, the BIG FIVE personality test and the economic decision game DUPLES GAME were applied. The study sample was 130 students between 17 and 22 years of age from undergraduate and school (M ± SD = 20.1 ± 3.99). Results: From a path analysis, statistically significant relationships were found, for example, a direct relationship between neuroticism and positive affect, which in turn is related to academic performance. We also found a direct relationship between neuroticism and negative affect, extraversion and positive affect. This allows us to propose that some of the independent variables of the model directly and indirectly influence the academic performance of students in the subject of mathematics. Conclusion: Positive affect and negative affect directly affect academic performance in mathematics, neuroticism has a direct impact on negative affect and extraversion direct impact on positive affect. Consequently, there are direct and indirect relationships between personality traits and affective dimensions, which affect the academic performance of mathematics students.

Math Abilities Among Children with Neurodevelopmental Difficulties: Understanding Cognitive Factors and Evaluating a Pilot Intervention.

Math development in children relies on several underlying cognitive functions, including executive functions (EF), working memory (WM), and visual-motor abilities, such as visual-motor integration (VMI). Understanding how these cognitive factors contribute to children's math performance is critical to supporting math learning and long-term math success. The present quasi-experimental waitlist control study (N = 28) aimed to (a) examine the unique contributions of EF, WM, and VMI to math abilities among children ages 5-8 years old with neurodevelopmental difficulties; (b) determine whether a math intervention (the Mathematics Interactive Learning Experience; MILE) that supports these cognitive processes was effective when modified to be delivered to small groups in a school setting, and (c) examine whether any participant characteristics, such as age or IQ, were correlated with post-intervention math score changes. At baseline, participants' math scores were significantly below the normative mean in all math content areas (ps < .01). EF, WM, and VMI were highly correlated with math ability; however, verbal WM was the only unique predictor of math ability in regressions analysis. Compared to a waitlist control group, children in the immediate MILE intervention group achieved significantly greater math gains overall. When all children who ultimately completed the intervention were considered together, significant improvement was observed in more than half of math content areas. Furthermore, at the individual level, 85.7% of participants showed reliable change in at least one math content area. Implications for supporting math learning in children with neurodevelopmental difficulties are discussed.

Justifying Responses Affects the Relationship Between Confidence and Accuracy.

How confident a student is about how they answer a question has important education implications. Participants answered 10 mathematics questions and provided their estimates of how likely they got each individual item correct and how many, in total, they answered correctly. They were overconfident in these metacognitive judgments. Some of the participants were asked to justify why their answers were either correct or incorrect prior to making these judgments. This lowered their confidence ratings. They were still overconfident, but less than those in the control group. The instruction also affected the association between the confidence ratings and accuracy. No differences were observed between those asked to justify why their responses were correct versus those asked to justify why their responses were incorrect. Those asked to think about the accuracy of a response had lower confidence. This has important implications for understanding how we construct confidence judgments and within education how student confidence can be affected during assessments.

Is inclusive education for children with special educational needs and disabilities an impossible dream?

BACKGROUND: Countries have been implementing inclusive educational practices for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) for at least 30 years. AIMS: Some issues continue to present as unresolved and will be examined in this paper with possible ways forward suggested. 1. There is still a lack of clarity around the definition of inclusion, its theoretical underpinnings, its implementation in practice and evaluation of success. 2. Teachers often still report the same problems of insufficient resources and express the same concerns about lack of skills and knowledge as reported in the early days. 3. A key question is, do children with SEND achieve better outcomes in inclusive educational settings? DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS: The paper argues that an overarching executive framework applied to the education of children with SEND is needed to provide a common frame of reference that can be shared by educators, policymakers and researchers. New ways of resourcing inclusion are discussed including supporting collaboration between mainstream and special schools to better utilize the expertise located in special schools. The paper examines the evidence for improved academic and social outcomes for learners with SEND in inclusive schools and proposes that psychological outcomes now need to be measured too. It further suggests that future research needs to drill down to the level of teacher classroom instruction rather than rely on the broader mainstream school-special school comparison.

Exploring cognitive behavioral aspects in educational psychology: A rigorous analysis of reliability and validity measures.

The purpose of this study is to verify the reliability and effectiveness of an educational psychology scale, which is explored by using the methods of literature, interview, questionnaire survey and mathematical statistics. The research object is the education psychology data of undergraduate students in local undergraduate colleges and universities.The data are collected and analyzed through the scale. The results show that the educational psychology scale contains six dimensions, including self-efficacy, learning motivation, hope trait, psychological resilience, physical self-esteem and emotional management, with a total of 27 items. The kmo sampling appropriateness of the scale is 0.800. The load of six dimensions in the total amount table is between 0.58 and 0.73. The fitting coefficient of each item of the structural model is between 0.45-0.73, and the correlation between each dimension and the total table is between 0.24-0.52. Scale cronbach's α The coefficient was 0.83 and the test-retest reliability was 0.90. The content validity of the scale ranged from 0.554 to 0.775. The scale has good reliability and validity, and can be used to evaluate undergraduate students' educational psychology.

Psychometric Properties of the Principal Instructional Leadership Scale (PILS) in Saudi Arabia.

BACKGROUNDS: The principal instructional leadership describes how school principals oversee the curriculum, instruction, and assessment. The main aims of the current study were translation and evaluation of the psychometric properties of the Principal Instructional Leadership Scale (PILS) in a Saudi Arabian population. METHODS: The translation and cross-cultural adaptation process has been conducted in five stages, including forward translation, translation synthesis, backward translation, expert committee, and pilot testing. Face, content, construct, and convergent validity were used to establish validity. Cronbach's alpha coefficient and McDonald's omega (Ω) were used for internal consistency. RESULTS: To validate the PILS structure, the total sample (N = 724) was randomly split into two subgroups, each comprising 362 individuals, for Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA). Five factors obtained from EFA explain 71.07 % of the variance in PILS. The PILS encompasses domains of improving curriculum quality, teaching, and enhancing the effectiveness of adaptive learning, adding to the dimensions covered by previous instructional leadership measures. The five components show strong internal consistency (0.93 to 0.97). Both first-order and second-order CFAs confirmed the 5-factor model, meeting criteria (CFI > 0.91, GFI > 0.9, IFI > 0.9, RMSEA<0.05). All 21 items displayed suitable internal consistency (Cronbach's α > 0.8, McDonald's omega >0.7). Second-order average variance extracted validity (0.50) indicated PILS validity. Gender invariance analysis revealed no significant differences (∆CFI < 0.01, ΔRMSEA<0.01) in PILS structure between genders. CONCLUSION: The reliability and validity of the Arabic rendition of PILS are commendable, making it suitable for evaluating principal instructional leadership in Saudi Arabia.

Occupational Therapy students' Concepts of Learning: Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Associations With Deep, Strategic, and Surface Study Approaches.

This study aimed to gain knowledge about the cross-sectional and longitudinal associations between learning concepts and approaches to studying among occupational therapy students. A repeated cross-sectional design was combined with a longitudinal study design. Self-report questionnaires assessed sociodemographic variables, learning concepts, and approaches to studying (deep/strategic/surface). Linear regression analyses (n ranging between 109 and 193 in the analyses) showed that higher transforming concept ratings were consistently associated with higher ratings on the deep study approach, both cross-sectionally and longitudinally. Higher reproducing concept ratings were positively associated with higher strategic approach ratings in the second and third study years. In view of the results, students' understanding of what learning is impacts on their study attitudes and behaviors, which in turn is likely to influence learning outcomes and academic performance.

Fostering idealogical and polical education via knowledge graph and KNN model: an emphasis on positive psychology.

As the primary domain of ideological and political education in higher education institutions, ideological and political courses must align with principles rooted in human psychology and education. Integrating educational psychology into ideological and political teaching in universities enhances the scientific, targeted, and forward-thinking nature of such education. The burgeoning exploration of knowledge graph applications has extended to machine translation, semantic search, and intelligent question answering. Diverging from traditional text matching, the knowledge spectrum graph transforms information acquisition in search engines. This paper pioneers a predictive system for delineating the relationship between educational psychology and ideological and political education in universities. Initially, it extracts diverse psychological mapping relationships of students, constructing a knowledge graph. By employing the KNN algorithm, the system analyzes psychological characteristics to effectively forecast the relationship between educational psychology and ideological and political education in universities. The system's functionality is meticulously detailed in this paper, and its performance is rigorously tested. The results demonstrate high accuracy, recall rates, and F1 values. The F1 score can reach 0.95enabling precise sample classification. The apex of the average curve for system response time peaks at approximately 2.5 s, maintaining an average response time of less than 3 s. This aligns seamlessly with the demands of practical online teaching requirements. The system adeptly forecasts the relationship between educational psychology and ideological and political education in universities, meeting response time requirements and thereby fostering the scientific and predictive nature of ideological and political teaching in higher education institutions.

The influence of perceived teacher support on online English learning engagement among Chinese university students: a cross-sectional study on the mediating effects of self-regulation.

Objectives: This study examines the association between perceived teacher support and self-regulation in learning, and their combined relationship with online English learning engagement among university students in China. The objective is to uncover the underlying mechanisms of this relationship, with a particular focus on the role of self-regulation in learning as a mediator. Methods: The study involved 1,361 university students from Southwest China, predominantly female (73.84%) with an average age of 18.94 years (SD = 1.07). Refined measurement tools were employed to assess perceived teacher support, online English learning engagement, and self-regulation in learning. Results: The findings indicate that components of self-regulation, such as goal setting, environmental structuring, and time management, act as full mediators in the relationship between perceived teacher support and online English learning engagement. Conclusion: This research underscores the importance of self-regulation in learning in linking perceived teacher support with online English learning engagement. The insights gained are crucial for enhancing teaching strategies in online English language education.

French Adaptation of the Strengths Use Scale.

Background: Positive psychology focuses on enhancing attitudes and behaviors that support well-being, with a key pillar being the use of psychological strengths for optimal functioning. This is linked to positive outcomes such as increased happiness and life satisfaction. Objective: This study aimed to evaluate the psychometric validity of the French adaptation of the Strengths Use Scale (SUS), a self-report tool measuring how individuals use their strengths in daily life. The original SUS, developed by Govindji and Linley (2007), has not been thoroughly assessed across languages and cultures. Method: The French SUS's psychometric properties were examined using data from six independent French-speaking Canadian samples (N = 1397). After removing cases with missing data, exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was conducted on a subsample to establish the optimal factor structure. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was then performed to assess the factor structure's goodness-of-fit. Results: Both EFA and CFA supported a unidimensional structure of the scale. The French SUS demonstrated good internal consistency (α = .94). The one-factor model yielded an RMSEA of .122, indicating some model misspecification. However, allowing residuals of some items to covary improved the model fit (RMSEA = .077). Conclusion: The adapted French SUS exhibits similar properties to the original and presents no new consistency issues. This study contributes to adapting and validating the SUS in French for research and clinical practice. Future research should focus on developing a shorter version by eliminating redundancies and adapting the scale for children to evaluate positive psychology interventions' efficacy in youth.

A Cross-Cultural Examination of Blatant and Subtle Dehumanization of Autistic People.

PURPOSE: This cross-cultural study examined various domains of dehumanization, including both blatant (viewing autistic people as animal-like, child-like, or machine-like) and subtle (denying agency and experience capabilities) dehumanization, of autistic individuals by Koreans and Americans. METHODS: A total of 404 Koreans and 229 Americans participated in an online survey, assessing blatant and subtle dehumanization, knowledge about autism, stigma toward and contact with autistic people, cultural factors, and demographic information. Robust linear mixed-effects regressions were conducted to examine the impact of the target group (autistic vs. non-autistic) and the country (South Korea vs. the US) on dehumanization. Additionally, correlations and multiple regressions were employed to identify individual variables associated with dehumanization. RESULTS: Both Koreans and Americans exhibited more dehumanizing attitudes towards autistic individuals than non-autistic individuals across all domains. Koreans showed greater dehumanization of autistic individuals than Americans in all domains except for the machine-like domain. Stigma toward autistic people was associated with all dehumanization domains among Koreans and with some of the domains among Americans. Individual variables associated with dehumanization varied across countries and domains. Positive contact quality frequently predicted lower dehumanization in both cultures. CONCLUSIONS: Non-autistic individuals consistently rated autistic people as less human than non-autistic people. Future research examining how autistic characteristics or societal perceptions that influence the consideration of an autistic person's humanness vary across cultures is needed. Implementing interventions aimed at enhancing non-autistic people's understanding of autistic individuals' agency and experience capabilities and promoting high-quality contact opportunities with autistic individuals may help reduce dehumanizing attitudes.

Time to level up: A systematic review of interventions aiming to reduce stigma toward autistic people.

LAY ABSTRACT: How non-autistic people think about autistic people impacts autistic people negatively. Many studies developed trainings to reduce autism stigma. The existing trainings vary a lot in terms of study design, content, and reported effectiveness. This means that a review studying how the studies have been conducted is needed. We also looked at the quality of these studies. We collected and studied 26 studies that tried to reduce stigma toward autistic people. The studies often targeted White K-12 students and college students. Most trainings were implemented once. Trainings frequently used video or computer. Especially, recent studies tended to use online platforms. The study quality was poor for most studies. Some studies made inaccurate claims about the intervention effectiveness. Studies did not sufficiently address study limitations. Future trainings should aim to figure out why and how interventions work. How intervention changes people's behavior and thoughts should be studied. Researchers should study whether the training can change the societal stigma. Also, researchers should use a better study design.

Reception of experimental pedagogy and psychology in Chile. Analysis of the intellectual influences of Wilhelm Mann, 1904-1915.

This article provides a detailed analysis of the intellectual research project of Wilhelm Mann, one of the pioneers of experimental and educational psychology in Chile. Mann's work has been the object of so little analysis that his intellectual influences and networks are not clearly known. We analyzed 338 intratext citations from 22 works by Wilhelm Mann published during the period 1904-1915. As a result, we obtained a mapping of his cooperation networks and used a quantitative approach to study the authors who most influenced his career, among whom were William Stern, Herbert Spencer, Wilhelm Wundt, Alfred Binet, and Ernst Meumann. Mann was closely connected to the international and contemporary advances and discussions of his time, despite the lack of infrastructure and difficulties in communication. Mann was the first psychologist to develop a long-term project in Chile that aimed to measure the individualities of Chilean students and their intellectual development.

Tutorias universitárias em períodos de interrupção acadêmica: um relato a partir da experiência / Tutorías universitarias en períodos de interrupción académica: un relato desde la experiencia / University tutoring in periods of academic interruption: a report from experience

Las crisis sociales y la pandemia por COVID-19 representan períodos de interrupción académica que han impactado en el aprendizaje de la educación superior. Ante este panorama, las tutorías universitarias adquieren relevancia como una estrategia para poder afrontar estas crisis y permitir el intercambio de experiencias y emociones. El objetivo de este reporte consiste en presentar una estrategia tutorial diseñada entre los años 2019 y 2020, en el contexto de un programa de acompañamiento académico y psicoeducativo de una universidad estatal de Chile. Esta estrategia consta de seis fases: (1) Encuentro inicial; (2) Diagnóstico; (3) Planificación; (4) Implementación; (5) Evaluación; (6) Cierre del proceso. El desarrollo de esta propuesta demostró la importancia de las emociones, el diálogo y la valoración experiencial del estudiante en su proceso de aprendizaje y adaptación a la universidad. Asimismo, entrega un marco de acción para el acompañamiento académico y psicoeducativo ligado a los programas de tutorías universitarias.

As crises sociais e a pandemia por COVID-19 representam períodos de interrupção acadêmica que impactaram na aprendizagem da educação superior. Ante este panorama, as tutorias universitárias adquirem relevância como uma estratégia para poder afrontar estas crises e permitir o intercâmbio de experiências e emoções. O objetivo deste artigo consiste em apresentar uma estratégia tutorial desenhada entre os anos 2019 e 2020, no contexto de um programa de acompanhamento acadêmico e psico educativo de uma universidade estatal do Chile. Esta estratégia consta de seis fases: (1) Encontro inicial; (2) Diagnóstico; (3) Planejamento; (4) Implementação; (5) Avaliação; (6) Encerramento do processo. O desenvolvimento desta proposta demonstrou a importância das emoções, o diálogo e a valorização experiencial do estudante em seu processo de aprendizagem e adaptação à universidade. Igualmente, entrega um marco de ação para o acompanhamento acadêmico e psicoeducativo ligado aos programas de tutorias universitárias.

The social crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic represent periods of academic interruption that will affect the learning of Higher Education. Given this panorama, university tutors will acquire relevance as a strategy to be able to face this crisis and allow an exchange of experiences and emotions. The objective of this report is to present a tutorial strategy developed between the years of 2019 and 2020, in the context of an academic and psychoeducational support program of a state university in Chile. This strategy consists of six phases: (1) Initial meeting; (2) Diagnosis; (3) Planning; (4) Implementation; (5) Evaluation; (6) Close the process. The development of this proposal demonstrated the emotions importance, dialogue and the valorization of the student's experience in their learning process and adaptation to the university. In addition, it provides an action framework for academic and psychoeducational support linked to university tutoring programs.

Invariance across sex, school, and educational level to Learning Approaches Scale (EABAP) / Invariância entre Sexo, Escola e Nível Educacional da EABAP / Invarianza entre sexo, escuela y nivel educativo de la EABAP

Abstract The Learning Approaches Scale (EABAP) showed evidence of structural and external validity in assessing the deep and surface approach of elementary and high school students. However, this evidence is supported only by participants from a single school. The present study evaluates the generality of EABAP by verifying through the multigroup confirmatory factor analysis whether this scale is invariant across sex, type of school, and educational level variables. The sample consisted of 2,148 students from elementary school II, high school, and higher education in public and private schools. The results indicate configural, metric, and partial scalar invariance for the sex variable; configural, partial metric, and partial scalar invariance for the educational level variable; and configural, partial metric, and scalar invariance for the type of school variable. We conclude that it is possible to compare the means of the latent variables measured by EABAP for the groups analyzed in this sample.

Resumo A Escala de Abordagens de Aprendizagem (EABAP) apresenta evidências de validade estrutural e validade externa para avaliar a abordagem profunda e superficial de estudantes do ensino fundamental II e ensino médio. Não obstante, essas evidências são sustentadas apenas por participantes de uma escola. O presente estudo avalia a generalidade da EABAP, verificando por meio da análise fatorial confirmatória multigrupo se essa escala é invariante para a variável sexo, tipo de escola e nível educacional. A amostra foi composta por 2.148 estudantes do ensino fundamental II, ensino médio e ensino superior, oriundos de escolas públicas e particulares. Os resultados indicam invariância configural, métrica e escalar parcial para a variável sexo; invariância configural, métrica parcial e escalar parcial para a variável nível educacional; e invariância configural, métrica parcial e escalar para a variável tipo de escola. Conclui-se que é possível comparar médias das variáveis latentes mensuradas pela EABAP nos grupos analisados nesta amostra.

Resumen La Escala de Enfoques de Aprendizaje (EABAP) presenta evidencias de validez estructural y validez externa para evaluar el enfoque profundo y superficial de los estudiantes de primaria y secundaria. Sin embargo, las evidencias solo están respaldadas por participantes de una escuela. El presente estudio evalúa la generalidad de la EABAP, verificando mediante el análisis factorial confirmatorio si esta escala es invariante para las variables sexo, tipo de escuela y nivel educativo. La muestra estuvo conformada por 2148 estudiantes de primaria II, bachillerato y educación superior, de colegios públicos y privados. Los resultados indican invarianza de configuración, métrica y escalar parcial para la variable sexo; invarianza configuracional, métrica parcial y escalar parcial para la variable nivel educativo e invarianza configuracional, métrica parcial y escalar para el tipo de variable de escuela. Concluimos que es posible comparar las medias de las variables latentes medidas por EABAP en los grupos analizados en esta muestra.

Pérdidas y luto: prácticas en psicología escolar y educacional / Perdas e luto: práticas em psicologia escolar e educacional / Losses and grief: practices in school and educational psychology

RESUMO O presente estudo tem como objetivo revelar as práticas adotadas por psicólogos escolares acerca de demandas de perdas e luto em contexto educacional. Trata-se, pois de uma pesquisa qualitativa e utilizou-se a Psicologia Histórico-Cultural como aporte teórico-metodológico. Participaram da pesquisa 62 profissionais de 16 estados do Brasil. Os principais resultados apontam que as práticas dos psicólogos se caracterizam de forma individual, coletiva e multidisciplinar. É possível identificar indícios de criticidade, levando em consideração a compreensão integral e crítica presente nos relatos dos profissionais, ao passo em que práticas individualizantes e clínicas são também empenhadas nos contextos de trabalho dos participantes. Destaca-se que os resultados não são passíveis de generalização. Ademais, ressalta-se a necessidade de ações de cunho intersetorial entre educação, saúde e assistência social, investimento em formação inicial e continuada, mais debates, estudos e discussões que proporcionem diálogo entre diferentes processos de perdas e luto e a educação, haja vista a incipiência de estudos que versem sobre o diálogo entre os temas.

RESUMEN En el presente estudio se tiene como objetivo revelar las prácticas adoptadas por psicólogos escolares acerca de demandas de pérdidas y luto en contexto educacional. Se trata de una investigación cualitativa y se utilizó la Psicología Histórico-Cultural como aporte teórico-metodológico. Participaron de la investigación 62 profesionales de 16 estados de Brasil. Los principales resultados apuntan que las prácticas de los psicólogos se caracterizan de forma individual, colectiva y multidisciplinar. Es posible identificar indicios de criticidad, llevando en cuenta la comprensión integral y crítica presente en los relatos de los profesionales, al paso en que prácticas individualizantes y clínicas son también empeñadas en los contextos de trabajo de los participantes. Se destaca que los resultados no son pasibles de generalización. Además, se resalta la necesidad de acciones de cuño intersectorial entre educación, salud y asistencia social, investimento en formación inicial y continuada, más debates, estudios y discusiones que proporcionen diálogo entre diferentes procesos de pérdidas y luto y la educación, haya vista la insipiencia de estudios que versen sobre el diálogo entre los temas.

ABSTRACT The present study aims to reveal the practices adopted by school psychologists regarding the demands of loss and mourning in an educational context. In this sense, a qualitative research and Historical-Cultural Psychology was used as a theoretical-methodological contribution. In order to carry on with this research, 62 professionals from 16 states in Brazil participated. The main results indicate that psychologists' practices are characterized individually, collectively and multidisciplinary. It is possible to identify signs of criticality, taking into account the integral and critical understanding present in the professionals' reports, while individualizing and clinical practices are also engaged in the participants' work contexts. Also, it is noteworthy that the results are not subject to generalization. Furthermore, the need for intersectoral actions among education, health and social assistance, investment in initial and continuing training, more debates, studies and discussions that provide dialogue between different processes of loss and mourning and education is highlighted, with a view to incipience of studies that deal with the dialogue among the themes.

The Relationship Between Math Anxiety and Math Achievement: Differentiating the Role of Learning Math Anxiety and Math Evaluation Anxiety.

BACKGROUND: Math anxiety (MA) is considered one of the variables that cause poor performance in contexts where mathematical competence is required. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: The survey involved 28 Italian students in the first year of secondary school (corresponding to grade nine of English-speaking schools and of the Italian INVALSI evaluation system). The students, examined at the beginning of the school year, scored below the threshold of sufficiency in the calculation skills assessment test. This data analysis takes into consideration the development of their math performance; the hypothesis is that the level of MA may differentiate students who are able or not able to achieve the competencies expected by the course of study. RESULTS: Students who transitioned from an inadequate score to a sufficient one over the school year, exhibited significantly lower levels of MA compared to students who did not score sufficient on the math test at the end of the year. However, the significant difference primarily pertained to the "learning math" subscale, while the "math evaluation" subscale showed no significant differences between the two groups. CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest the possibility of using the assessment of MA levels to identify the presence and type of emotional difficulties associated with the study of mathematics. Specifically, in individuals with difficulties in learning mathematics, the presence of a dissociation between the two AMAS subscales could suggest different approaches to educational intervention.