{"title":"The storage component of working memory mediates the relationship between mathematical anxiety and arithmetic performance","authors":"Wei Wei , Shiqiao Shen","doi":"10.1016/j.cedpsych.2025.102372","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cedpsych.2025.102372","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Mathematical anxiety is negatively associated with mathematics performance. Previous studies have demonstrated that working memory mediates this relationship. Although there are many theories on working memory, most agree that working memory includes a storage component (i.e., short-term memory). However, little is known about the role of short-term memory in the relationship between mathematical anxiety and mathematics performance. In this study, we investigated whether short-term memory mediates the relationship between mathematical anxiety and arithmetic performance. The participants were 178 children aged 8–10 years. They were asked to complete mathematical and trait anxiety questionnaires and a battery of cognitive tests to measure exact arithmetic and arithmetic estimation abilities, working memory, and short-term memory. We found that after controlling for trait anxiety, age, and gender, the relationship between mathematical anxiety and exact arithmetic ability was mediated by the storage but not by the executive component of working memory. In addition, the mediating effect was influenced by the type and difficulty of arithmetic tasks. These findings suggest that mathematical anxiety impairs arithmetic performance through the storage component of working memory. The results suggest that educators should pay more attention to the role of short-term memory in mathematics teaching.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":10635,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Educational Psychology","volume":"81 ","pages":"Article 102372"},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2025-04-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143850216","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A growth-theory-of-interest intervention helps align science students with a new multidisciplinary curriculum","authors":"Paul A. O’Keefe , S.M. Ramya , E.J. Horberg","doi":"10.1016/j.cedpsych.2025.102371","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cedpsych.2025.102371","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>What happens when well-intentioned changes to curricula clash with students’ pre-existing academic identity? In the present study, students entered a two-year pre-university school strongly identified with science but not arts—an identity that did not fit with their school’s new multidisciplinary curriculum that mandated engagement with both academic areas. We investigated the efficacy of a growth-theory-of-interest intervention (O’Keefe et al., 2023)—which promoted the view that academic interests are developed rather than inherent and fixed—in helping students reap the benefits of the new curriculum. We conducted a randomized controlled field experiment with incoming students who overwhelmingly identified as interested in science but not arts (<em>N</em> = 151). Before matriculating, students were randomly assigned to complete the growth-theory-of-interest intervention or active-control materials. Approximately 7 months later, students in the intervention condition reported a stronger arts identity (without diminishing their science identity), and stronger fit and belonging in school, relative to the active control condition. Moreover, whereas developing a stronger arts identity was associated with lower belonging in the control condition, this drop was eliminated in the intervention condition. Finally, by improving students’ school belonging, the intervention indirectly predicted higher year-end GPAs. The results underscore the intervention’s efficacy in promoting a mindset conducive to multidisciplinary learning and facilitating students’ fit and belonging within a curriculum intended to enrich their educational experiences and future career prospects.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":10635,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Educational Psychology","volume":"81 ","pages":"Article 102371"},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2025-04-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143891142","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Zhe Wang , Yuqi Zhang , Björn B. de Koning , Rachel Wong , Shuangye Chen
{"title":"Effects of emotional tones in computer-based learning: Insights from system-paced and learner-paced experiments","authors":"Zhe Wang , Yuqi Zhang , Björn B. de Koning , Rachel Wong , Shuangye Chen","doi":"10.1016/j.cedpsych.2025.102368","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cedpsych.2025.102368","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Emotional design has increasingly been a promising avenue in multimedia learning research. Nevertheless, limited attention has been paid to the effects of two important emotional dimensions, which are valence and arousal. In two experiments we examined the effects of valence and arousal of background images in system-paced (Experiment 1) and learner-paced (Experiment 2) multimedia lessons. In both experiments, junior high school students were randomly assigned to one of the four experimental conditions in a 2 × 2 factorial design with valence (positive vs. negative) and arousal (low vs. high) as between-subjects factors. For retention, in Experiment 1 (system-paced), those receiving negatively valenced images significantly outperformed those receiving positively valanced images. However, the results across both experiments did not reveal significant valence × arousal interaction effects. For transfer, the results in Experiment 1 showed that high-arousing images significantly outperformed low-arousing images when positively valenced, while low-arousing images significantly outperformed high-arousing images when negatively valenced. The results in Experiment 2 (learner-paced) showed that negative valenced images outperformed positively valenced images when their arousal levels were high. Apart from learning outcomes, participants’ cognitive load and intrinsic motivation were also measured, but in both experiments no significant differences were found regarding these measures. Implications and future directions were discussed.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":10635,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Educational Psychology","volume":"81 ","pages":"Article 102368"},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2025-04-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143864562","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Maximizing the benefits of student-generated drawing for real-world problem solving","authors":"Johanna Schoenherr , Richard E. Mayer","doi":"10.1016/j.cedpsych.2025.102369","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cedpsych.2025.102369","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Solving real-world problems is a challenge for many students. The two-pathway model of student-generated drawing for real-world problem solving states that problem-solving performance is maximized when students make drawings that are (1) accurate and (2) in mathematical format. We investigated how drawing accuracy and problem-solving performance are affected by presence or absence of drawing support in the form of providing thumbnail representations of the key elements to be used in the drawing (intended to enhance drawing accuracy) and providing mathematical drawing instructions to create schematic representations (intended to prime mathematical format in drawings) or situational drawing instructions to create pictorial representations (intended to prime drawings with extraneous situational elements). In a 2 x 2 between-subjects experiment with drawing support (supported drawing or unsupported drawing) and drawing instructions (situational drawing instructions or mathematical drawing instructions) as factors, 112 undergraduate students were randomly assigned to one of four drawing conditions. In line with the two-pathway model, we found that students provided with drawing support and mathematical drawing instructions outperformed those in other conditions on solving real-world problems. Based on path analyses, this effect was attributed to higher drawing accuracy and fewer extraneous situational elements in their drawings. Results support the two-pathway model of how student-generating drawing can support real-world problem solving.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":10635,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Educational Psychology","volume":"81 ","pages":"Article 102369"},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2025-04-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143869237","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"When will they know what they don’t know? Political knowledge and the infamous “Unskilled and Unaware” effect","authors":"Pascal Alscher, Ulrich Ludewig, Ruben Kleinkorres, Nele McElvany","doi":"10.1016/j.cedpsych.2025.102370","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cedpsych.2025.102370","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The unskilled and unaware effect, also known as the Dunning-Kruger effect, describes that low performers tend to overestimate and high performers tend to underestimate their ability and that on average low performers provide less accurate estimates of their ability than high performers. Based on data from <em>N</em> = 1047 students in Grade 7 (<em>n</em> = 613) and Grade 10 (<em>n</em> = 434), we examined whether the unskilled and unaware effect exists with regard to high school students’ political knowledge, whether the effect is different in Grade 7 and Grade 10, and how teachers’ behavior (i.e., cognitively activating and motivating teaching) affects students’ judgement accuracy and judgement direction. The results show that the unskilled and unaware effect exists in both grade levels. Furthermore, visual and statistical examination of the data suggest that the pattern of data is very similar in both grade levels. Finally, we further find that perceived motivational quality is associated with judgement accuracy, but also with overconfidence. Perceived cognitive activation is negatively associated with judgement accuracy. Through the usage of two-cohort data, this study applies a novel approach and bears important implications for research on the unskilled and unaware effect. Furthermore, the results regarding the teachers’ behavior provide important insights for educational practice in civic education.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":10635,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Educational Psychology","volume":"81 ","pages":"Article 102370"},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2025-04-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143839743","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Rebecca J. Collie , Andrew J. Martin , Alison Le , Anaïd Flesken
{"title":"The process and prediction of school completion: A six-year longitudinal examination","authors":"Rebecca J. Collie , Andrew J. Martin , Alison Le , Anaïd Flesken","doi":"10.1016/j.cedpsych.2025.102367","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cedpsych.2025.102367","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study investigated the process and prediction of school completion among a sample of 9,151 Australian secondary students. Although research indicates that various factors are associated with school completion, most studies have been short-term or limited in scope, leaving gaps in understanding about which factors throughout secondary school are salient for school completion. This study aims to fill those gaps by examining perceived teaching support in Year 7 as a predictor of personal attributes in Year 9 (perceived competence, valuing, growth goals, and academic skills) and, in turn, intentions in Year 10 (completion intentions, university intentions, vocational education and training [VET] intentions). All factors were then examined as predictors of school completion in Year 12. Results indicated key associations in the model: perceived teaching support (Year 7) predicted perceived competence, valuing, and growth goals in Year 9; all personal resources (Year 9) predicted at least one of the Year 10 intentions and most associations were positive; and, academic skills, completion intentions and university intentions predicted Year 12 school completion. In subsidiary analyses, we also tested how the factors were associated across three different geographic locations: rural, regional, and city areas. These subsidiary results indicated many similarities with the main model, along with some notable differences across locations. Findings hold implications for efforts aimed at supporting secondary school pathways to school completion in general and across different geographic locations.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":10635,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Educational Psychology","volume":"81 ","pages":"Article 102367"},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2025-04-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143825492","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Working memory growth and early Spanish reading interact to shape reading and math gains for Spanish-English emergent bilinguals","authors":"Ye Shen","doi":"10.1016/j.cedpsych.2025.102366","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cedpsych.2025.102366","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Using a nationally representative sample of Spanish-English emergent bilinguals (EBs), I explored the heterogenous latent growth profiles of working memory (WM) trajectories and how children with different WM trajectories vary in their reading and math gains across primary years. Latent class growth analysis revealed three distinct growth trajectories of WM capacity, showing patterns of High Baseline, Low Growth; Moderately Low Baseline, High Growth; and Moderately Low Baseline, Moderate Growth. Children in these three profiles differed on reading and math gains, showing groups with higher baseline and/or faster growth rate of WM having greater reading and math gains. Results also showed that as Spanish-English EBs’ early Spanish reading skills increased, children in the High Baseline, Low Growth group gained more in reading and math, compared to those in the Moderately Low Baseline, High Growth group. Our findings highlight that WM and early Spanish reading may be considered jointly in screening process and designing tailored interventions to meet the diverse needs of Spanish-English EB children and facilitate their development in academic skills.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":10635,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Educational Psychology","volume":"81 ","pages":"Article 102366"},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2025-04-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143847802","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Fernando Martín-Bozas , Elena Escolano-Pérez , Marta Bestué-Laguna
{"title":"The mediation role of executive functions as predictors between physical activity and academic performance in high school students","authors":"Fernando Martín-Bozas , Elena Escolano-Pérez , Marta Bestué-Laguna","doi":"10.1016/j.cedpsych.2025.102364","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cedpsych.2025.102364","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Several studies have highlighted the intricate interplay between physical activity, executive functions, and academic performance. However, the nuanced relationships among these variables necessitate further investigation into the roles of physical activity and executive functions as predictors or mediators of academic success. A study was conducted with a convenience sample comprising 172 Spanish high school students. This study assessed physical activity levels, executive functions (specifically focusing on cognitive components such as attention and inhibition, as well as the affective component of emotional regulation), and academic performance. The findings revealed several key insights: firstly, both physical activity and cognitive executive functions (specifically attention and inhibition) emerged as significant predictors of academic performance. However, emotional regulation did not show a significant predictive relationship. Secondly, cognitive executive functions (attention and inhibition) were found to partially mediate the association between physical activity and academic performance. These results suggest that interventions targeting improvements in both physical activity levels and cognitive executive functions, particularly attention and inhibition, may yield positive outcomes in terms of academic performance among students in compulsory secondary education.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":10635,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Educational Psychology","volume":"81 ","pages":"Article 102364"},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2025-04-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143824088","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Nicolas Hübner , Naomi Winstone , Samuel Merk , John Hattie
{"title":"Teacher feedback and students’ self-concept, intrinsic value, and achievement in mathematics: Juxtaposing between- and within-person perspectives on long-term reciprocal relationships","authors":"Nicolas Hübner , Naomi Winstone , Samuel Merk , John Hattie","doi":"10.1016/j.cedpsych.2025.102365","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cedpsych.2025.102365","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>For decades, the feedback teachers give to students has been discussed as one of the most powerful predictors of students’ motivation and achievement. Previous studies have suggested that the type of feedback and its degree of elaboration, immediacy, and relatability are central to its effectiveness. However, these factors explain only some of the variability in the<!--> <!-->effects of feedback on students’ motivation and achievement. Thus, more recent work has proposed a shift toward models that more strongly emphasize the role of the student in the effectiveness of feedback. In this study, we answer the call for a stronger focus on the student when investigating the long-term interplay between students’ perceptions of teacher feedback and students’ motivation and achievement by using rich data from 2,121 German lower secondary school students who were repeatedly assessed in Grades 5 to 7. More specifically, we used full-forward cross-lagged panel models (FF-CLPMs) and random intercept cross-lagged panel models (RI-CLPMs) to investigate reciprocal relationships between students’ perceptions of different types of teacher feedback (i.e., at the self-level, the process level, and the self-regulation level) and students’ self-concept, intrinsic value, and achievement in mathematics. By considering these variables simultaneously, we found evidence of associations between prior self-concept, intrinsic value, achievement, and perceptions of different forms of subsequent teacher feedback. Furthermore, we found that prior perceptions of feedback were positively related to subsequent self-concept. Our results underscore the need to more thoroughly investigate how feedback is longitudinally and reciprocally related to students’ motivation and achievement.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":10635,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Educational Psychology","volume":"81 ","pages":"Article 102365"},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2025-04-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143869236","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Jennifer Meyer , Thorben Jansen , Johanna Fleckenstein
{"title":"Nonengagement and unsuccessful engagement with feedback in lower secondary education: The role of student characteristics","authors":"Jennifer Meyer , Thorben Jansen , Johanna Fleckenstein","doi":"10.1016/j.cedpsych.2025.102363","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cedpsych.2025.102363","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Feedback can be a powerful learning intervention and learners’ active engagement is assumed to be one of the most important determinants of feedback effectiveness. But not all students successfully engage with feedback. In the present study, we aimed to make students’ engagement with feedback visible by focusing on their text revisions as an indicator of feedback response. On the basis of theoretical models of feedback processing, we differentiated between behavioral nonengagement (i.e., not revising at all after receiving feedback) and unsuccessful engagement (i.e., revising after receiving feedback, but not improving in the process). Capitalizing on this distinction, we compared the characteristics of students in both groups with those of students who (successfully) engaged with the feedback. We provided automated computer-based feedback on a writing task to a sample of 937 students in lower secondary education in Germany (49% female, Grades 7[28%], 8 [29%], and 9[43%]), asking students to revise their texts according to the feedback. We found that 20% of the students did not make any revisions to their text after receiving feedback (nonengagement) and that 47% of the students did not improve their performance after working with the feedback during a text revision (unsuccessful engagement). Male students and students with lower cognitive abilities were more likely to show nonengagement. For unsuccessful engagement, cognitive abilities and the English grade were relevant predictors, hinting at the role that domain-specific competencies play in translating feedback into effective revision. We also found significant positive associations of intrinsic task value with successful feedback engagement. We discuss how future research could advance understanding of feedback processing by taking a more fine-grained approach to investigating feedback response.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":10635,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Educational Psychology","volume":"81 ","pages":"Article 102363"},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2025-03-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143845039","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}