Should I stay or should I go? Children’s motivation in response to feedback and its association with math anxiety and math self-concept

Receiving corrective feedback can influence motivation in different ways – either inspiring learners to continue or leading learners to avoid the task. In the current study, we examined elementary school children’s in-the-moment behavioral motivation in response to feedback, and how it related to their anxiety and self-concept in mathematics. Children (N = 150; M age = 7.35; 44 % female; 65 % White) in the United States solved a series of mathematical equivalence problems in the context of a computer game (e.g., 3 + 4 = 5 +?). They received trial-by-trial feedback that included both knowledge of results (KR) and knowledge of the correct response (KCR), and they had the option to stop the game or keep playing after each level. Children were generally motivated and chose to complete many items. However, children who received a lot of negative feedback stopped the game earlier relative to others, and this was especially true when they also had high math anxiety or high math self-concept. In contrast to our predictions, higher math self-concept was not strongly associated with higher motivation to keep playing. These results have implications for theories on feedback and for designing problem-solving contexts that can support children’s motivation.