O-PARC: Observational Protocol for Autonomy, Relatedness, and Competence and Its Relations With Students' Math Enjoyment

• In Event: 25.023 - Show...and Tell? Using Behavioral Observation to Study Affective Processes in Educational Settings

Abstract

Educational researchers are fervently called to examine how social interaction can shape children’s motivation and emotion in naturalistic environments (Kaplan & Patrick, 2016). There are very few observation protocols to support this work. While Pianta and colleagues’ (2008) CLASS protocol is widely used, it lacks precision in terms of theories of motivation. Rooted in achievement goal theory, the “OPAL -Observing Patterns of Adaptive Learning” is a protocol for observing instructional strategies associated with mastery or performance classrooms (Patrick et al., 1997; Anderman et al., 2002). Using self-determination theory (SDT), at least one study has used an observational protocol to measure instructional practices associated with autonomy and structure (Jang et al., 2010). Looking beyond classrooms, there are no observational protocols to measure the extent to which parent-children interactions support children’s motivation and emotion. The purpose of this research was to create an observational protocol to measure parent behaviors indicative of basic psychological needs support during naturalistic one-on-one interactions between a child and parent playing math games, and to examine relations between these behaviors with children’s math-related enjoyment.
Data was collected at TELUS World of Science as part of the Lab Quest Program©. Consent for participation and video recording was obtained from parents, who also completed an intake questionnaire (child’s age, gender, own/their child’s enjoyment of math). The observational data was a video recording of a parent and their child playing mathematical reasoning games (Mduration = 11 minutes 16 seconds). A total of 126 families (61 boys, 57 girls, Mage = 6.4 years) participated. Enjoyment of math was measured using self-report scales.
We developed an observation protocol (here-after O-PARC) measuring the extent to which parents supported their child’s needs of autonomy, competence, and relatedness. In line with existing protocols, we chose to build the O-PARC with positive and negative indicators of each need and a frequency rating scale. First, the research team watched a random sample of videos to get a sense of the parent-child interactions and reviewed the SDT literature. Second, 7-9 items were created for each need. Third, two research assistants (RAs) applied the protocol to 6-10 video-recordings and revised/removed items that were unclear, redundant, or non-discriminating. The final O-PARC consists of five indicators of each need rated as occurring 1=never/rarely, 2=sometimes, 3=often and 4=most of the time/always. For brevity, we comment on the autonomy scale (scales functioned similarly): Two RAs used the autonomy subscale of the O-PARC to code videos with an inter-rater reliability ranging from .64 to .88. Positive and negative items were appropriately correlated. Negative items were reversed and all items summed (M = 2.67, SD = .79). Reliability was excellent (α = .91). Regarding relations between parent behaviors and emotions, autonomy support was not significantly correlated with parents’ enjoyment of math (r = .27, p = .18) but approached significance for child’s enjoyment of math (r = .34, p = .09). These findings are in line with SDT predicting that learner autonomy can boost enjoyment, and speak to the validity of the new behavior observation tool.

Authors

• Lia Marie Daniels, University of Alberta

• Julia Farmer, University of Alberta

• Lauren Denise Goegan, University of Alberta