Academic Buoyancy in Conceptually Difficult Math Learning: Exploring Students' Self-Disclosed Emotions, Beliefs, and Perceptions

• In Event: AERA Poster Session 3
  In Poster Session: Division C Section 1C: Topics in Mathematics Education (San Diego)

Abstract

Academic Buoyancy (AB) is students’ ability to bounce back after everyday forms of adversity, such as bad grades. The present study sought to observe AB in action by using a novel self-disclosure paradigm in students’ own mathematics classrooms. Students’ expressive writing narratives were coded to build a picture of their cognitive and emotional reactions to a stressful assessment. While the use of expressive writing as an emotional disclosure tool yielded valuable insights into students’ reasoning, a reliability analysis showed that students’ self-efficacy, self-concept, goal orientation, and use of reappraisal—all hypothesized to be related to AB—did not reliably co-occur in students’ writing (α = 0.33). Methodological implications and future opportunities for research are discussed.

Authors

• Samuela Mouzaoir, Michigan State University

• Almaz Mesghina, Northwestern University

• Lindsey E. Richland, University of California - Irvine