Abstract
This study explored the moderating roles of teacher instrumental and emotional support on the association between students’ math anxiety/math self-concept and math achievement. Participants included 21,544 Canadian students aged 15 years (10,943 girls) who participated in the 2012 Program for International Student Assessment. Results indicated that instrument support and emotional support were positively associated with math achievement. A significant moderation effect was evident between instrumental support and math anxiety; higher levels of instrumental support were associated with higher math achievement at low levels of math anxiety. Emotional support did not interact with math anxiety or math self-concept. The present findings highlight the importance to consider not only individual factors (i.e., math anxiety and math self-concept) but also the role of teacher support in supporting math achievement.
Highlights
Math achievement forecasts students’ academic success in Language (Duncan et al, 2007) and Science (Anderton, Joyce, & Hine, 2017; Joyce, Hine, & Anderton, 2017), and their social-emotional well-being (Romano, Babchishin, Pagani, & Kohen, 2010), health-related decisions (Reyna, Nelson, Han, & Dieckmann, 2009), and future socio-economic status (Ritchie & Bates, 2013)
This study addressed the following questions: (1) To what extent are math anxiety, math self-concept and teacher support associated with math achievement?; (2) To what extent do instrumental and emotional support each moderate the association between math anxiety and math achievement?; and (3) To what extent do instrumental and emotional support moderate the association between math self-concept and math achievement?; Based on the reviewed literature, we hypothesized: (1) student characteristics and teacher support would predict math achievement; (2) students who were mathematically anxious would have better math achievement when they received instrumental and emotional support; and (3) students who had low math self-concept would have better achievement when they received instrumental and emotional support
Instrumental support emerged as the only significant moderator in the association between math anxiety and math achievement
Summary
Math achievement forecasts students’ academic success in Language (Duncan et al, 2007) and Science (Anderton, Joyce, & Hine, 2017; Joyce, Hine, & Anderton, 2017), and their social-emotional well-being (Romano, Babchishin, Pagani, & Kohen, 2010), health-related decisions (Reyna, Nelson, Han, & Dieckmann, 2009), and future socio-economic status (Ritchie & Bates, 2013). Math anxiety and math self-concept were selected because they are exemplars of individual factors that affect math achievement (Foley et al, 2017; McDonough & Ramirez, 2018), and because they respectively predict this learning outcome in the negative and positive direction (Chen, Yeh, Hwang, & Lin, 2013; Núñez-Peña, Suárez-Pellicioni, & Bono, 2012; Parker, Marsh, Ciarrochi, Marshall, & Abduljabbar, 2014; Wu, Barth, Amin, Malcarne, & Menon, 2012) They serve as interesting contexts to understand the moderating effects of teacher support. It would inform educators regarding which type of student-teacher exchanges (i.e., in the forms of instrumental or emotional support) might be more appropriate in facilitating positive or mitigating the chance of poor learning outcomes
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