First-year students’ math anxiety predicts STEM avoidance and underperformance throughout university, independently of math ability

AbstractMath anxiety is widely considered a potential barrier to success in STEM. Current thinking holds that math anxiety is directly linked to avoidance of and underperformance in STEM domains. However, past evidence supporting these claims is limited in important ways. Perhaps most crucially, it is possible that math anxiety predicts STEM outcomes merely as a proxy for poor math skills. Here, we tested the link between math anxiety and subsequent STEM outcomes by measuring math anxiety, math ability, and several covariates in 183 first-semester university students. We then tracked students’ STEM avoidance and achievement through four years at university via official academic transcripts. Results showed that math anxiety predicted both a reduction in how many STEM courses students took and, separately (i.e., controlling for one another), lower STEM grades. Crucially, these associations held after controlling for math ability (and other covariates). That math anxiety predicts math-related academic achievement independently of Math Ability suggests that, contrary to current thinking, math anxiety’s effects on academic performance likely operate via mechanisms other than negatively affecting math ability. Beyond this, we show evidence that math anxiety can account for associations between math ability and STEM outcomes, suggesting that past links between math ability and real-world outcomes may, in fact, be at least partially explainable by attitudes toward math. These findings provide clear impetus for developing and testing interventions that target math anxiety specifically and suggest that focusing on math ability without additional attention to math anxiety may fail to optimally boost STEM outcomes.

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A Longitudinal Study of the Effects of Academic and Social Integration and Commitment on Retention

NASPA Journal ◽

10.2202/0027-6014.1094 ◽

1999 ◽

Vol 37 (1) ◽

pp. 1-10 ◽

Cited By ~ 21

Author(s):

Cheryl Beil ◽

Carol A. Reisen ◽

Maria Cecilia Zea ◽

Robert C. Caplan

Keyword(s):

Longitudinal Study ◽

Social Integration ◽

Academic Integration ◽

Research University ◽

First Year ◽

First Year Students ◽

First Semester ◽

Academic And Social Integration ◽

Private Research

This longitudinal study predicted retention from academic integration, social integration, and commitment to remain in college in a sample of first-year students at a residential, private research university. When assessed separately, first-semester reports of commitment mediated the effects of both academic and social integration on retention six semesters later.

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The Students’ Speaking Skill Analaysis on Local Wisdom- Based Topics (A Study at the First Year Grade of Mathematics Department of Unswagati)

Academic Journal Perspective Education Language and Literature ◽

10.33603/perspective.v5i2.822 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 5 (2) ◽

pp. 143

Author(s):

Devi Siti Afiah

Keyword(s):

Qualitative Method ◽

First Year ◽

First Year Students ◽

First Semester ◽

Wh Questions ◽

Speaking Skill ◽

Math Students ◽

Academic Year ◽

Local Materials ◽

Mathematics Department

The goals of this research are (1) to know what students’ responses toward WH question tehnique; (2) to know whether the WH Question can improve students’ math in English. This research used the descriptive qualitative method. The writer described and analyzed the students’ mistakes in speaking skill using local materials. The research was carried out at the first year students of math department in 2016/2017 academic year. It was strated from September 2016 to January 2017. The population was the first semester students of math department in academic year of 2016/2017. The number of population were 21 students. The results of this research were (1) the tudents gave good responses toward the WH Questions learning, and (2) the WH questions improved the Math students’ ability in learning English. Keywords: Speaking, Local-wisdom, WH-questions

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Entering Higher Professional Education: Unveiling First-Year Students’ Key Academic Experiences and Their Occurrence Over Time

Frontiers in Psychology ◽

10.3389/fpsyg.2021.577388 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 12 ◽

Author(s):

Jonas Willems ◽

Liesje Coertjens ◽

Vincent Donche

Keyword(s):

Higher Education ◽

Professional Education ◽

Critical Incident ◽

Transition Process ◽

Academic Experiences ◽

First Year ◽

Study Program ◽

First Year Students ◽

Academic Transition ◽

First Semester

To date, little understanding exists of how first-year students in professionally oriented higher-education (HE) programs (i.e., those that provide vocational education to prepare students for a particular occupation) experience their academic transition process. In the present study, we first argued how the constructs of academic adjustment and academic integration can provide complementary perspectives on the academic transition of first-year students in (professional) HE. Next, we examined what first-year students in professional HE contexts perceive to be the most important experiences associated with their academic transition process in the first semester of their first year of higher education (FYHE). To this end, we adopted the fundamentals of the critical incident technique and asked 104 students in a Flemish (Dutch-speaking part of Belgium) university college (which offers professional HE programs, such as nursing) to complete “reflective logs” with open questions at the start of the second semester of their FYHE, wherein they reflected on three critical academic experiences during their first semester. An inductive, cross-case content analysis of the collected narratives showed that students reported on nine themes of academic experiences, which relate to five adjustment themes (dealing with the organization of the study program, organizing study work, committing to the study, following class and taking notes, and processing learning content outside class) and four integration themes (feeling competent, feeling stressed, feeling prepared, and feeling supported). Further analyses showed that although some of the nine themes of academic experiences appear to be more important at different times in the first semester, they all seem to be meaningful throughout the whole semester.

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Ready for the Worst? Negative Emotional Anticipation is Associated with Greater Reactivity to an Emotional Event

10.31234/osf.io/zdtre ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Elise Katherine Kalokerinos ◽

Ella Moeck ◽

Koen Rummens ◽

Kristof Meers ◽

Merijn Mestdagh

Keyword(s):

Time Scale ◽

Research Finding ◽

Negative Emotion ◽

Experience Sampling ◽

Bad News ◽

First Year ◽

First Year Students ◽

First Semester ◽

Emotional Outcomes

Lay wisdom suggests feeling negative in advance of an outcome – anticipatory negative emotion – shields against the blow of bad news. However, evidence is mixed, with different lines of research finding that anticipatory negative emotion is helpful, harmful, or has no effect on emotional outcomes. We set out to reconcile the competing findings by examining effects over a longer, but more granular, time-scale. First-year students (N=101) completed 9 days of experience sampling (10 surveys/day) as they received their first-semester exam grades, and a follow-up survey 5 months later. We investigated the association between anticipatory negative emotion and three negative emotional outcomes: (1) reactivity immediately after receiving grades, (2) recovery across the following week, and (3) recovery after 5 months. Anticipatory negative emotion was associated with increased reactivity and negative emotion 5 months later, suggesting that being emotionally ready for the worst has psychological costs.

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Blended Collaborative Learning through a Wiki-Based Project

Fostering 21st Century Digital Literacy and Technical Competency ◽

10.4018/978-1-4666-2943-1.ch010 ◽

2013 ◽

pp. 130-145

Author(s):

Dimitrios Roussinos ◽

Athanassios Jimoyiannis

Keyword(s):

Collaborative Learning ◽

Information And Communication Technologies ◽

First Year ◽

First Year Students ◽

First Semester ◽

Collaborative Tools ◽

Information And Communication ◽

Research Findings ◽

On Line ◽

University Course

Wikis are currently gaining in popularity in schools and higher education institutions and they are widely promoted as collaborative tools supporting students’ active learning. This paper reports on the investigation of university students’ beliefs and perceptions of a wiki authoring activity, designed to support blended and collaborative learning. The study was administered in the context of an authentic coursework project activity in a first semester university course on Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), attended by 47 first year students. Research findings indicated that the students in the sample were generally positive about the collaborative experience offered through the wiki and the consequent learning outcomes. Students’ perceptions of the functionality and usability of the wiki environment were also positive. They considered the wiki as an effective and easy to use technology. In overall, they evaluated positively the wiki assignment, as well as the technical and learning support they received on-line, through the wiki pages, and by their instructors during the class sessions.

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Blended Collaborative Learning Through a Wiki-Based Project

International Journal of Digital Literacy and Digital Competence ◽

10.4018/jdldc.2011070102 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 2 (3) ◽

pp. 15-30 ◽

Cited By ~ 12

Author(s):

Dimitrios Roussinos ◽

Athanassios Jimoyiannis

Keyword(s):

Collaborative Learning ◽

Information And Communication Technologies ◽

First Year ◽

First Year Students ◽

First Semester ◽

Collaborative Tools ◽

Information And Communication ◽

Research Findings ◽

On Line ◽

University Course

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Motivation of Medical Students to Study Sciences

New Trends and Issues Proceedings on Humanities and Social Sciences ◽

10.18844/prosoc.v4i8.2983 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 4 (8) ◽

pp. 103-108

Author(s):

Eva Kralova

Keyword(s):

Medical Students ◽

Science Teachers ◽

Teaching And Learning ◽

Medical Curriculum ◽

Natural Sciences ◽

First Year ◽

First Year Students ◽

First Semester ◽

Positive Attitudes ◽

Medical Diagnostic

Natural sciences and their applications (medical biophysics, medical chemistry and medical biology) represent an inevitable part of medical curriculum. They are often negatively evaluated and a lack of motivation to their study is observed. The attitudes of medical students towards natural sciences are influenced by their negative experiences from the previous study. Nevertheless, knowledge from the natural sciences represents the necessary basis for better understanding of the basic principles of the medical diagnostic and therapeutic methods. Therefore, the indispensable role of natural science teachers is to achieve positive attitudes and motivate students to study them. Our research project is focused on the identification and subsequent application of motivating approaches in natural sciences teaching. Pedagogical investigation using anonymous questionnaires was done with the aim to specify respondents’ (first year students of Comenius University in Bratislava, Faculty of Medicine) motivation and attitudes towards teaching and learning natural sciences before starting medicine study and after the first semester of medicine study. Keywords: University medical education, student’s motivation, natural sciences.

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The Effectiveness of Collaborative Learning to Enhance English Communicative Competence: A Case Study of the First-Year Students at Thepsatri Rajabhat University

IJPTE International Journal of Pedagogy and Teacher Education ◽

10.20961/ijpte.v2i0.25174 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 2 ◽

pp. 15

Author(s):

Sasilak Rodphotong

Keyword(s):

Collaborative Learning ◽

Communicative Competence ◽

First Year ◽

First Year Students ◽

Satisfaction Questionnaire ◽

First Semester ◽

Post Test ◽

School Schedule ◽

Academic Year

The attempts of the present study aimed at investigating the effectiveness of collaborative learning to enhance English communicative competence and evaluating students’ satisfaction towards the instruction. The participants in this study were 1,471 the first-year students enrolled in the first semester, 2017 academic year. The students’ English proficiency according to the CEFR was A1. The instruments used were lesson plans, pre-test and post-test and satisfaction questionnaire. The lessons were comprised of various collaborative learning activities emphasizing at the following topics: self-introduction, school schedule, telling time, asking and giving information, food, leisure, describing people, describing things and giving direction. The period of experiment was 20 hours. The independent sample t-test was calculated to find the differences. The findings revealed that there were statistically significant differences at the level of .01 after teaching with collaborative learning. This indicated that the students’ communicative competence significantly improved. Besides, the satisfaction questionnaire was distributed at the end of the instruction and the results indicated that the students had a positive satisfaction towards the instruction.

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Psychological Well-being of First-year Psychology Students Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic

10.18662/wlc2021/01 ◽

2022 ◽

Author(s):

Getrude C. AH Gang ◽

Keyword(s):

Real Life ◽

Well Being ◽

Psychology Students ◽

First Year ◽

Online Classes ◽

First Year Students ◽

First Semester ◽

University Life ◽

Before And After ◽

Social Media Platforms

University life is always colorful, filled with a plethora of memorable moments, both academic and non-academic. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, however, first-year university students’ academic experiences might be slightly different from their expectations due to being fully conducted in online learning. The COVID-19 pandemic denied first year students the opportunity to join the face-to-face classes and become involved in university’s activities in the real setting. All activities were replaced with virtual setting and they could only contact their course mates and lecturers via social media platforms. This derailment of their expectation to experience real-life university settings may dampen their enthusiasm and impact their motivational and happiness levels. To explore the phenomenon, a study was conducted with 143 first-year psychology students to examine their self-reported motivational and happiness levels before and after seven-week of online classes. This study included 113 females (79%) and 30 males (21%) with a mean age of 20.68 (SD=1.88). Data collected revealed that students’ motivation and happiness levels declined significantly after their online classes. According to their extent of agreement with the single statement ‘Overall, I am happy with my university life’, 48 (33.60%) students agreed, 76 (53.10%) were neutral, and 19 (13.30%) indicated dissatisfaction. This study may assist the university and relevant authorities in understanding students’ perceptions of dealing with academic and life challenges through online classes amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, psychological strategies should be considered to enhance first-year students’ motivation and happiness levels when faced with online classes in their new first semester.

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Problems of social and psychological adaptation of students in conditions of social deprivation

E3S Web of Conferences ◽

10.1051/e3sconf/202127310027 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 273 ◽

pp. 10027

Author(s):

Elena Dvoinikova ◽

Ekaterina Bakshutova ◽

Natalya Beylina ◽

Olga Telnova ◽

Julia Vasilieva

Keyword(s):

Social Deprivation ◽

Longitudinal Research ◽

Objective Measure ◽

Psychological Adaptation ◽

First Year ◽

Structural Components ◽

State Technical ◽

First Year Students ◽

First Semester ◽

Academic Year

The article is devoted to changes in the level of empathy and some structural components of social and psychological adaptation caused by social deprivation in a pandemic, which is the purpose of the work. The paper presents the results of an empirical study conducted in the first semester of the 2020-2021 academic year, when Samara State Technical University students were on distance learning. The sample consisted of 248 first-year students. The basis of the observation is a longitudinal research, during which the communicative activity of students in interaction with the teacher and with each other was recorded. In addition, students solved situational problems containing a description of the conflict, for a way out of which they had to offer solutions: none, one or several. The study confirmed the hypothesis put forward about possible changes in the level of empathy, the ability to solve situational problems and social and psychological adaptation in general among students studying remotely. Isolation in a pandemic is an objective measure for which humanity was not ready.

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