How emotions are related to competence beliefs during mathematical problem solving: Differences between boys and girls

Abstract

This study, grounded in Control Value Theory, aimed at increasing insight into how the emotions of enjoyment and anxiety shape students' situated math competence beliefs. Additionally, we investigated gender differences in these effects. An online survey including mathematical problems with corresponding competence belief ratings, and questionnaires regarding math-related emotions was filled out by 866 ninth-grade students. Ordinal mixed effects modelling revealed that after correcting for actual performance, emotions contributed (modestly) to students' competence beliefs: enjoyment was positively related to competence and anxiety had a negative relation. The strength of these relations was not affected by gender, but boys did report higher situated math competence beliefs than girls, despite a lack of gender difference in actual performance. Boys also showed higher math enjoyment and lower anxiety than girls. Our findings underline the need for interventions that improve girls' attitude towards mathematics and refute the math gender stereotype. Educational relevance and implications statement: In this study we investigated factors related to ninth-grade students' situated competence beliefs in math. We found that first and foremost actual performance predicted competence beliefs, showing students' metacognitive abilities. But we also found that the emotions of math enjoyment and math anxiety affected these beliefs, and that boys held higher competence beliefs than girls, while their math performance did not differ. This suggests that a situated intervention, aimed at showing girls at the item level how often their answers are correct and stimulating them to hold positive beliefs could boost their confidence in their STEM abilities, and possibly enhance their motivation to pursue a STEM career.