Hope and anxiety in physics class: Exploring their motivational antecedents and influence on metacognition and performance

Abstract

Recent research on achievement in science asserts that motivation, emotion, and metacognition are important driving forces for learning. This study sought to examine the relationships between two physics class emotions (hope and anxiety), their motivational predictors (instrumentality and self‐efficacy), and their effects on metacognitive problem solving strategies (planning, monitoring, and evaluation) and performance. Data were collected from 520 grade 11 Spanish students (54.7% girls). Structural equation models (SEM), followed by a bootstrap procedure, were used to examine direct and mediated relationships. The results supported the model, suggesting that instrumentality and self‐efficacy negatively predicted anxiety, and enhanced hope, planning, monitoring, evaluation, and performance; metacognitive strategies and performance were negatively predicted by anxiety, and were positively predicted by hope; metacognitive strategies positively predicted performance. Furthermore, the hypothesized mediated relations were also statistically significant. The interpretation of these findings, their implications for physics teaching and learning, and future lines of research are discussed. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 54:558–585, 2017

Gender, complexity, and science for all: Systemizing and its impact on motivation to learn science for different science subjects

“…The GSM model implies that they, instead of being attracted, rather feel demotivated by ordered contexts, particularly if these contexts are complicated. These may be the students that perceive ordered systems as stable, rigid, and fixed (Holmegaard, Madsen, & Ulriksen, ), feel anxious and hopeless (González, Fernández, & Paoloni, ), and may even be pushed out of studies by neglected identity and agency beliefs (Godwin & Potvin, ).…”

Toward Reducing Anxiety and Increasing Performance in Physics Education: Evidence from a Randomized Experiment

“…A high level of anxiety can distract students during evaluation and prevent them from recalling relevant information, resulting in a lower than expected performance (Hong 2010;Maloney et al 2013). Anxiety arises when students recognize that their cognitive abilities are overwhelmed by academic demands (González et al 2017). It is regarded as a serious learning difficulty that hinders students in their learning, students who, by intelligence and hard work, should otherwise perform well (Hong 2010;Mallow 2006).…”

Investigation of the science achievement models for low and high achieving schools and gender differences in Turkey

“…For instance students who had more sophisticated elaboration, metacognitive self‐regulation, and summarizing and understanding strategies obtained higher science achievement (Alpaslan, ; Areepattamannil, ). On the other hand, motivational factors, that is, instrumentality and self‐efficacy, were found to affect planning, monitoring, and evaluation strategies (González, Fernández, & Paoloni, ).…”