Conceptual Understanding

How can we use insights gained in the lab to aid in better experiences in the classroom and improved conceptual learning?

One of the main goals of our research is to take the insights that we gain from our experiments, and work with teachers and schools to utilize this research to create evidence-based interventions and activities for the classroom. Across two different schools in different regions of the country, we introduced interventions focused on different methods aimed at reducing anxiety in the classroom (Pizzie & Kraemer, 2017): an intervention based on emotion regulation, and an intervention based on improving study skills through self-testing (Agarwal, D’Antonio, Roediger, McDermott, & McDaniel, 2014; Roediger, 2006). Our results indicate that increasing effective practice using self-testing was the most efficacious strategy for students who had the highest levels of anxiety. Although this result was surprising, given our emotion regulation results found in the lab, we found that the effect was actually convergent with our earlier finding that math anxiety is correlated with anxious avoidance of math stimuli altogether. Specifically, practice with better study strategies improves performance by encouraging anxious individuals to reverse their avoidant behavior and effectively practice math more frequently.

In collaboration with Dr. Adam Green on an NSF-funded grant, we are continuing to pursue the goal of integrating research from the lab and the classroom. In this fMRI project, we are evaluating the effects of a particular class designed to improve spatial learning and understanding using cognitive neuroscience methods. Specifically, across both behavior and patterns of neural activity (using multivariate pattern analysis), we will evaluate how this class encourages the development of expert-like conceptual understanding (Cetron et al., 2019). Within this educational study, we will examine the effects of individual differences in spatial anxiety (Ramirez, Gunderson, Levine, & Beilock, 2012), exploring how anxious emotion may affect longitudinal development of spatial skills and conceptual knowledge in the classroom.