Multimodal measurements enhance insights into emotional responses to immediate feedback.

Adaptive learning technologies often provide students with immediate feedback on task performance. This feedback can elicit various emotional responses, which, in turn, influence learning. Most recent studies capture these emotions by single data streams, contradicting the multi-componential nature of emotion. Therefore, this study investigated 32 university students solving mathematical problems using an adaptive learning technology. Students received immediate feedback on every step in the solution process, after which their physiological, experiential and behavioral responses to this feedback were recorded. Physiological arousal was measured by electrodermal activity, valence was measured by self-reports (experiential), and emotion types were measured by observations of facial expressions (behavioral). Results showed more peaks in electrodermal activity after feedback than was expected based on chance. These responses were comparable in strength after feedback on failure and success. Students' experiential responses conveyed mostly positive valence after feedback on success and mostly negative valence after feedback on failure. Behavioral observations showed more negative than positive emotion types after feedback on failure and more positive than negative emotion types after feedback on success. These results show that physiological arousal is a valuable objective indicator of emotional responses after immediate feedback but should be accompanied by other data streams in order to understand students' emotional responses. Both valence and emotion types can be used for this purpose. These outcomes pave the way for designing adaptive learning technologies that take students' emotions into account.

Creativity in mathematics performance: The role of divergent and convergent thinking.

BACKGROUND: Creativity requires both divergent and convergent thinking. Previous research established that divergent thinking relates to mathematics performance, but generally ignored the role of convergent thinking and, hence, leaves it unclear how both might interact when children work on mathematical tasks. This study addressed this paucity in the research literature, with the goal of improving our understanding of the role of creative thinking in primary school mathematics. AIMS: This study examined how divergent and convergent thinking contribute to mathematics performance, both directly and jointly, on single- and multiple-solution tasks. SAMPLE: The study was conducted with 229 Dutch fifth graders of 12 primary schools. METHOD: Divergent and convergent thinking were measured with a visual and verbal task. Path analysis was used including verbal and visual divergent and convergent thinking tasks in relation to single- and multiple-solution mathematics task performance. Working memory was included as a covariate. RESULTS: Verbal convergent thinking positively predicted single- and multiple-solution task performance. Verbal divergent and convergent thinking interacted in relation to single-solution task performance, while visual divergent and convergent thinking interacted in relation to multiple-solution task performance. CONCLUSIONS: Children's mathematics performance mainly relies on convergent thinking. The role of divergent thinking is twofold: it complements convergent thinking on multiple-solution tasks and compensates convergent thinking on single-solution tasks.

Detecting Emotions through Electrodermal Activity in Learning Contexts: A Systematic Review.

There is a strong increase in the use of devices that measure physiological arousal through electrodermal activity (EDA). Although there is a long tradition of studying emotions during learning, researchers have only recently started to use EDA to measure emotions in the context of education and learning. This systematic review aimed to provide insight into how EDA is currently used in these settings. The review aimed to investigate the methodological aspects of EDA measures in educational research and synthesize existing empirical evidence on the relation of physiological arousal, as measured by EDA, with learning outcomes and learning processes. The methodological results pointed to considerable variation in the usage of EDA in educational research and indicated that few implicit standards exist. Results regarding learning revealed inconsistent associations between physiological arousal and learning outcomes, which seem mainly due to underlying methodological differences. Furthermore, EDA frequently fluctuated during different stages of the learning process. Compared to this unimodal approach, multimodal designs provide the potential to better understand these fluctuations at critical moments. Overall, this review signals a clear need for explicit guidelines and standards for EDA processing in educational research in order to build a more profound understanding of the role of physiological arousal during learning.

Individual Differences in Children's Development of Scientific Reasoning Through Inquiry-Based Instruction: Who Needs Additional Guidance?

Scientific reasoning involves a person's ability to think and act in ways that help advance their understanding of the natural world. Young children are naturally inclined to engage in scientific reasoning and display an emerging competence in the component skills of, for example, hypothesizing, experimenting and evaluating evidence. Developmental psychology research has shown that same-age children often differ considerably in their proficiency to perform these skills. Part of this variation comes from individual differences in cognition; another part is due to the fact that the component skills of scientific reasoning emerge at a different age and mature at a different pace. Significantly less attention has been paid to children's capacity to improve in scientific reasoning through instruction and deliberate practice. Although elementary science lessons are generally effective to raise the skill level of a group of learners, not all children benefit equally from the instructional treatment they receive. Knowing what causes this differential effectiveness is important as it can inform the design of adaptive instruction and support. The present study therefore aimed to identify and explain how fifth-graders (N = 138) improve their scientific reasoning skills over the course of a 5-week inquiry-based physics unit. In line with our expectations, significant progress was observed in children's achievements on a written scientific reasoning test, which was administered prior to and after the lessons, as well as in their responses to the questions and assignments that appeared on the worksheets they filled out during each lesson. Children's reading comprehension and mathematical skillfulness explained a portion of the variance in children's pretest-posttest gain. As these overall results did not apply equally to all component skills of scientific reasoning, we recommend science teachers to adapt their lessons based on children's past performance in reading and math and their actual performance of each scientific reasoning skill. The orchestration and relative effectiveness of both adaptive science teaching approaches is an interesting topic for future research.