Impacts of expressive writing on children's anxiety and mathematics learning: Developmental and gender variability

Almaz Mesghina; Lindsey Engle Richland

doi:10.1016/j.cedpsych.2020.101926

Impacts of expressive writing on children's anxiety and mathematics learning: Developmental and gender variability

Almaz Mesghina, Lindsey Engle Richland^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

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14 Scopus citations

Abstract

Expressive writing (EW), or writing about one's thoughts and feelings, has been posited to reduce the working memory (WM) load that pressure and anxiety can impose on test-takers. The mechanisms of EW are far from clear, however, and social and developmental questions about its role in shaping children's engagement with academic contexts remain. We report a study with 250 10–12-year-olds (M_age = 11.55; SD_age = 0.48; 127 females), exploring gender differences in these younger children's use of EW before a high demand mathematics lesson on ratio. In contrast to the literature with adults, children assigned to EW had greater anxiety relative to control. The highest-achieving higher-WM girls also were most impacted by EW, showing decreases in immediate learning and retention relative to their counterparts who did not write expressively. A mediation analysis indicated that EW reduced learning gains by increasing children's anxiety during the lesson, thereby suggesting that EW functioned quite differently from its use in older youth and adults. These data suggest that emotion regulation skills may be an under-considered mechanism that underpins benefits of EW in older adolescents and adults.

Original language	English (US)
Article number	101926
Journal	Contemporary Educational Psychology
Volume	63
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cedpsych.2020.101926
State	Published - Oct 2020

Funding

This work was supported by the Spencer Foundation , # 201800012 ; the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education , through R305A170488 and R305B140048 to the University of Chicago; and the National Science Foundation , # 32027447 , to the University of California, Irvine. The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent views of the funders. We thank the teachers and students who dedicated their class time to our research. We also thank Samuela Mouzaoir for her assistance with data analysis.

Keywords

Anxiety
Expressive writing
Gender
Learning
Relational reasoning
Working memory

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Education
Developmental and Educational Psychology

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10.1016/j.cedpsych.2020.101926

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title = "Impacts of expressive writing on children's anxiety and mathematics learning: Developmental and gender variability",

abstract = "Expressive writing (EW), or writing about one's thoughts and feelings, has been posited to reduce the working memory (WM) load that pressure and anxiety can impose on test-takers. The mechanisms of EW are far from clear, however, and social and developmental questions about its role in shaping children's engagement with academic contexts remain. We report a study with 250 10–12-year-olds (Mage = 11.55; SDage = 0.48; 127 females), exploring gender differences in these younger children's use of EW before a high demand mathematics lesson on ratio. In contrast to the literature with adults, children assigned to EW had greater anxiety relative to control. The highest-achieving higher-WM girls also were most impacted by EW, showing decreases in immediate learning and retention relative to their counterparts who did not write expressively. A mediation analysis indicated that EW reduced learning gains by increasing children's anxiety during the lesson, thereby suggesting that EW functioned quite differently from its use in older youth and adults. These data suggest that emotion regulation skills may be an under-considered mechanism that underpins benefits of EW in older adolescents and adults.",

keywords = "Anxiety, Expressive writing, Gender, Learning, Relational reasoning, Working memory",

author = "Almaz Mesghina and Richland, {Lindsey Engle}",

note = "Funding Information: This work was supported by the Spencer Foundation , # 201800012 ; the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education , through R305A170488 and R305B140048 to the University of Chicago; and the National Science Foundation , # 32027447 , to the University of California, Irvine. The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent views of the funders. We thank the teachers and students who dedicated their class time to our research. We also thank Samuela Mouzaoir for her assistance with data analysis. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2020 Elsevier Inc.",

year = "2020",

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doi = "10.1016/j.cedpsych.2020.101926",

language = "English (US)",

volume = "63",

journal = "Contemporary Educational Psychology",

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AU - Mesghina, Almaz

AU - Richland, Lindsey Engle

N1 - Funding Information: This work was supported by the Spencer Foundation , # 201800012 ; the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education , through R305A170488 and R305B140048 to the University of Chicago; and the National Science Foundation , # 32027447 , to the University of California, Irvine. The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent views of the funders. We thank the teachers and students who dedicated their class time to our research. We also thank Samuela Mouzaoir for her assistance with data analysis. Publisher Copyright: © 2020 Elsevier Inc.

PY - 2020/10

Y1 - 2020/10

N2 - Expressive writing (EW), or writing about one's thoughts and feelings, has been posited to reduce the working memory (WM) load that pressure and anxiety can impose on test-takers. The mechanisms of EW are far from clear, however, and social and developmental questions about its role in shaping children's engagement with academic contexts remain. We report a study with 250 10–12-year-olds (Mage = 11.55; SDage = 0.48; 127 females), exploring gender differences in these younger children's use of EW before a high demand mathematics lesson on ratio. In contrast to the literature with adults, children assigned to EW had greater anxiety relative to control. The highest-achieving higher-WM girls also were most impacted by EW, showing decreases in immediate learning and retention relative to their counterparts who did not write expressively. A mediation analysis indicated that EW reduced learning gains by increasing children's anxiety during the lesson, thereby suggesting that EW functioned quite differently from its use in older youth and adults. These data suggest that emotion regulation skills may be an under-considered mechanism that underpins benefits of EW in older adolescents and adults.

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Impacts of expressive writing on children's anxiety and mathematics learning: Developmental and gender variability

Abstract

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