Test anxiety is a phenomenon that can be commonly encountered at school. Test anxiety can be seen as a substantial non-intellectual factor affecting the quality of pupils' school work. In the literature we can find a form of fear and anxiety negatively related to school performance, however we can also find a form of anxiety that facilitates school work and results in improved performance. The thesis focuses on test anxiety and fear and examines its form among pupils in mathematics. Using the questionnaire survey in 8th grades of primary schools, we were mapping motivational situation with emphasis on test anxiety in the domain of mathematics and test anxiety before and after perfoming two mathematical tasks. We were interested in a form of test anxiety in mathematics and whether test anxiety in mathematics overlaps with the anxiety in the school task situation. We focused mainly on the evaluative situation itself. We examined the existence of several components of test anxiety (with the regard to basic distinction between emotional and cognitive dimension) with an emphasis on their links with school performance, the direction in which fear ad anxiety affect performance (facilitating, debilitating) and the links among test anxiety and other characteristics. We also pay attention to overlap of fear...

TITLE: Indicators of Captivation in Mathematics AUTHOR: Eliška Kmínková DEPARTMENT: Department of psychology, Faculty of Pedagogy, Charles University in Prague SUPERVISOR: Doc. PhDr. Isabella Pavelková CSc. ABSTRACT: The objective of the presented research is to map which various motivational factors play an important role in school task situation, more precisely during working on mathematics task. We focus especially on situational motivation but also on long-term motivational characteristics. We verify pupils' captivation through behavioral, cognitive and emotional indicators. We ascertain the impact of captivation on pupil's work on the task and subsequently pupil's achievement in the task. We theoretically analyze especially the following motivational variables: attitudes to school subject, motivation to learn, individual interest, situational interest, target orientation, achievement motivation, flow experience and self-efficacy. We verify the theoretic fundaments in an experiment that was realized in 2012 at various types of primary schools in mathematics. This study used a questionnaire survey approach, tasks done by children and interviews with mathematics teachers to collect data. For data analysis we used quantitative and qualitative approach. Results reveal captivation has not positive impact on...

This study investigated the usefulness of the Black Box Test of Learning Ability as an indicator of children's performance on math and writing tasks. Twelve second grade students, seven to eight years of age, demonstrated naivete on both tasks and were subsequently individually administered the learning test. The subjects were divided into two groups, and each group received a different task presentation order. Composite scores were derived for all subjects and tasks, and individual learning curves were compared. The combined Black Test score produced a significantly high correlate to math (rho = .733) and writing (rho = .841) than either the paired associate or sequential learning tasks alone. Although the length of the learning curve of the BBT was indicative of the learning curve lengths for each school task, trial by trial learning curve comparisons were less reliable. Analysis of these data suggested that the method of instruction (i.e., the amount of attempted practice and appropriate feedback) was the major factor correlating the Black Box Test to each school task. It was suggested that the most useful assessment of "learning ability" would employ a behavioral sample of the task itself, rather than utilize a correlated activity.

Syftet med föreliggande studie är att genom en komparativ funktionell textanalys jämföra textuella och språkliga drag i en skriftlig respektive talsyntetiserad version av svensklärares uppgiftsinstruktioner. Studiens teoretiska ramverk grundar sig på J.Ongs (1991) beskrivning av muntliga och skriftliga uttrycksformer där särskild vikt läggs på begreppet sekundär talspråklighet. Vidare grundas studien på en induktiv ansats.Studien bygger på kvalitativa data där empirin bestod av uppgiftsinstruktioner som är skrivna av verksamma svensklärare på gymnasial nivå. Samtliga uppgiftsinstruktioner blev upplästa och analyserade genom talsyntesprogrammet Oribi Speak. Resultatet visar att talsyntesen brister i läsflyt och beror främst på en avsaknad av punkt som finalt skiljetecken. Studiens slutsats är att talsyntesen kan ses göra anspråk på andra skrivregler än de som anses vara allmänt vedertagna. Höga krav ställs således på textförfattaren och förutsätter en medvetenhet kring hur en text bör utformas för att vara kompatibel med talsyntes. / The aim of this study has been to through a comparative functional text analysis comparing textual and linguistic features in a written and synthesized version of assignment instructions made by Swedish native teachers. Furthermore, the study is permeated by J. Ongs (1991) description of oral and written forms of expressions whereas the concept of secondary orality is of special importance.The study is based on a qualitative method, where the empirical data was collected by assignment instructions made by high school teachers educating in the subject Swedish. The empirical data consisted of assignment instructions where all were read and analyzed through the text-to-speech program Oribi Speak. The result shows that Text-To-Speech (TTS) presents deficiencies regarding reading flow and is mainly due to a lack of point and final punctuation. The study's conclusion is thereby that the TTS can be seen inferring to claim writing rules other than those considered to be generally valid. High demands are placed on the author of the text and requires an awareness of how a text should be designed to be compatible with text-to-speech programs.