Tracing Mathematics Engagement in the First Year of High School: Relationships between Prior Experience, Observed Support, and Task-Level Emotion and Motivation

We examined the relationships between different aspects of mathematics engagement for 285 students in their first year of high school in the United States. Path Analyses were used to trace the relationships between students' self-reported prior motivation and appraisals of control and value of mathematics, perceptions of teacher support and peer support. These variables and observed teacher and peer support as coded from video by researchers, were examined as potentially impacting students' self-reported in-the moment affect and task-level control and value appraisals Our results showed three key contributions. First, significant paths corresponded to relationships predicted by Control Value Theory (CVT) across a particularly robust set of variables and over the course of their first semester in high school. Second, results added further nuance by considering the objects that students' in-the-moment emotions were directed toward, showing distinctions between positive and negative emotions directed at the mathematics task, students' teachers and peers, and selves. Third, results more closely considered the impact of both observed and perceived aspect of support from peers and teachers in the classroom, in both its academic and social forms. Implications are discussed for theory and practice.