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  • Investigating the Relations between Students' Affective States and the Coherence in their Activities in Open-Ended Learning Environments
Title: Investigating the Relations between Students' Affective States and the Coherence in their Activities in Open-Ended Learning Environments
Open-ended learning environments (OELEs) have become an important tool for promoting constructivist STEM learning. OELEs are known to promote student engagement and facilitate a deeper understanding of STEM topics. Despite their benefits, OELEs present significant challenges to novice learners who may lack the self-regulated learning (SRL) processes they need to become effective learners and problem solvers. Recent studies have revealed the importance of the relationship between students' affective states, cognitive processes, and performance in OELEs. Yet, the relations between students' use of cognitive processes and their corresponding affective states have not been studied in detail. In this paper, we investigate the relations between studentsż˝f affective states and the coherence in their cognitive strategies as they work on developing causal models of scientific processes in the XYZ OELE. Our analyses and results demonstrate that there are significant differences in the coherence of cognitive strategies used by high- and low-performing students. As a result, there are also significant differences in the affective states of the high- and low-performing students that are related to the coherence of their cognitive activities. This research contributes valuable empirical evidence on studentsż˝f cognitive-affective dynamics in OELEs, emphasizing the subtle ways in which students' understanding of their cognitive processes impacts their emotional reactions in learning environments.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
2112635
PAR ID:
10545269
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ; ;
Editor(s):
Benjamin, Paaßen; Carrie, Demmans Epp
Publisher / Repository:
International Educational Data Mining Society
Date Published:
Format(s):
Medium: X
Right(s):
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
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