Measuring Math Anxiety Among Predominantly Underrepresented Minority Undergraduates Using the Abbreviated Math Anxiety Scale

Many students experience math anxiety, which can negatively affect their academic achievement and even their career choices. One of the most commonly used methods to assess math anxiety is the Abbreviated Math Anxiety Scale (AMAS). Despite the ubiquity of this measure, there is a lack of studies assessing its validity. Moreover, almost all studies have administered the AMAS to a predominantly (>75%) White sample. The present study assessed the validity of the AMAS in a largely underrepresented minority-student (Hispanics and Blacks) sample. The construct validity of the scale was established by showing that students’ AMAS was predictive of both their actual (objective) and predicted (subjective) performance on an arithmetic task. The factor structure of the measure was validated by confirming that the two-factor model was a better fit than the one-factor model. Gender invariance was supported using multi-group confirmatory factor analyses. Overall, the results of the present study provide further evidence on the validity of the AMAS and its use among underrepresented minority college students.

Development and Initial Validation of the Nonparticipation in Nonformal Education Questionnaire

Nonformal adult education (NFE) provides adults with the opportunity to obtain competences needed to adapt to today’s changing job market. Despite the well-documented positive effects of NFE, there remains a lack of valid research instruments to assess factors of nonparticipation. Specifically, defining the perspectives of social groups with the highest incidence of barriers and the lowest level of participation in NFE has not been a primary research goal. This study describes the development and initial validation of a novel research tool entitled the Nonparticipation in Nonformal Education Questionnaire (NP-NFE-Q). The analysis covers the use of the NP-NFE-Q on a representative sample of the adult population ( n = 878) as well as three additional cohorts: low-educated workers ( n = 227), persons caring for children under the age of three ( n = 227), and retired persons ( n = 232). The results consistently support the validation of a correlated five-factor model, which includes two situational, one institutional and two dispositional factors.

The Anti-Mattering Scale: Development, Psychometric Properties and Associations With Well-Being and Distress Measures in Adolescents and Emerging Adults

Previous work has focused on positive feelings of mattering, which pertain to the human need to feel significant. In the current article, we examine a complementary yet distinct construct involving feelings of not mattering that may arise from being marginalized and experiences that heighten a sense of being insignificant to others. We also describe the development, validation, and research applications of the Anti-Mattering Scale. The Anti-Mattering Scale (AMS) is a five-item inventory assessing feelings of not mattering to other people. Psychometric analyses of data from samples of emerging adults and adolescents confirmed that the AMS comprises one factor with high internal consistency and adequate validity. Our findings suggest that individuals who feel like they do not matter to others have a highly negative self-view, insecure attachment, and perceived deficits in meeting key psychological needs. Analyses established that links between elevated AMS scores and levels of depression, social anxiety, and loneliness. Most notably, scores on this new measure predicted unique variance in key outcomes beyond the variance attributable to other predictors. Overall, these results attest to the research utility and clinical potential of the AMS as an instrument examining the tendency of certain people to experience a profound sense of not mattering to others in ways that represent a unique source of risk, social disconnection, and personal vulnerability.

Faculty Perceptions of Mattering in Teaching and Learning: A Qualitative Examination of the Views, Values, and Teaching Practices of Award-Winning Professors

We summarize qualitative research conducted on the mattering construct and then describe a qualitative investigation focused on mattering as a key aspect of the relational factors which influence the learning and development of students. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 professors recognized for their teaching excellence. Specifically, we assessed professors’ attitudes towards student perceptions of mattering and awareness of mattering in terms of their own self-reported beliefs, attitudes, and teaching practices that convey to students that they matter. Thematic analysis confirmed that almost all the award-winning professors interviewed recognized students’ need to matter and found effective ways to convey to students that they matter. These professors tended to be more similar than different in their approaches and attitudes. Key themes included the need for professors to show students they care about them as students and as people, seeing and treating students as individuals who are collaborators in the learning process, and the need to avoid anti-mattering micro-practices that can result in students becoming disengaged and disillusioned. We discuss these findings in terms of how an explicit focus on mattering promotion is warranted as a central attribute of effective teaching and learning, how the current findings enhance understanding of the mattering construct and how it should be assessed.

An Introduction, Review, and Conceptual Analysis of Mattering as an Essential Construct and an Essential Way of Life

While the importance of having self-esteem is widely recognized and has been studied extensively, another core component of the self-concept has been relatively neglected—a sense of mattering to other people. In the current article, it is argued that mattering is an entirely unique and complex psychological construct with great public appeal and applied significance. The various ways of assessing mattering are reviewed and evidence is summarized, indicating that mattering is a vital construct in that deficits in mattering are linked with consequential outcomes at the individual level (i.e., depression and suicidal tendencies), the relationship level (i.e., relationship discord and dissolution), and the societal level (i.e., delinquency and violence). Contemporary research is described which shows that mattering typically predicts unique variance in key outcomes beyond other predictor variables. Mattering is discussed as double-edged in that mattering is highly protective but feelings of not mattering are deleterious, especially among people who have been marginalized and mistreated. The article concludes with an extended discussion of key directions for future research and an overview of the articles in this special issue. It is argued that a complete view of the self and personal identity will only emerge after we significantly expand the scope of inquiry on the psychology of mattering.

Development and Validation of the Digital Addiction Scale for Teenagers (DAST)

We present the development and validation of the Digital Addiction Scale for Teenagers (DAST), describing the pilot study ( N = 40 students) and main study ( N = 4493) with Estonian students aged 11–19, in spring 2020. Our aim was to create a scale suitable for psychoeducational assessment of teenagers’ behaviour and feelings towards digital devices. We used the mixed research framework . Half of the study sample was collected before the coronavirus crisis (Sample I: 1972 students) and the rest during a distance-learning period (Sample II: 2521 students). We found that factor structure in both subsamples were similar. The DAST shows a negative relationship with emotional school engagement and life satisfaction and positive correlations with school burnout, learning difficulties and screen time. We discuss potential uses of the scale for assessing health-related digital competences.

Depression Symptoms, Mattering, and Anti-mattering: Longitudinal Associations in Young Adulthood

We examined the dynamic interplay of depression symptoms, mattering (i.e., self-evaluation of importance or significance to others), and anti-mattering across four years of development in young adulthood (age 20–23; N = 452) using a cross-lagged panel model (CLPM). Support for a transactional model between anti-mattering and depression symptoms was found. Specifically, anti-mattering positively predicted later depression symptoms and depression symptoms consistently predicted later anti-mattering. Depression symptoms also shared a negative association with later mattering but not the reverse, supporting a symptoms-driven model of depression symptoms and mattering. Auto-regressive paths, residual covariances, and cross-lagged paths were invariant over time. Accounting for gender, household income, parental education, and fear of COVID-19 as covariates did not change the results. The stability of mattering and anti-mattering suggest careful consideration of how to effectively change these patterns. The implications for assessment and intervention on mattering or anti-mattering in the prevention and treatment of depression are discussed.

Adaptation and Validation of a Chinese Online Self-Regulated Learning Questionnaire

This study aimed to adapt and validate a Chinese version of the online self-regulated learning questionnaire (COSLQ) with Chinese junior secondary students in Hong Kong. A total of 716 students from six schools participated voluntarily in the study. Overall, the findings of this study supported the COSLQ’s psychometric quality. The COSLQ subscales all demonstrated high internal consistency. Different measurement models were tested using confirmatory factor analysis. The results indicated that a 7-factor model best fit the data, suggesting that the participants could distinguish seven types of online self-regulatory strategies: goal setting, environment structuring, time management, effort regulation, cognitive/monitoring strategies, help seeking, and self-evaluation.

Mattering and Anti-Mattering in Emotion Regulation and Life Satisfaction: A Mediational Analysis of Stress and Distress During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The current study focused primarily on the associations that feelings of not mattering have with life satisfaction, stress, and distress among students trying to cope with the uncertain and novel circumstances brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. A sample of 350 University students from Italy completed measures that included the General Mattering Scale and the Anti-Mattering Scale, as well as measures of self-esteem, difficulties in emotion regulation, life satisfaction, perceived stress, anxiety, and depression. Psychometric analyses confirmed the factor structure, reliability, and validity of the General Mattering Scale and the Anti-Mattering Scale. As expected, feelings of not mattering were associated with lower life satisfaction as well as with greater reported difficulties in emotion regulation, stress, and distress. Mattering and self-esteem were both unique predictors of levels of life satisfaction during the pandemic. The results of mediational analyses suggested that individuals who feel as though they do not matter may be especially vulnerable to stress, depression, and anxiety and this may promote a decline in life satisfaction. Given the potential destructiveness of feelings of not mattering, in general but especially during a global pandemic, it is essential to proactively develop interventions and programs that are designed to enhance feelings of mattering and reduce anti-mattering experiences and feelings.