A hack for learning math: starting and ending on high notes to create a more pleasurable learning experience

Abstract

The present study focuses on creating a more pleasurable learning experience for students learning maths. Participants completed two lists of maths problems, a short list of only difficult maths problems and an extended list with both difficult maths problems and moderately difficult maths problems, placed in the beginning, end, or both beginning and end of the list. When asked to choose a third list to complete, participants preferred one of the extended list over the short list and found the extended lists to be less discomforting. Of the three types of extended lists, participants reported the one in which the moderately difficult maths problems were situated at both the beginning and end of the list to be the least discomforting. Participants self-reported maths anxiety did not moderate these effects. However, participants’ maths anxiety was negatively correlated with predicted and actual maths performance and positively correlated with discomfort ratings. These results suggest that by creating lists of maths problems in which the relatively easier problems are given before or after the more difficult maths problems, educators can create a more favourable learning experience that could help both maths-anxious and nonmath-anxious students practice more maths problems.

Keywords:

• Learning experience
• maths anxiety
• maths performance
• peak-end
• retrospective evaluations

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Dionelly Escobar, Viridiana Carmona Serrano, Alexis Ortega, and Luis Saldivar for their assistant with data collection. The data reported in the manuscript are available from the author upon request.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).