CAREER: Self-Regulation, Mathematics Achievement, and Mathematical Attitudes during the Third-Grade Transition

About This Grant

The third-grade year marks a significant shift in children's educational experiences, with increased behavioral expectations, more complex math curricula, and the onset of high-stakes standardized testing. Many children demonstrate challenges learning fractions, multiplication, and division, which can be exacerbated in high-poverty schools. At the same time, declines in math attitudes and school engagement emerge in upper elementary school and persist throughout children's schooling. Since elementary school math competencies and attitudes are key predictors of long-term STEM success, there is a pressing need to understand how better to support students during this transition. This CAREER project will examine how classroom experiences and self-regulation skills influence children's math achievement and attitudes as they move from second to third grade. The findings will have important implications for educational policy and practice, particularly in supporting students as they navigate the transition from second grade to third grade. The educational activities include information for teachers and parent education nights about how they can support children's STEM outcomes. This Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) project is funded by the EDU Core Research (ECR) program, which supports work that advances fundamental research on STEM education. This CAREER project integrates research and educational activities to examine the role of self-regulation skills for children's math achievement and attitudes, as well as how classroom experiences shift during math instruction from second grade to third grade in high-poverty schools. This study will employ a multi-method, longitudinal approach to identify whether self-regulation skills are linked to children's growth trajectories in math achievement and attitudes. The study will also document how classroom experiences change across this transition and determine whether classroom experiences moderate the relationship between self-regulation skills and children's math outcomes. They will measure executive functions and collect data using live classroom observation tools, computer-based assessments, and standardized tests. Findings from this research will inform strategies to support children's STEM success during the elementary school years. Integrated with this research, this CAREER will establish the Transitioning to Third (T3) Program, and begin to develop a sustainable university-school partnership designed to support students, teachers, and families during this critical transition. The T3 Program will cultivate early-career trainees' skills in data collection and public dissemination of research findings, provide research briefs for second-grade and third-grade teachers, and implement school-specific outreach programs for the parents of second-grade students. Third grade is widely recognized as a pivotal year for children's academic trajectories, yet little is known about how shifting classroom environments and children's self-regulation skills shape math learning and attitudes. New empirical data will be generated on this critical transition, advancing the fields of developmental science and education while identifying key targets for future intervention programs. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.