Author(s)

Vanessa Hanin¹, Jacques Grégoire¹, Moïra Mikolajczak², Carole Fantini-Hauwel³, Catherine Van Nieuwenhoven¹

¹Department of Education Science, Université Catholique de Louvain, Louvain, Belgium.
²Department of Psychology, Université Catholique de Louvain, Louvain, Belgium.
³Department of Psychology, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Bruxelles, Belgium.

This article introduces the development and validation of a self-report questionnaire: the Children’s Emotion Regulation scale in Mathematics (CERS-M). Results highlighted a) through exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, a meaningful six-factor model (emotion expression, task utility self-persuasion, help-seeking, negative self-talk, brief attentional relaxation, and dysfunctional avoidance); b) satisfactory internal reliabilities; c) test-retest reliability scores indicative of a satisfactory stability of the measures over time; d) preliminary evidence of convergent and discriminant validity with CERS-M being very weakly linked to verbal skill and moderately to emotion regulation strategies measured through the Flemish version of the COPE-questionnaire; e) preliminary evidence of criterion validity, with CERS-M scores predicting math anxiety, and to a lesser extent, students’ performance; f) preliminary evidence of incremental validity, with the CERS-M predicting math anxiety and performance over and above emotion regulation measured by the COPE-questionnaire. Findings constitute encouraging preliminary psychometric characteristics in favor of the use of the CERS-M.

Scale Development, Emotion Regulation, Evidence of Validity and Reliability, Mathematics Problem-Solving, Upper Elementary Students

Hanin, V. , Grégoire, J. , Mikolajczak, M. , Fantini-Hauwel, C. and Nieuwenhoven, C. (2017) Children’s Emotion Regulation Scale in Mathematics (CERS-M): Development and Validation of a Self-Reported Instrument. Psychology, 8, 2240-2275. doi: 10.4236/psych.2017.813143.