How is the conceptual level of students associated with learning outcomes in math? Testing the mediating role of math anxiety and the moderating role of motivating style

The conceptual level is a learning style with growth characteristics that has important implications for both student learning and instruction. The main value of the conceptual level is the assertion that instruction should match the student's conceptual level maximize the benefits of instruction. Following this "matching" perspective of conceptual level theory, this is the first study to propose that the motivating style of math teachers affects the math anxiety levels of students with different conceptual level, which subsequently affects their learning outcomes. It is explored whether math anxiety mediates the relationship between the conceptual level and learning outcomes among junior high school students, and whether the motivating style of math teachers moderates the relationship between the conceptual level and math anxiety of students. The theoretical model was tested on a sample of 225 junior high school students in China (M_age = 14.09 ± 0.54, SD = 0.54). Mediation analysis revealed that math anxiety mediated the relationship between the conceptual level and learning outcomes (math test scores, academic self-efficacy in math and satisfaction with math teaching). Further moderated mediation tests revealed that the relationship between the conceptual level and math anxiety is moderated by the motivating style of math teachers. The results of the moderating effects of motivating style indicate that the math anxiety of low conceptual level students is higher than that of high conceptual level students, subsequently leading to lower learning outcomes. Furthermore, low conceptual level students exhibited significantly higher math anxiety under the matching mode of motivating style as compared to the mismatching mode, leading to lower learning outcomes. In contrast, the matching/mismatching mode of motivating style did not affect the math anxiety of high conceptual level students.