Individual differences in nonverbal number skills predict math anxiety

Lindskog, Marcus; Winman, Anders; Poom, Leo

doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2016.11.014

Cited by 49 publications

(71 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…How might ANS acuity and math anxiety relate? In a sample of undergraduate students, Lindskog and colleagues [ 29 ] found that students with higher math anxiety had lower ANS acuity. Importantly, math anxiety fully mediated the association between ANS acuity and math performance.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

When approximate number acuity predicts math performance: The moderating role of math anxiety

Braham

Libertus

2018

PLoS ONE

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Separate lines of research suggest that people who are better at estimating numerical quantities using the approximate number system (ANS) have better math performance, and that people with high levels of math anxiety have worse math performance. Only a handful of studies have examined both ANS acuity and math anxiety in the same participants and those studies report contradictory results. To address these inconsistencies, in the current study 87 undergraduate students completed assessments of ANS acuity, math anxiety, and three different measures of math. We considered moderation models to examine the interplay of ANS acuity and math anxiety on different aspects of math performance. Math anxiety and ANS acuity were both unique significant predictors of the ability to automatically recall basic number facts. ANS acuity was also a unique significant predictor of the ability to solve applied math problems, and this relation was further qualified by a significant interaction with math anxiety: the positive association between ANS acuity and applied problem solving was only present in students with high math anxiety. Our findings suggest that ANS acuity and math anxiety are differentially related to various aspects of math and should be considered together when examining their respective influences on math ability. Our findings also raise the possibility that good ANS acuity serves as a protective factor for highly math-anxious students on certain types of math assessments.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

When approximate number acuity predicts math performance: The moderating role of math anxiety

Braham

Libertus

2018

PLoS ONE

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“…Although Lindskog et al . () found an interaction between math anxiety and distance effect in a non‐symbolic dot comparison task, it is worth remembering that in their experiment, the dot sets to be compared were presented in an intermixed way. This apparently small difference in the experimental design means an increase in processing demands (Price, Palmer, Battista, & Ansari, ) that might have particularly hampered the performance of HMA participants.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…A year later, Maloney, Ansari, and Fugelsang () found that HMA individuals showed a larger numerical distance effect in a comparison task on two one‐digit Arabic numbers; that is, HMA were slower than their LMA counterparts as the distance between numbers was reduced (convergent psychophysiological evidence was reported in Núñez‐Peña & Suárez‐Pellicioni, ). Consistent with this second proposal, Lindskog, Winman, and Poom () claimed that HMA individuals have a poorer approximate number system (ANS) or pre‐verbal number representation than their LMA peers. However, not all previous studies support this hypothesis.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 88%

Number line estimation in highly math‐anxious individuals

Peña

Colomé

Aguilar-Lleyda

2018

British J of Psychology

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In this study, we aimed to investigate the difficulties highly math-anxious individuals (HMA) may face when having to estimate a number's position in a number line task. Twenty-four HMA and 24 low math-anxiety (LMA) individuals were presented with four lines with endpoints 0-100, 0-1,000, 0-100,000, and 267-367 on a computer monitor on which they had to mark the correct position of target numbers using the mouse. Although no differences were found between groups in the frequency of their best-fit model, which was linear for all lines, the analysis of slopes and intercepts for the linear model showed that the two groups differed in performance on the less familiar lines (267-367 and 0-100,000). Lower values for the slope and higher values for the intercept were found in the HMA group, suggesting that they tended to overestimate small numbers and underestimate large numbers on these non-familiar lines. Percentage absolute error analyses confirmed that HMA individuals were less accurate than their LMA counterparts on these lines, although no group differences were found in response time. These results indicate that math anxiety is related to worse performance only in the less familiar and more difficult number line tasks. Therefore, our data challenge the idea that HMA individuals might have less precise numerical representations and support the anxiety-complexity effect posited by Ashcraft and colleagues.

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“…The high mathematics anxiety in the entire sample might be a result of their previous debilitating engagement with mathematics. It has been established that majority of Nigerian students showed high level of mathematics anxiety (Awofala & Odogwu, 2017) and this might not be unconnected to their undesirable attitude transferred from their teachers, intellectual factors, and past failure in mathematics (Lindskog, Winman, & Poom, 2017). Majority of secondary school students showed poor performance in mathematics (Awofala, 2017) and mathematics anxiety has been fingered as a possible cause (Awofala, 2008) aside poor teaching methodology (Awofala, Arigbabu & Awofala, 2013) and negative attitudes towards mathematics (Awofala, 2016).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Several studies have identified causes of mathematics anxiety to include: undesirable attitude transfer from teachers, intellectual factors, and past failure in mathematics (Lindskog, Winman, & Poom, 2017) in which mathematics anxiety inhibits, distort and deplete working memory resources that consequently hamper mathematical skills (Ashcraft & Faust, 1994). Research has shown clearly that mathematics anxiety weakens number processing abilities (Lindskog, Winman, & Poom, 2017;Maloney, Ansari, & Fugelsang, 2011) but what is not clear is whether mathematics anxiety weakens the entire aspect of mathematics to the same level in early childhood pre-service teachers. One aspect of mathematical ability that is rarely researched concerning mathematics anxiety is numeracy (Skagerlund, Östergren, Västfjäll, & Träff, 2019) and it is startlingly to note that little is well-known regarding the contrivances by which mathematics anxiety impact numeracy skills in early childhood pre-service teachers.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mathematics Anxiety and Mathematics beliefs as Correlates of Early Childhood pre-Service Teachers' Numeracy Skills

Sopekan¹,

Awofala²

2019

PedActa

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The purpose of this study was to investigate mathematics anxiety and mathematics beliefs as correlates of early childhood pre-service teachers' numeracy skills in Nigeria. A crosssectional survey research design within quantitative methodology was adopted for the study involving 320 early childhood pre-service teachers from the University of Lagos. Three valid and reliable instruments were used for data collection and the collected data were analysed using mean, standard deviation, Pearson moment correlation and multiple regression analysis at 5% level of significance. Results showed that the majority of the early childhood pre-service teachers had high mathematics anxiety and high mathematical beliefs. While mathematical beliefs had significant positive correlations with early childhood pre-service teachers' numeracy skills, mathematics anxiety had a negative correlation with numeracy skills. Mathematical beliefs were a good predictor of early childhood pre-service teachers' numeracy skills. Based on these findings it was concluded that early childhood teacher education programme should include strategies to eliminate mathematics anxiety and foster constructivist mathematical beliefs capable of promoting early childhood pre-service teachers' numeracy skills.

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Individual differences in nonverbal number skills predict math anxiety

Cited by 49 publications

References 43 publications

When approximate number acuity predicts math performance: The moderating role of math anxiety

When approximate number acuity predicts math performance: The moderating role of math anxiety

Number line estimation in highly math‐anxious individuals

Mathematics Anxiety and Mathematics beliefs as Correlates of Early Childhood pre-Service Teachers' Numeracy Skills

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