Relation of state- and trait-math anxiety to intelligence, math achievement and learning motivation

Abstract

This study investigates math anxiety (MA) by comparing trait-components of MA with real-time assessments of situational anxiety responses (state-components) in children. The research to date on MA in children is somewhat disparate in regard to methodology, and firm conclusions regarding the relation of MA to intelligence, math achievement and learning motivation are not readily drawn. Typically, the measures used in the MA research have differed by operationalizing either trait-MA and/or state- (or statelike)-MA, but have failed to compare the implications of their respective assumptions and the significance of their findings. Trait-MA and state-MA, self-ratings of math skills, attitudes towards mathematics, math achievement, the social anxiety, test anxiety, learning motivation and intelligence of 1,179 students (48.1% girls) from grades 4 and 5, were assessed. The findings yield evidence of a pronounced state-trait discrepancy. A negative correlation between state-MA and math achievement was observed for all intelligence levels, even when controlling for test- and social-anxiety traits, while there was no negative relation between trait-MA and achievement. State-MA was associated with lower intelligence, lower self-ratings, more negative attitudes, higher performance avoidance and work avoidance goals. In contrast, trait-MA was slightly related to higher mastery approach goals. The failure to adequately differentiate between state- and trait-based research into MA appears to be one reason for key inconsistencies between research findings and warrants further investigations.

The effectiveness of an adaptive digital educational game for the training of early numerical abilities in terms of cognitive, noncognitive and efficiency outcomes

“…Noncognitive factors MA was assessed with the Kinder-Angst-Test-III (KAT-III) (Orbach, Herzog, & Fritz, 2019;Tewes & Naumann, 2017) (Appendix S6). The items of the KAT-III were translated to Dutch.…”

A latent profile analysis of math anxiety and core beliefs towards mathematics among children

“…In contrast to MSC, longitudinal data suggests that math achievement predicts negative attitudes later on, but no reverse effect of attitudes to performance exists (Ma & Xu, 2004). Generally, math attitudes are negatively related to MA (r = -0.10 to -0.47) and positively associated with math performance (r = 0.15 to 0.54) in young children (Dowker et al, 2012(Dowker et al, , 2019Recber et al, 2018;Orbach et al, 2019b), even when controlling for intelligence, working memory (WM) and MA (Chen et al, 2018). Interestingly, recent findings indicate that the neurocognitive mechanism differ between math attitudes and MA.…”

“…MA and its negative impacts on numerical reasoning and number manipulation can already be identified in the first years of primary school (e.g., Cargnelutti et al, 2017;Gunderson et al, 2018). Although MA is related to other anxiety forms, its phenomenology is distinct (Ashcraft & Ridley, 2005;Malanchini et al, 2017), and the negative impacts cannot be reduced to social, test and general anxiety (Wu et al, 2012;Orbach et al, 2019b). Recent meta-analyses (Namkung et al, 2019;Zhang et al, 2019;Barroso et al, 2021) found small to moderate negative correlations (r = -.28 to -.34) between MA and math performance but also indicated that math tests and MA-assessments modulate the MA-performance link.…”

“…However, with regard to the specificity-matching principle (Swann et al, 2007), domain-specific selfconcepts (SC) are higher related to domain-specific outcomes than general SC or global constructs (McWilliams et al, 2013). Overall, math-SC (MSC) of school-aged children has a reciprocal relation to math outcomes (Marsh et al, 2018) and is negatively associated with MA (r = -0.14 to -0.48; Lee, 2009;Ahmed et al, 2012;Justicia-Galiano et al, 2017;Mammarella et al, 2018;Orbach et al, 2019b). Longitudinal analysis indicate that higher levels of MA predict lower MSC and vice versa (Ahmed et al, 2012), while mediation analysis found a mediation effect of MSC on the MA-performance link (Justicia-Galiano et al, 2017).…”

“…Until now, research on MA is mostly realized by correlation and regression analyses, which are predominately based on assessments of one MA-variable. Besides the fact that MA-assessments for children differ in relation to their conceptualization of MA (Orbach et al, 2019b) -making comparability of study results difficult -, these one-variable-centered analyses are not able to examine multidimensional interrelationships between anxiety states and trait-dispositions (Wang et al, 2018). As a result, the current research status provides only weak information about anxietybeliefs-interrelationships and does not take different heterogenous groups of math-anxious children into account.…”