Testing the specificity of links between anxiety and performance within mathematics and spatial reasoning

Abstract

Anxiety within the domains of math and spatial reasoning have consistently been shown to predict performance within those domains. However, little work has focused on how specific these associations are. Across two studies, we systematically tested the degree of specificity in relations between anxiety and performance within math and spatial reasoning. Results consistently showed that anxiety within a cognitive domain predicted performance in that domain even when controlling for other forms of anxiety, providing evidence that cognition-specific anxieties are valuable for understanding cognition-specific performance. We also found that general trait anxiety did not explain a significant portion the anxiety-performance link in either math or spatial reasoning, suggesting that these anxiety-performance associations are not due to the propensity to feel anxious generally. Interestingly, while spatial anxiety did not explain any of the anxiety-performance association in math, math anxiety did explain a significant portion of the anxiety-performance link in spatial reasoning. These results suggest that, while links between anxiety and performance cannot be reduced to a single underlying general anxiety construct, there may nevertheless be overlap between domain anxieties. We end by calling for a more detailed examination of the unique and shared mechanisms linking anxiety and performance across disparate cognitive domains.

Evidence for avoidance tendencies linked to anxiety about specific types of thinking

“…And while the present work focused specifically on links between cognition-specific anxieties and avoidance tendencies, we believe the idea behind this framework could be extended to better understand links between anxiety and performance within specific cognitive domains as well. While it is well-documented that those who are anxious about specific types of thinking underperform on tasks that involve the relevant type of thinking 1 , 3 , 4 , 6 , 31 , future work could address whether these associations are dependent on individual perceptions of how much a given task involved the type of thinking in question. To use the spatial domain as an example, some people may believe that a computer programming task involves a lot of spatial reasoning while others may believe it involves relatively little.…”

Children underperform following “math” but not “spatial” task framing.

“…Moreover, whether gender differences in spatial selfconcept exist in childhood is an open question. Critically, emerging work supports the potential that math and spatial anxieties are unique but contribute to cross-domain outcomes (Daker et al, 2022;Delage et al, 2021;Sokolowski et al, 2019). For example, recent work has found an explanatory role of spatial anxiety for gender differences in math anxiety in adulthood (Delage et al, 2021;Sokolowski et al, 2019), highlighting the importance of studying math and spatial attitudes concurrently.…”

“…Recent work has suggested that spatial attitudes may also be relevant for STEM success (Daker et al, 2022; Delage et al, 2021; Sokolowski et al, 2019). As expected, the handful of studies investigating spatial anxiety have revealed negative relations between spatial anxiety and performance on spatial tasks such as mental rotation, both in adults and elementary-school-aged children (Alvarez-Vargas et al, 2020; Lauer et al, 2018; Ramirez et al, 2012).…”

“…Additionally, as early as first grade, children endorse math and spatial gender stereotypes, associating these domains with boys and men (e.g., Cvencek et al, 2011; Moè, 2018). However, though emerging work suggests math and spatial attitudes are related in adulthood (Daker et al, 2022; Delage et al, 2021; Sokolowski et al, 2019), how math and spatial attitudes compare in childhood, and how gender differences in these attitudes vary across childhood, remain open questions. Further, little is known how and when these attitudes predict outcomes in STEM contexts early in development.…”

Examining relationships between chemistry anxiety, chemistry identity, and chemistry career choice in terms of gender: a comparative study using multigroup structural equation modelling

“…Firstly, few researchers investigated the relationship between chemistry anxiety, chemistry identity, and chemistry career choices. Research on understanding the relationship between anxiety, identity, and career choices is mostly in math fields, while these variables are domain-specific (Hosbein and Barbera, 2020;Daker et al, 2022). Secondly, previous studies examined identity and anxiety as unidimensional variables (Huang et al, 2018;Cribbs et al, 2021).…”