The impacts of math anxiety, science anxiety, and gender on arts versus sciences choices in Qatari secondary schools

Abstract

Previous studies showed small-to-moderate associations between students’ performances in math and science and math anxiety and science anxiety, respectively. Accordingly, the high prevalence of these two forms of topic anxiety represent severe obstructions to the worldwide demand calling for improving the quality of math and science achievements and, subsequently, increasing career success in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) domains. Therefore, this study examined math anxiety and science anxiety among female and male students who were enrolled in Sciences vs Arts tracks in Grades 11 and 12 in a Middle Eastern Arabic-speaking country (Qatar), and investigated how gender, math anxiety and science anxiety could predict this enrollment. Results showed that students in the Arts track experienced higher levels of math anxiety and science anxiety than those in the Sciences track, regardless of the students’ gender. However, a binary logistic regression analysis showed that science learning anxiety, but not evaluation science anxiety nor math learning or evaluation anxieties, significantly predicts students’ enrollment in Arts and Sciences tracks. Therefore, STEM career success is associated with good knowledge of STEM domains and positive emotions towards math and science.

The Arabic version of the modified-abbreviated math anxiety scale: Psychometric properties, gender differences, and associations with different forms of anxiety and math achievement

“…Any intervention would not be possible unless an accurate assessment is provided using a reliable measure with adequate psychometric proprieties. This is particularly important for high school students who might have a broader repertoire of negative experiences in math (e.g., for a review see Ashcraft et al, 2007 ), especially because high levels of math anxiety was found to be a critical factor for avoiding STEM-related courses and careers ( Megreya and Al-Emadi, in press ).…”

“…Math anxiety refers to the feelings of fear, tension, and apprehension upon exposure to math-related materials during learning and assessment, which elicit a range of personal, educational, and cognitive consequences ( Ashcraft, 2002 ). For example, individuals with high levels of math anxiety tend to avoid math subjects at school and university levels, consequently influencing their prospective career choices and performance in everyday life activities ( Moustafa et al, 2020 ; Megreya and Al-Emadi, in press ). According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development’s report, the prevalence rate of math anxiety in 15-year old students is 30% ( OECD, 2019 ).…”

A large‐scale study on the prevalence of math anxiety in Qatar

“…Notably, MA was previously found to strongly correlate with general anxiety and test anxiety (e.g. Megreya & Al-Emadi, 2023). Therefore, students in Arabic F I G U R E 3 The frequency percentages of low, moderate and high MA students for each item on the m-AMAS using the whole sample.…”

“…Future studies need to examine the prevalence of MA among primary school children using more than one scale across different countries. Nevertheless, this is the first study to examine MA using very large samples of students, representing about 17% of student population from Grades 7 to 12 in Qatar, using one of the most common scales of MA (m-AMAS), which has been validated in several cultures including Middle Eastern Arabic speaking countries (Megreya & Al-Emadi, 2023). Future studies could aim at a direct comparison of samples from different culture spaces.…”

“…Some of the well‐investigated emotions in education are different forms of anxiety, especially math anxiety (MA) which is commonly defined as the ‘feelings of tension and anxiety that interfere with the manipulation of numbers and the solving of mathematical problems in a wide variety of ordinary life and academic situations’ (Richardson & Suinn, 1972, p.551). Therefore, MA might negatively influence students' preferences of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) programmes (Daker et al., 2021; Megreya & Al‐Emadi, 2023). Prior negative experiences with math such as low academic performance (Zhang et al., 2019) and genetic/environmental factors such as having highly math‐anxious parents (Becker et al., 2022) were found to be associated with MA.…”