The nature of math anxiety in adults: Prevalence and correlates

Hart, Sara A.; Ganley, Colleen M.

doi:10.5964/jnc.v5i2.195

Cited by 80 publications

(78 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…The means for math, test, and state anxiety were all at or just below the midpoint of the scales, suggesting this is not a particularly math-or test-anxious sample, and that participants did not experience high levels of anxiety before the math test (state anxiety). These means are similar to those found in other studies using these measures (e.g., Cassady & Finch, 2015;Ganley & Vasilyeva, 2014;Hart & Ganley, 2019). Performance on the math test was low, but there was sufficient variability (see Figure S1 in the Supplementary Materials for a histogram of scores).…”

Section: Preliminary Analysessupporting

confidence: 87%

The effect of brief anxiety interventions on reported anxiety and math test performance

et al. 2021

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Research suggests that math and test anxiety have detrimental impacts on performance in math. To prevent these effects, a number of interventions have been developed, but these interventions have not been extensively tested. In the current study, we examine whether four brief anxiety interventions reduce state anxiety and/or increase math performance. We also examine whether any of the interventions weaken the relation between math or test anxiety and math performance. Participants were 300 college students varying in math and test anxiety levels. Participants were randomly assigned to one of four single-session interventions, which each took 5 minutes or less (reappraisal as challenge, reappraisal as excitement, expressive writing, and look ahead), or a no intervention control group. Results generally show that none of the interventions had an effect on reports of state anxiety or performance on a difficult math assessment, with the exception that students in the expressive writing condition reported higher levels of state anxiety. None of the interventions served to attenuate the relation between math or test anxiety and math performance. These findings were not consistent with results of previous work, and suggest that interventions may need to be more extensive in order to have an effect on state anxiety and math performance.

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Section: Preliminary Analysessupporting

confidence: 87%

The effect of brief anxiety interventions on reported anxiety and math test performance

et al. 2021

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“…Another source of evidence for a link between math anxiety and math avoidance has focused on decisions to engage in STEM, examining the relative math anxiety levels of students in STEM vs. non-STEM majors and of adults in STEM vs. non-STEM careers. Individuals in non-STEM majors and in non-STEM careers report significantly higher levels of math anxiety than those in STEM majors 5 , 7 and careers 8 , respectively. Longitudinal work by Ahmed 9 found that twelfth-grade high school students who had either been consistently high in math anxiety since middle school or who had become highly math-anxious over time were less likely to hold a STEM career as adults than students who either had consistently low levels of math anxiety from middle school through high school or who had become less math-anxious since middle school.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 86%

First-year students’ math anxiety predicts STEM avoidance and underperformance throughout university, independently of math ability

et al. 2021

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Math anxiety is widely considered a potential barrier to success in STEM. Current thinking holds that math anxiety is directly linked to avoidance of and underperformance in STEM domains. However, past evidence supporting these claims is limited in important ways. Perhaps most crucially, it is possible that math anxiety predicts STEM outcomes merely as a proxy for poor math skills. Here, we tested the link between math anxiety and subsequent STEM outcomes by measuring math anxiety, math ability, and several covariates in 183 first-semester university students. We then tracked students’ STEM avoidance and achievement through four years at university via official academic transcripts. Results showed that math anxiety predicted both a reduction in how many STEM courses students took and, separately (i.e., controlling for one another), lower STEM grades. Crucially, these associations held after controlling for math ability (and other covariates). That math anxiety predicts math-related academic achievement independently of Math Ability suggests that, contrary to current thinking, math anxiety’s effects on academic performance likely operate via mechanisms other than negatively affecting math ability. Beyond this, we show evidence that math anxiety can account for associations between math ability and STEM outcomes, suggesting that past links between math ability and real-world outcomes may, in fact, be at least partially explainable by attitudes toward math. These findings provide clear impetus for developing and testing interventions that target math anxiety specifically and suggest that focusing on math ability without additional attention to math anxiety may fail to optimally boost STEM outcomes.

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“…Indeed, the Single-Item Measure of Math Anxiety (SIMA), which consists of asking: "On a scale from 1 to 10, how math anxious are you?" from 1 = not anxious and 10 = very anxious, has shown moderate to high correlations with the 25-item sMARS [19][20][21] . Further, it offers relatively high stability over a seven-week period 19 , suggesting that longer-form measures asking participants about math anxiety across various formal (e.g., taking a math class) and informal contexts (e.g., calculating a tip) may not be necessary.…”

Section: Measurement Of Math Anxietymentioning

confidence: 97%

Conceptualizing the Factor Structure of Parents’ Math Anxiety and Associations with Children’s Mathematics Skills

Cosso¹,

Ellis²,

O'Rear³

et al. 2021

Preprint

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There is a growing literature examining the association between parents’ math anxiety and children’s mathematics skills. Previous research has considered parents’ math anxiety as a unidimensional construct that primarily focused on parents’ experiences doing mathematics themselves. However, this research did not account for parents’ experiences when doing mathematics with their children. Thus, there were two goals of the present study: 1) to identify the structure of parents’ math anxiety when considering context-dependent situations, and 2) to determine whether parent math anxiety was related to children’s early numeracy skills. We conducted a series of confirmatory factor analyses using a sample of 155 preschool children (M age = 4.20 years, SD = 0.71; 51% female). The best-fitting model of parents’ math anxiety was a bifactor model, suggesting parents’ math anxiety was best conceptualized as a multidimensional construct. However, structural equation models showed parent math anxiety was not a significant predictor of children’s numeracy performance. These findings provide a foundation for understanding parents’ math anxiety as multidimensional and raise questions about potential mechanisms that may explain prior work finding mixed relations between math anxiety and children’s numeracy performance.

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The nature of math anxiety in adults: Prevalence and correlates

Cited by 80 publications

References 42 publications

The effect of brief anxiety interventions on reported anxiety and math test performance

The effect of brief anxiety interventions on reported anxiety and math test performance

First-year students’ math anxiety predicts STEM avoidance and underperformance throughout university, independently of math ability

Conceptualizing the Factor Structure of Parents’ Math Anxiety and Associations with Children’s Mathematics Skills

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