Math anxiety has always been a hot research topic in educational psychology. Previous studies have found a bidirectional relationship between math anxiety and math achievement. In other words, math anxiety can influence achievement outcomes by taking too much of one’s limited cognitive resources that are needed to solve a math problem correctly. However, low math ability, or poor at basic number processing such as counting, can lead to low math achievement, which then may generate math anxiety. While studies have been conducted to examine the nature of the relation between math anxiety and math achievement, several questions remain unknown: how does the negative relationship between math anxiety and math achievement found in previous studies influences younger and older populations? Do factors such as types of measures of math behavior interact with math anxiety to impact student math achievement?
To address these gaps in the literature, Barroso et al. (2021) conducted a meta-analysis of 223 relevant studies to examine both the relation between math anxiety, math achievement and the factors influencing this relationship. Some factors of interest include gender, race/ethnicity, country, grade level, teachers, math ability, and types of math measures.
The results showed a small to moderate correlation between math anxiety and math achievement for populations ranging from students as young as grades 1 to non-student adults. The results for math ability, math anxiety, and math achievement contradict previous findings showing the relationship between math anxiety and math achievement was weaker for samples with low math ability than those with high math ability. In other words, for people who have poor basic math skills, their math anxiety levels are not related to their math achievement outcomes as strongly as people who are high math performers. Moreover, The researchers found that the ‘cognitive worry’ component of math anxiety, referring to negative expectations and self-deprecating thoughts toward a math situation, has a stronger relationship with math achievement than other components such as math evaluation (responses toward studying for or taking math tests) and learning anxiety (responses toward math learning situations). This result supports previous findings that anxious thoughts distract one’s attention from completing a math problem, which then may undermine efficiency and accuracy on math-relevant tasks.
In addition, the meta-analysis revealed a stronger and more negative relationship between math achievement and math anxiety for standardized or unstandardized tests made for research purposes compared to math assessments used in school (e.g. math class-level exams). This result suggests that educators may feel more comfortable incorporating class math tests into the curriculum because the relationship between math anxiety and math achievement is less strong when the math assessment is often used in a classroom setting. The finding also has important implications for researchers. Perhaps researchers should be more careful with choosing the type of math performance measure when designing studies.
Barroso et al.’s (2021) study also has implications for EPIC’s work. As we are interested in studying how students react to failure events in math, Barroso et al. 's (2021) findings suggest that worries related to math may influence the subsequent choice of coping strategies. It is possible that anxious thoughts take up students’ cognitive resources which may interfere with how students choose ways for coping with or dealing with failure in the classroom. For instance, a student who failed a math quiz might feel so anxious that he/she could not find a good way to cope with the event at the moment.
To learn more about Barroso et al.’s (2021) study, retrieve the article at: https://doi.org/10.1037/bul0000307
Reference:
Barroso, C., Ganley, C. M., McGraw, A. L., Geer, E. A., Hart, S. A., & Daucourt, M. C. (2021). A meta-analysis of the relation between math anxiety and math achievement. Psychological Bulletin, 147(2), 134–168. https://doi.org/10.1037/bul0000307