Poster #73 - Investigating the Relation Between Parents' Math Anxiety and Preschool Children's Math Performance

• In Event: 1-169 - Poster Session 04
  In Poster Session: PS 04 Section - Education, Schooling

Integrative Statement

Introduction
It has been consistently found that an individual’s math anxiety is negatively related to his or her mathematical achievement (Ashcraft & Moore, 2009; Vukovic et. al., 2013). This relation has been found for females and not males (Cvencek, Meltzoff, & Greenwald, 2011; Goetz et al., 2013). Additionally, for elementary school children, the math anxiety of influential caretakers (e.g., parents, teachers) has been found to influence their subsequent math performance (Hadley & Dorward, 2011; Ramirez, Hooper, Kersting, Ferguson, & Yeager, 2018). However, little research has investigated whether the relation between math anxiety and math performance is present prior to elementary school (Ganley & McGraw, 2016; Vukovic, et al., 2013).

Research Aims and Hypotheses
The purpose of the current study was to investigate the relation between parent math anxiety and child mathematical performance during preschool. We hypothesized that parent math anxiety would be negatively related to children’s math performance in the spring of their pre-K year, controlling for fall math performance and other covariates, and that this relation would be significant for females but not males.

Methods
Participants included 251 preschool-age children (157 females) and their primary caregiver, who were part of a larger pre-K evaluation project. Children completed a battery of developmental assessments, including a broad measure of mathematical performance, the Preschool Early Numeracy Skills Screener (PENS; Purpura, Reid, Eiland, & Baroody, 2015). Parents answered four questions about their math anxiety during a researcher-led phone interview. The first questions asked parents to indicate the degree of anxiety he or she would feel in each of three math-related situations (i.e., adding three digit numbers without a calculator, determining change after a purchase, calculating a tip). The fourth question assessed overall math anxiety by measuring agreement with the statement of "I have math anxiety” on a five point scale. Table 1 presents relevant descriptive statistics.

Results
Correlations between control variables and key independent and dependent variables are presented in Table 2. Only parent math anxiety when calculating change was significantly correlated with children’s performance on the PENS (r = -0.14, p = .020). Multivariate linear regressions demonstrated that, after controlling for child’s age, gender, fall mathematics skill level, and other covariates, parents’ math anxiety when calculating change was significantly negatively related to children’s performance on the PENS at the end of their pre-K year (β = -.12, p = .007). Further, this relation was found for females (β = -.12, p = .038), but not for males (β = -.10, p = .133). As beta values were similar in magnitude, an interaction between gender and parents’ math anxiety was investigated. No significant interaction was found (β = .05, p = .566).

Conclusions
These findings add to the current literature as the relation between parent math anxiety and child mathematical performance was found to be present as early as the preschool year. Future research should investigate these relations with a larger sample in order to further probe possible differential effects of parents’ math anxiety on math performance for female and male preschool children.
 

Authors

• Meg Becker, Purdue University
  Presenting Author

• Ellen Litkowski, Purdue University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Robert Duncan, Purdue University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Sara Schmitt, Purdue University
  Non-Presenting Author

• James Elicker, Purdue University
  Non-Presenting Author

• David Purpura, Purdue University
  Non-Presenting Author