The Mitigating Effect of Vagal Suppression on the Relation Between Math Anxiety and Math Performance

• In Event: Poster Session 13
  In Poster Session: PS 13 Topic - Education, Schooling

Abstract

Math anxiety is often characterized by the unpleasant presence of heightened nervousness, apprehension, and worry in math-related situations (Chiu & Henry, 1990). Studies have shown that students with high math anxiety levels tend to perform worse on math tasks than their peers who report low math anxiety levels (Hembree, 1990). However, little research has been conducted to understand how regulatory processes may moderate the relation between math anxiety and math performance. One indicator of self-regulation during problem solving is vagal suppression, which refers to the suppression of parasympathetic vagus nerve control in response to environmental challenges. Researchers have found that children with higher vagal suppression demonstrated better behavioral regulation and more adaptive responses in various social, emotional, and cognitive tasks (Calkins, 1997; Viana et al., 2019). These findings suggest that vagal suppression is an important physiological regulatory mechanism underlying adaptive stress responses, with higher vagal suppression indicating better self-regulation. The present study explored whether and how vagal suppression may mitigate the negative association between math anxiety and math performance. We hypothesized that the negative predictive effect of math anxiety on math performance would be mitigated in students with high vagal suppression.
The current study consists of 144 families who are part of an ongoing longitudinal study. One parent and their child, in 4th through 6th grade, were invited to the lab to complete a series of computer tasks and surveys during which physiological data was collected. Math anxiety was assessed through self-report using the Mathematics Anxiety Scale for Children (Chiu & Henry, 1990). Additionally, each child completed the problem verification task (PVT), a fast math game where the participant indicates if a given equation and answer is either correct or incorrect for 132 problems (Rinne & Mazzocco, 2014). Performance efficiency in PVT was calculated as the ratio between accuracy and average reaction time. High frequency heart rate variability was collected during a five-minute baseline and the PVT. Vagal suppression was calculated as the percent of decrease in high frequency heart rate variability from baseline to the PVT task.
Regression analysis was used to investigate the moderating effect of vagal suppression on the association between MA and math performance. Results found that, while controlling for student sex and grade level, math anxiety modestly negatively predicted PVT performance efficiency. Additionally, this main effect was significantly moderated by vagal suppression. Post-hoc analyses found that there was a negative association between math anxiety and PVT efficiency only for children with low vagal suppression, not for children with high vagal suppression (Figure 1). These findings suggest that high vagal suppression may be an indicator of adaptive self-regulation processes that buffers against the negative effect of math anxiety on math performance. This offers an important implication for educators regarding the need to foster self-regulatory skills in the classroom.

Authors

• Jacob Thomas Evans, Texas Tech University
  Presenting Author

• Tianyu Li, Austin Peay State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Leslie Monique Hasty, Texas Tech University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Michaela Quintero, Texas Tech University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Paxton Jones, Texas Tech University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Zhe Wang, Texas A&M University - College Station
  Non-Presenting Author