Poster #76 - Math Anxiety: Dimensionality and Links to Science Achievement

• In Event: 3-003 - Poster Session 09
  In Poster Session: PS 09 Section - Education, Schooling

Integrative Statement

An abundance of research suggests that affective factors, such as math anxiety, or negative emotionality towards math are related to mathematics performance. However, math anxiety scales tend to be multidimensional and this dimensionality should be considered when examining the relationship between math anxiety and academic, cognitive, and affective domains. Moreover, the specificity of math anxiety has been suggested due to its relationship with math compared to reading, but studies have not yet examined how anxiety about math relates to science reasoning and science content knowledge. Thus, the purpose of the present study was to 1) examine if items related to anxiety about taking math tests, anxiety about performing math calculations, and anxiety about performing math in socially relevant situations were differentially related to math achievement and 2) replicate lack of correlation with reading achievement and extend these analyses to beginning to understand the role that math anxiety might play in science achievement contexts.
The current study includes data from N=385 young adults (49.87% female) that were recruited from a large public Midwestern university to participate in one of several lab-based studies. Participants were assessed individually by an examiner and completed a variety of achievement tests and questionnaires. Math anxiety was assessed with the 30 item version of the Math Anxiety Rating Scale. Math achievement was assessed with the Math Fluency and Quantitative Concepts subtests of the Woodcock Johnson Tests of Achievement III (WJ III) battery. Similarly, reading achievement was assessed with the WJ III Word Identification subtest. All participants completed the Classroom Test of Science Reasoning, a 24-item multiple choice task of science reasoning. The majority of participants, n=319 completed the WJ III science section of the Academic Knowledge subtest, a science content knowledge measure. Finally, all participants completed an attitudes towards science questionnaire.
The results suggested that math anxiety dimensions were highly correlated with each other, with correlations ranging from 0.44 to 0.67. As expected, math anxiety was modestly and significantly correlated with math achievement (see Table 1). Notably, items that asked about math anxiety in social contexts (e.g. Being responsible for collecting dues for an organization and keeping track of the amount) were less correlated with math concept knowledge relative to math test anxiety and calculation anxiety. Findings replicate the broader literature, as math anxiety dimensions were not significantly correlated with reading achievement (see Table 2). Importantly, math anxiety dimensions were associated with lower scores in science reasoning and science content knowledge (see Table 2). Math anxiety dimensions were also associated with attitudes towards science. This relationship did not explain the relationship between math anxiety and science achievement(i.e. partial correlations were still significant).
The results point to the notion that math anxiety does not just have a potential effect on the mathematics part of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) learning, but rather may be related to poorer outcomes across the STEM domain. Future work should consider if the opposite is true, if anxiety about completing science activities is related to math and consider the developmental trajectory of these relationships.

Authors

• Sarah Lukowski, University of Minnesota
  Presenting Author

• Stephen Petrill, The Ohio State University
  Non-Presenting Author