Poster #28 - Double jeopardy: Children with both math anxious parents and teachers incur cumulative math learning risks

• In Event: Poster Session 08

Abstract

Math anxiety is characterized by feelings of fear and apprehension regarding mathematics and is prevalent in the general population (Barroso et al., 2020). In fact, approximately 25%–30% of people report moderate to high levels of math anxiety (Foley et al., 2017). Adult math anxiety is not only negatively related to one’s own math performance (Ashcraft, 2002), but also has intergenerational implications. Given the high prevalence of math anxiety, it is likely that children interact with many math anxious individuals.

Previous research has separately explored the impact of parents’ or teachers’ math anxiety on children’s math learning. Studies suggest that elementary school teachers’ math anxiety is associated with less math learning by their students (Beilock et al, 2010; Schaeffer et al., 2020). Other research finds a similar impact of parents’ math anxiety on children’s math performance (Berkowitz et al., 2015; Maloney et al., 2015) with children of math anxious parents learning less math over the school year than children with low-math-anxious parents.

To our knowledge, we are the first to examine the relation of both parents’ and teachers’ math anxiety on the same children’s math learning. We collected data on 123 first graders’ math learning over the course of first grade, along with measures of their parents’ and teachers’ math anxiety. In our analysis, we regressed children’s math learning on parents’ and teachers’ math anxiety, along with the interaction between these two variables, to see the relation between those independent variables and students’ end of year math performance. We find that teachers’ math anxiety negatively predicted children’s math learning (B= -2.722, t=-2.118, p=0.037). Additionally, we find that parents’ math anxiety negatively predicted children’s math learning (B=-3.02, t=-2.417, p=0.018). However, the interaction between parents and teachers’ math anxiety was not significant (B=-0.835, t=-0.045, p=0.498), suggesting that there are independent, additive effects of caregivers’ anxiety. That means that having both a math anxious parent and teacher has a cumulative impact on children’s math learning (Figure 1), but high anxiety from both caregivers does not result in an additional factor beyond the cumulative effects of each caregiver’s anxiety on children’s math learning. Additionally, we do not see a similar relation between parents’ and teacher’s reading anxiety and children’s math achievement.

The present study provides crucial evidence about the cumulative effect of parent and teacher math anxiety on children’s math learning. Having either a math anxious teacher or math anxious parent is associated with worse academic outcomes; and having both is especially troublesome for learning math. Thus, children with both math anxious parents and math anxious teachers are at a particular risk for low levels of math achievement. These findings suggest that such children are in need of particular attention and underscore the need to develop ways to intervene. These interventions might include targeted interventions for parents and teachers’ math anxiety, supports that help math anxious adults provide high quality math input to children, and other ways to enhance the math learning of such at-risk children, including the use of math apps.

Authors

• Marjorie Weber Schaeffer, Saint Mary’s College
  Presenting Author

• Christopher Rozek, Stanford University

• Susan Cohen Levine, University of Chicago

• Sian L. Beilock, Barnard college