Testing the specificity of links between anxiety and performance within mathematics and spatial reasoning

Testing the specificity of links between anxiety and performance within mathematics and spatial reasoning

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Title   

Testing the specificity of links between anxiety and performance within mathematics and spatial reasoning 

Authors   

Daker, Richard J., Delage, Véronic, Maloney, Erin A., & Lyons, Ian M.  

Journal and DOI   

Journal: Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 2022; 1512(1), 174-191 

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/nyas.14761 

Previous Research 

Research has shown that math anxiety (apprehension or fear about math) negatively impacts math performance. Similarly, spatial anxiety negatively impacts spatial reasoning. 

High math anxiety has also been shown to be correlated with higher spatial anxiety and poorer spatial performance. 

What did we ask? 

How specific are the links between cognition-specific anxieties and performance within their corresponding cognitive domains? 

Specifically, does math anxiety still relate to math performance when controlling for general anxiety and spatial anxiety? 

Likewise, does spatial anxiety still relate to spatial performance when controlling for general anxiety and math anxiety? 

How did we do it? 

Experiment 1: Participants completed questionnaires and cognitive tasks that assessed their math, spatial, and general anxiety, as well as their math and spatial performance.  

Experiment 2: Participants completed the same measures of spatial and general anxiety as experiment 1 but completed a different set of measures to assess their math anxiety, math performance, and spatial performance. Importantly, the measures of math performance and spatial performance covered more sub-domains (e.g., geometry, mental rotation) than the measures used in experiment 1.  

What did we find?   

Experiment 1: Math anxiety was negatively associated with math performance, and spatial anxiety was negatively associated with spatial performance, even when controlling for other anxieties. Cognition-specific anxieties were more predictive of their corresponding domain performances than other types of anxiety.  

Experiment 2: All the key findings from study 1 were replicated, even when using a different sample and different measures of math and spatial performance.  

Take away Message   

This study helps provide a deeper understanding of the associations between anxiety and performance. That is, cognition-specific anxieties are uniquely predictive of performance on their corresponding domains. This highlights the need for domain-specific interventions for students who are anxious about math and/or spatial reasoning.  

Brought to you by Dr. Erin Maloney’s Cognition and Emotion Lab at the University of Ottawa.