Department of Human Development and Family Studies, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX, USA.
Social, Genetic, and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King's College London, London, UK.
J Adolesc. 2020 Apr;80:220-232. doi: 10.1016/j.adolescence.2020.03.003. Epub 2020 Mar 18.
Mathematics anxiety (MA) is an important risk factor hindering the development of confidence and capability in mathematics and participation in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics workforce. The aim of the present study is to further our understanding of these relations in adolescence by adopting a threefold approach. First, we adopted a longitudinal design to clarify the temporal order in the developmental relations between (a) MA and mathematics achievement and (b) MA and mathematics self-perceived ability. Second, we investigated whether the developmental relations between MA and mathematics achievement/self-perceived ability differed between boys and girls. Finally, we explored the domain-specificity of MA by examining its role in foreign language (L2) learning.
Data were collected from 1043 Italian high school students. Students reported their anxiety, self-perceived ability, and school achievement in mathematics and L2 over two separate waves, one semester apart.
Using multi-group cross-lagged panel analyses, we found that (a) mathematics achievement predicted MA longitudinally, whereas MA did not predict subsequent mathematics achievement; (b) there was a negative reciprocal relation between MA and mathematics self-perceived ability in male, but not female students; and (c) there were longitudinal relations between MA and L2 achievement and self-perceived ability above and beyond L2 anxiety.
These findings support the deficit view of the developmental relation between MA and mathematics achievement, highlight high school male students as a vulnerable group evincing vicious transactions between high anxiety and low self-efficacy in mathematics, and reveal the importance of internal cross-domain comparison processes in MA development.
数学焦虑（MA）是阻碍数学自信和能力发展以及参与科学、技术、工程和数学劳动力的重要风险因素。本研究的目的是通过采用三重方法进一步了解青少年时期这些关系。首先，我们采用纵向设计来阐明（a）MA 与数学成绩和（b）MA 与数学自我感知能力之间发展关系的时间顺序。其次，我们调查了 MA 与数学成绩/自我感知能力之间的发展关系在男孩和女孩之间是否存在差异。最后，我们通过研究 MA 在第二语言（L2）学习中的作用来探索其领域特殊性。
数据来自 1043 名意大利高中生。学生在两个单独的学期相隔一学期的时间里报告了他们的焦虑、自我感知能力以及数学和 L2 的学业成绩。
使用多组交叉滞后面板分析，我们发现（a）数学成绩可以预测 MA 的纵向发展，而 MA 不能预测随后的数学成绩；（b）在男生中，MA 和数学自我感知能力之间存在负向相互关系，但在女生中则没有；（c）除了 L2 焦虑之外，MA 与 L2 成绩和自我感知能力之间存在纵向关系。
这些发现支持 MA 与数学成绩之间发展关系的缺陷观点，强调高中男生是一个易受影响的群体，表现出高焦虑和低数学自我效能之间的恶性循环，并且揭示了 MA 发展中内部跨领域比较过程的重要性。
