Guzmán Bárbara, Rodríguez Cristina, Ferreira Roberto A
Facultad de Educación, Universidad Católica de la Santísima Concepción, Concepción, Chile.
Facultad de Psicología, Universidad de la Laguna, Tenerife, Spain.
Front Psychol. 2021 Jan 14;11:611395. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.611395. eCollection 2020.
Socio-economic status (SES) and mathematical performance seem to be risk factors of mathematics anxiety (MA) in both children and adults. However, there is little evidence about how exactly these three constructs are related, especially during early stages of mathematical learning. In the present study, we assessed longitudinal performance in symbolic and non-symbolic basic numerical skills in pre-school and second grade students, as well as MA in second grade students. Participants were 451 children (average pre-school age = 5 years, 6 months) from 12 schools in Chile, which differed in school vulnerability index (SVI), an indicator of SES. We tested an explanatory model of MA that included SES and longitudinal performance in basic numerical skills as predictors. The results showed a direct effect of SES on MA and a mediating effect of performance in symbolic and non-symbolic comparison tasks in pre-school. However, in second grade, only performance in symbolic comparison significantly mediated the SES-MA relationship. These findings suggest that performance in non-symbolic comparison plays an important role in explaining MA at initial stages, but that its influence is no longer significant by the time children reach formal instruction in second grade. By contrast, as children's formal educational experience in mathematics increases, MA becomes linked primarily to symbolic numerical tasks. In sum, SES affects MA and this is due in part to the effect of SES on the development of numerical learning in pre-school, which in turn has an impact on subsequent, more complex learning, ultimately leading to differences in MA. We discuss the implications of these findings for preventing and acting upon the emergence of MA.
社会经济地位（SES）和数学成绩似乎是儿童和成人数学焦虑（MA）的风险因素。然而，关于这三个概念究竟如何关联，尤其是在数学学习的早期阶段，几乎没有证据。在本研究中，我们评估了学龄前和二年级学生在符号和非符号基本数字技能方面的纵向表现，以及二年级学生的数学焦虑情况。参与者是来自智利12所学校的451名儿童（平均学龄前年龄为5岁6个月），这些学校在学校脆弱性指数（SVI）上存在差异，SVI是社会经济地位的一个指标。我们测试了一个数学焦虑的解释模型，该模型将社会经济地位和基本数字技能的纵向表现作为预测因素。结果显示，社会经济地位对数学焦虑有直接影响，并且学龄前符号和非符号比较任务中的表现具有中介作用。然而，在二年级，只有符号比较中的表现显著中介了社会经济地位与数学焦虑之间的关系。这些发现表明，非符号比较中的表现在解释初期的数学焦虑方面起着重要作用，但到儿童进入二年级接受正规教育时，其影响不再显著。相比之下，随着儿童在数学方面正规教育经历的增加，数学焦虑主要与符号数字任务相关联。总之，社会经济地位影响数学焦虑，部分原因是社会经济地位对学龄前数字学习发展的影响，这反过来又对后续更复杂的学习产生影响，最终导致数学焦虑的差异。我们讨论了这些发现对于预防和应对数学焦虑出现的意义。
