Western Wyoming Community College, Rock Springs, WY, USA.
University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Las Vegas, NV, USA.
Psychol Rep. 2021 Dec;124(6):2651-2668. doi: 10.1177/0033294120964055. Epub 2020 Oct 8.
Previous work has noted that math anxiety may have a profound effect on math performance; however extant research has relied on measures that explicitly assess math anxiety. This study examined the effects of implicit math anxiety on the performance of a math achievement task. We hypothesized that combined measure of implicit anxiety and explicit anxiety would better predict math achievement than measures of explicit math anxiety alone. In addition, we hypothesized that an individuals' measured implicit anxiety and measured explicit anxiety would share only a modest correlation. To test these hypotheses, 175 participants completed measures of explicit anxiety, an implicit associations test designed to measure implicit anxiety, and a measure of math achievement. As expected, math achievement was better predicted when implicit anxiety was combined with explicit anxiety. Furthermore, scores on the implicit and explicit anxiety measures were not significantly correlated. These results suggest that implicit and explicit math anxiety are two distinct constructs, thus traditional methods for helping students deal with math anxiety may not be entirely successful if the implicit component is ignored.
先前的研究表明，数学焦虑可能对数学表现产生深远影响；然而，现有研究依赖于明确评估数学焦虑的测量方法。本研究考察了内隐数学焦虑对数学成就任务表现的影响。我们假设，内隐焦虑和外显焦虑的综合测量将比单独的外显数学焦虑测量更能预测数学成就。此外，我们假设个体的内隐焦虑和外显焦虑的测量值之间只有适度的相关性。为了检验这些假设，175 名参与者完成了外显焦虑、旨在测量内隐焦虑的内隐联想测试以及数学成就的测量。正如预期的那样，当内隐焦虑与外显焦虑结合时，数学成绩的预测效果更好。此外，内隐和外显焦虑测量得分之间没有显著相关性。这些结果表明，内隐和外显数学焦虑是两个不同的结构，因此如果忽略内隐成分，传统的帮助学生应对数学焦虑的方法可能不会完全成功。
