Enjoyment correlates positively (r = .31), and boredom, mathematics anxiety and test anxiety negatively (r = −.23 to −.28), with mathematics achievement¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · review r3 · q3 · i2 medium · n=30 meta-analyses, 66 correlations from 13,853 effect sizes (~4.66 million participants)
Currency · newest study 2025 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Enjoyment correlates r = .31 with mathematics achievement and boredom −.28 (Camacho-Morles et al. 2021); mathematics anxiety −.28 (Barroso et al. 2021), test anxiety −.23 and general anxiety −.19 to −.09. These are correlations compiled across meta-analyses: they describe how strongly the characteristic goes with mathematics achievement, not what causes it.

Subclaims¶

q3 i2 Enjoyment correlates r = .31 with mathematics achievement and boredom −.28 (Camacho-Morles et al. 2021); mathematics anxiety −.28 (Barroso et al. 2021), test anxiety −.23 and general anxiety −.19 to −.09. → Breit et al. 2025

Evidence¶

Breit et al. 2025¶

Breit, M., Schneider, M., & Preckel, F. (2025). Mathematics achievement and learner characteristics: A systematic review of meta-analyses. Learning and Individual Differences, 118, 102621. doi:10.1016/j.lindif.2024.102621

q3 · systematic review of meta-analyses · i2 · medium effect, r = .31 to −.28 · n=30 meta-analyses, 66 correlations from 13,853 effect sizes (~4.66 million participants) · review · r3

The review compiles zero-order correlations from published meta-analyses (each with at least ten effect sizes, the largest one kept where several covered a variable), found by a systematic PsycINFO search in July 2024. It pools nothing further and controls for nothing: many of these characteristics correlate with one another, so a correlation here says how strongly the characteristic goes with mathematics achievement, not that it causes it. Enjoyment r = .31 (k = 20, n = 19,055) and boredom −.28 (k = 19, n = 13,534), both corrected for unreliability (Camacho-Morles et al. 2021, school and university). Mathematics anxiety −.28 (Barroso et al. 2021, k = 747, n = 385,441), weaker in older samples; test anxiety −.23 (Caviola et al. 2022, k = 88); general anxiety −.19 (Caviola et al. 2022) and −.09 (Brumariu et al. 2022).

Discussion¶

Correlations only, and the authors expect the relationship to run both ways: achievement shapes emotions as well as the reverse. See Math anxiety and math achievement for the anxiety meta-analysis itself.

Learner Variables¶

• Achievement Emotions — predictor: learners who differ on it differ in outcomes

Related Claims¶

• Mathematics achievement correlates more strongly with learners' knowledge, skills and cognitive abilities than with their personality traits, goals or emotions
• Math anxiety correlates strongly and negatively with mathematics achievement among third graders — a narrower finding that bears on this claim
• Math anxiety correlates negatively with math achievement, grades, enjoyment, motivation, and amount of math taken — related
• The prevalent direction of the Grade 3 anxiety-performance link runs from math anxiety to performance, not the reverse — related
• Perceived teacher support in the hypothesis and experimentation phases correlated positively with post-test achievement in both groups; argumentation-support and enjoyment correlations emerged only across the pooled sample — a narrower finding that bears on this claim
• Math anxiety has a small-to-moderate negative correlation with math achievement (r = −.28) in a meta-analysis of correlations from 223 studies — possibly the same claim (merge candidate)
• Relational goals are positively linked to positive affect and enjoyment — related
• Math anxiety correlates negatively with math performance at a pooled r = −.30 across 169 independent samples — related
• Test anxiety correlates negatively with math achievement at a pooled r = −.23, weaker than math anxiety's correlation — a narrower finding that bears on this claim
• Positive academic emotions correlate positively with interest, effort, flexible learning strategies, and perceived self-regulation, while boredom and hopelessness correlate negatively with all of these motivational variables — related
• Test boredom correlates negatively with math grades but not with the math test score in Study 1 — related