Math anxiety's negative impact on math achievement is limited to more difficult math, emerging around late elementary school content¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study (2 entries) · review r2 · q3
Currency · newest study 2007 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q3 i? On the WRAT, accuracy was at ceiling for all anxiety groups on initial lines, with group performance diverging around Line 4 or 5. → Mark H. Ashcraft and Jeremy A. Krause 2007 q3 i? Untimed paper-and-pencil tests of whole-number arithmetic showed no math-anxiety differences on accuracy, despite online anxiety effects in an RT task. → Mark H. Ashcraft and Jeremy A. Krause 2007 (2)

Evidence¶

Mark H. Ashcraft and Jeremy A. Krause 2007¶

Mark H. Ashcraft and Jeremy A. Krause. (2007). Working memory, math performance, and math anxiety. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 14(2), 243-248. https://doi.org/10.3758/bf03194059

q3 · i? · review · r2

Rescoring the WRAT line-by-line for the 80-undergraduate sample showed "Simple accuracy is at ceiling for all groups on the initial lines of the test"; group performance diverged around Line 4 or 5, with the high-anxious group averaging fewer than one in five correct on the most difficult line.

"Simple accuracy is at ceiling for all groups on the initial lines of the test, suggesting no evidence of lower achievement per se for math-anxious individuals on the whole-number arithmetic taught in elementary school"

Mark H. Ashcraft and Jeremy A. Krause 2007 (2)¶

Mark H. Ashcraft and Jeremy A. Krause. (2007). Working memory, math performance, and math anxiety. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 14(2), 243-248. https://doi.org/10.3758/bf03194059

q3 · i? · review · r2

Citing Faust, Ashcraft, & Fleck (1996), the review reports that "when we gave untimed paper-and-pencil tests of our whole-number arithmetic stimuli, we found no math-anxiety differences on accuracy", though the same stimuli produced anxiety effects in an RT task.

"when we gave untimed paper-and-pencil tests of our whole-number arithmetic stimuli, we found no math-anxiety differences on accuracy, even though these same stimuli generated online anxiety effects in an RT task"

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• High math-anxious participants sacrifice accuracy for speed as problems become more difficult, interpreted as an avoidance-like effort to finish quickly — related
• Math anxiety has a small-to-moderate negative correlation with math achievement (r = −.28) in a meta-analysis of correlations from 223 studies — a broader claim this one bears on
• Math anxiety correlates negatively with math achievement, grades, enjoyment, motivation, and amount of math taken — a broader claim this one bears on
• Mathematics achievement correlates more strongly with learners' knowledge, skills and cognitive abilities than with their personality traits, goals or emotions — related