Challenging assumptions: The complex interplay of gender, academic achievement, and teaching subject in pre-service teachers' anxiety

Abstract

This study investigated the complex interplay of gender, academic achievement, and teaching subject on pre-service middle school teachers' spatial anxiety, also exploring their perceptions of its underlying causes and potential effects on future teaching practices. Employing an explanatory sequential mixed-methods design, quantitative data were collected from 93 pre-service teachers using the Spatial Anxiety Scale, followed by qualitative data from semi-structured interviews with 12 participants. Two-way ANCOVA results, with GPA as a covariate, revealed significant main effects of gender and teaching subject on various facets of spatial anxiety. Specifically, female pre-service teachers reported higher overall and navigation anxiety than males. Science pre-service teachers exhibited lower overall, mental manipulation, and imagery anxiety compared to their peers in social studies and mathematics. Notably, no significant interaction effects between gender and teaching subject were found for any type of spatial anxiety. Correlation analyses indicated a striking positive relationship between GPA and navigation anxiety, while no significant correlations were found between GPA and other facets of spatial anxiety. This challenges the assumption that spatial anxiety uniformly decreases with higher academic achievement. Qualitative findings provided rich contextual explanations for these quantitative results, highlighting perceived cultural, environmental, and personal factors (including academic prioritization and perfectionism) associated with spatial anxiety experiences. The study underscores the importance of addressing these multifaceted anxieties in teacher education, offering insights for developing targeted interventions.