Mathematics anxiety and math achievement in primary school children: Testing different theoretical accounts

Some students suffer from math anxiety and experience negative emotions in mathematics education. Children’s math anxiety is negatively related to their math achievement, suggesting that math anxiety puts their math learning at risk. Several theoretical accounts have been proposed that help to explain this association between math anxiety and achievement. In the current study, we aimed to test predictions of two prominent theories, namely the disruption account and the reduced competency account, using a comprehensive and unifying approach. A sample of 6- to 8-year-olds (N = 163) answered a math anxiety questionnaire, solved a spatial task (mental rotation), and solved several arithmetic problems. After each arithmetic problem, they were asked how they solved the problem. Strategies were then classified into counting and higher-level mental strategies (including decomposition and retrieval), with higher-level strategies loading strongly on working memory resources. Analyses revealed a negative, albeit small, association between children’s math anxiety and accuracy in solving arithmetic problems. In line with the disruption account, children’s frequency of using higher-level mental strategies mediated this relation between math anxiety and arithmetic performance. Moreover, our results support the reduced competency account given that arithmetic performance was related to math anxiety, whereas mental rotation was only indirectly related to math anxiety. Overall, our findings corroborate both accounts, lending further support to the notion that these accounts might not be mutually exclusive. Our findings imply that interventions might be most effective when focusing on emotion regulation strategies and improving mathematical and spatial performance.