Numerical cognition
Does maths anxiety drain working memory in middle-schoolers?
Open access · cc by · source: Europe PMC
Children with high maths anxiety did worse than calm peers on maths and on verbal memory tasks, but not on reading or writing.
Study at a glance
- Design
- Case-control — Extreme-groups comparison: children screened for maths anxiety, then high- and low-anxiety groups (matched on general anxiety, vocabulary, age, gender) compared on achievement and memory tests; no manipulation.
- N
- N=66 · 34 low-maths-anxiety and 32 high-maths-anxiety children, selected from a screening sample of 135.
- Population
- Middle-school children aged 11-13 at state schools in Northern Italy, without learning or intellectual disabilities.
- Outcome
- Standardised maths achievement subtests, reading comprehension, word reading and spelling, verbal short-term memory (word span), and working memory (listening span recall and intrusion errors).
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Key findings
The low-anxiety group outperformed the high-anxiety group by more than 0.5 standard deviation on written calculation, magnitude judgement, logical reasoning and timed fact retrieval, while reading comprehension, word reading and spelling did not differ. The high-anxiety group also recalled fewer words on both memory tasks and made more intrusion errors. Timed fact retrieval and intrusion errors together correctly classified 79.4% of low-anxiety and 68.8% of high-anxiety children.
Methodology
The researchers screened 135 children aged 11-13 in Northern Italy with a short maths-anxiety questionnaire, a general-anxiety questionnaire and a vocabulary test. They then formed a high-maths-anxiety group (scores above 1 SD) and a low-maths-anxiety group, both with average general anxiety and average vocabulary. Both groups took standardised maths, reading and spelling tests, a word-span test of short-term memory, and a listening-span test of working memory that also counted intrusion errors (recalling words that should have been ignored).
Limitations
Because groups were selected rather than created, the study cannot say whether anxiety lowers working memory, weak working memory breeds anxiety, or poor maths skill drives both; the authors explicitly say they could not disentangle the direction. The samples are small and from one region, only verbal (not visuospatial) memory was tested, and gender was not analysed even though around 70% of the high-anxiety group were girls. Extreme-group designs can also inflate differences relative to the full range of anxiety.
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