Math Anxiety: Not Just a Numbers Game

Math anxiety can influence career choices, result in difficulties in everyday situations involving numbers (e.g., financial decision making) and has been linked with performance deficits on a variety of mathematical tasks. The roles of the classroom environment, societal stereotypes and negative math attitudes have all been associated with math anxiety. Current research suggests that children are developing math-related anxiety at a very young age, leading some researchers to propose that foundational number skills may be related to the development of anxiety about math. The goal of the present study was to develop a clearer, more integrated understanding of the cognitive influences (i.e. attentional, spatial and quantity skills) on math anxiety and math performance. The results showed that math anxiety in adults is not related to deficits in the foundational number skills. Instead, both quantity skills and math anxiety uniquely contributed to variance in math performance.