Reducing the sex difference in math anxiety: The role of spatial processing ability

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2012.01.001Get rights and content

Abstract

Decades of research have demonstrated that women experience higher rates of math anxiety – that is, negative affect when performing tasks involving numerical and mathematical skill – than men. Researchers have largely attributed this sex difference in math anxiety to factors such as social stereotypes and propensity to report anxiety. Here we provide the first evidence that the sex difference in math anxiety may be due in part to sex differences in spatial processing ability. In Study 1, undergraduate students completed questionnaires assessing their level of math anxiety and their aptitude and preference for processing spatial configurations and schematic images. The results support the hypothesis that the relation between sex and math anxiety is mediated by spatial processing ability. In Study 2, we replicate these results with a more diverse sample of adults. Implications for the prevention and remediation of math anxiety and math anxiety-related achievement deficits are discussed.

Highlights

► Math anxiety is negative affect at math tasks; it disproportionately affects women. ► We tested if controlling for spatial ability reduces the math anxiety sex difference. ► Results indicate controlling for spatial ability eliminated the sex difference. ► Sex differences in math anxiety may result from sex differences in spatial ability.

Section snippets

Participants

One hundred and eighteen (80 female, 38 male) undergraduate students from the University of Waterloo participated in the study in exchange for credit in a psychology class.

Materials

Abbreviated Math Anxiety Questionnaire (AMAS; Hopko, Mahadevan, Bare, & Hunt, 2003). The AMAS is a 9-item questionnaire measuring math anxiety. Total scores range from 9 (not at all math anxious) to 45 (very math anxious). The AMAS has excellent internal consistency (α = .90) and two-week test retest reliability (r = .85; Hopko

Participants

Two hundred and forty nine adults (151 female, 98 male) were recruited online using Amazon's Mechanical Turk (www.MTurk.com; see Buhrmester, Kwang, & Gosling, 2011, for a discussion of MTurk and psychological research). The participants ranged in age from 18 to 78 and received a small monetary award in return for their participation.

Measures and procedures

All measures and procedures were the same as Study 1.

Results

Thirty-seven participants skipped one to three items on one or more questionnaires, resulting in 71 missing

General discussion

The results of the present investigation demonstrate that math anxiety is negatively related to spatial processing ability. Importantly, they also demonstrate that the commonly-observed sex difference in math anxiety is not due simply to social stereotypes or to women's willingness to report anxiety. In fact, the sex difference in math anxiety is mediated by spatial processing ability. In other words, women may be more math anxious than men on average because women are worse at spatial

Conclusion

In the present investigation, we have demonstrated evidence that the relation between sex and math anxiety is mediated by spatial processing ability. The results of this study not only help explain why women are more math anxious than men, but also provide insights into potential training techniques which may serve to reduce the sex gap in STEM fields.

References (39)

  • M.H. Ashcraft et al.

    The relationships among working memory, math anxiety, and performance

    Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

    (2001)
  • S.L. Beilock et al.

    Stereotype threat and working memory: Mechanisms, alleviation, and spillover

    Journal of Studyal Psychology: General

    (2007)
  • J. Bishop

    Incentives for learning: Why American high school students compare so poorly to their counterparts overseas

    (1989)
  • M. Blajenkova et al.

    Object-spatial imagery: A new self-report imagery questionnaire

    Applied Cognitive Psychology

    (2006)
  • D.G. Blasko et al.

    Longitudinal analysis of spatial skills training in engineering graphics

  • M. Boissiere et al.

    Earnings, schooling, ability, and cognitive skills

    The American Economic Review

    (1985)
  • M. Buhrmester et al.

    Amazon's mechanical Turk: A new source of inexpensive, yet high-quality, data?

    Perspectives on Psychological Science

    (2011)
  • J. Bynner et al.

    Does numeracy matter?

    (1997)
  • M.M. Cherrier et al.

    Testosterone supplementation improves spatial and verbal memory in healthy older men

    Neurology

    (2001)
  • Cited by (77)

    • The link between math anxiety and performance does not depend on working memory: A network analysis study

      2022, Consciousness and Cognition
      Citation Excerpt :

      However, anxiety-induced ruminations were shown to deplete WM resources (Ashcraft & Kirk, 2001; Luttenberger et al., 2018; Maloney & Beilock, 2012; Suárez-Pellicioni et al., 2016) and disrupt thinking processes (Chang & Beilock, 2016), even in simple math tasks without time limits (Ashkenazi & Danan, 2017; Maloney, Ansari, & Fugelsang, 2011; Suárez-Pellicioni, Núñez-Peña, & Colomé, 2014). While the majority of studies point to difficulties in VWM among math-anxious individuals (Ashcraft & Kirk, 2001; Ashcraft & Moore, 2009; Mammarella, Hill, Devine, Caviola, & Szűcs, 2015), some have found particular difficulties in VSWM (Ashkenazi & Danan, 2017; Maloney, Waechter, Risko, & Fugelsang, 2012). In contrast, a recent meta-analysis showed that the type of WM subsystem had no impact on the significant negative correlations between MA and WM (Caviola et al., 2021).

    • Nature education: Outdoor learning of map literacy skills and reflective thinking skill towards problem-solving

      2021, Thinking Skills and Creativity
      Citation Excerpt :

      The reason for seeking to discover the relationship between the two skills is that a review of the literature showed that students with low spatial thinking, in particular, have difficulty in problem-solving and reflective thinking. Maloney et al. (2012) argued that students with low spatial thinking are likely to have difficulty solving math problems. Kayhan (2005) found a significant relationship between spatial thinking and logical thinking ability.

    • Developmental trajectories of strategy use in children with mathematical anxiety

      2021, Acta Psychologica
      Citation Excerpt :

      Individual VSWMהv ability is a unique predictor of early math achievement, while the other components of WM predicts learning in general (Raghubar et al., 2010). Recently, it has been reported that MA participants display weaknesses in basic numerical abilities, such as number comparison (Dietrich et al., 2015; Georges et al., 2016; Maloney et al., 2011; Maloney et al., 2012) and non-symbolic quantity comparison (Georges et al., 2016). These abnormalities have been linked to spatial weaknesses (Georges et al., 2016; Maloney et al., 2012).

    View all citing articles on Scopus
    View full text