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MATHEMATICS
ANXIETY
What is Known and What is Still
to be Understood

Edited by Irene C. Mammarella, Sara Caviola

and Ann Dowker
First published 2019
by Routledge
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CONTENTS

Preface vii

1 Models of math anxiety 1

Mark H. Ashcraft

2 Different ways to measure math anxiety 20

Krzysztof Cipora, Christina Artemenko and Hans-Christoph Nuerk

3 Psychophysiological correlates of mathematics anxiety 42

Chiara Avancini and Dénes Szűcs

4 Mathematics anxiety and performance 62

Ann Dowker

5 Acquisition, development and maintenance of maths anxiety

in young children 77
Dominic Petronzi, Paul Staples, David Sheffield and Thomas Hunt

6 Mathematics anxiety and working memory: what is the

relationship? 103
Maria Chiara Passolunghi, Marija Živković and Sandra Pellizzoni

7 The different involvement of working memory in math

and test anxiety 126
Ee Lynn Ng and Kerry Lee
vi Contents

8 Math anxiety in children with and without mathematical

difficulties: the role of gender and genetic factors 141
Sara Caviola, Irene C. Mammarella and Yulia Kovas

9 Probing the nature of deficits in math anxiety: drawing

connections between attention and numerical cognition 156
Orly Rubinsten, Hili Eidlin Levy and Lital Daches Cohen

10 Gender stereotypes, anxiety, and math outcomes in adults

and children 178
Carlo Tomasetto

11 The role of parents’ and teachers’ math anxiety in children’s

math learning and attitudes 190
Julianne B. Herts, Sian L. Beilock and Susan C. Levine

Concluding remarks 211

Irene C. Mammarella, Sara Caviola and Ann Dowker

Index 222
PREFACE

During a cold December afternoon, we were discussing a research project related

to mathematical learning and related emotional difficulties, drinking cups of tea
and coffee, when we realized the absence of a handbook entirely dedicated to
this topic. Almost simultaneously we looked at each other (Irene and Sara) and
had the same insight: why not try to edit a book on this topic?
Once we realized that we had decided to follow through on the idea, we
found ourselves lost (deep) in conversation, trying to list, organize and select all
the fundamental topics we thought were worth including in the book. Thus,
we wrote to Ann, who possesses tremendous expertise in this field, and asked
her to join us. Happily, she immediately embraced the project. The final struc-
ture of this book followed on from a symposium that we organized for the first
international conference on Mathematical Cognition and Learning Society held
in Oxford (Sara and Ann) in April 2018, and includes chapters from leading
researchers in psychology, neuroscience and education from all over the world.
There is a shared understanding that learning mathematics involves a com-
plex interplay of cognitive, motivational and emotional processes (Carey, Hill,
Devine, & Szücs, 2016; Dowker, Sarkar, & Looi, 2016; Hill et al., 2016; Mam-
marella, Hill, Devine, Caviola, & Szűcs, 2015). Indeed, mathematical difficulties
may be associated with not only specific mathematical learning disorders but
also domain-general cognitive weaknesses (e.g. phonological memory, working
memory, executive functions) and negative emotions (Maloney & Beilock, 2012;
Vukovic, Kieffer, Bailey, & Harari, 2013). Interest in the interference of these
negative affective factors, usually defined in the literature by the term ‘math-
ematics anxiety’, has grown from the students’ mathematics outcomes observa-
tions: these feelings of apprehension and fear aroused during a mathematical
performance can hamper or even impede its correct execution (Ashcraft & Kirk,
2001; Dowker et al., 2016).
viii Preface

For the domain of mathematics as a whole, long-standing quantitative

research concerning the relationship between students’ math anxiety and their
general mathematical achievement has been carried out, and the literature has
mostly revealed a substantial negative relationship between the two (Ashcraft,
Krause, & Hopko, 2007; Ashcraft & Moore, 2009; Carey et al., 2017; Hem-
bree, 1990; Ma, 1999). In his meta-analysis, Hembree (1990) pointed out that
cognitive-behavioural interventions developed for the treatment of test anxiety
or general anxiety were effective in reducing or eliminating the effects of math
anxiety on mathematics performance. Interventions merely focused on changes
in classroom curricula, relaxation therapy or group counselling were less effec-
tive. Later studies have investigated the effects of more transitory disruptions
involving ‘choking’ in response to threat, and have focused on relieving the
cognitive symptoms of anxiety, and particularly their impact on working mem-
ory resources, with some promising results (Ramirez & Beilock, 2011; Supekar,
Iuculano, Chen, & Menon, 2015).
Since the overall aim of the book is to gain a greater understanding of math
anxiety and, consequently, of ways to prevent or ameliorate the phenomenon,
it is important to obtain converging evidence from as many fields as possible.
Developmental psychologists, educationists, neuroscientists, educational and clin-
ical psychologists, teachers and policymakers often tend to proceed indepen-
dently, sometimes neglecting relevant findings from the research and practice
outside their own disciplines. Just as with mathematical cognition in general,
math anxiety research intersects with a wide array of sub-fields, such as cognitive
and educational psychology, neuroscience and developmental psychology. In this
book, we broadened the perspective, bringing together converging international
researchers working on different areas with the aim to shed light on a) the theo-
retical background of math anxiety, b) the development of this phenomenon in
both typical and atypical populations, c) the main cognitive processes involved
and d) the importance and role of different social contexts. The result is a collec-
tion of eleven essays and constitutes a comprehensive survey of state-of-the-art
studies on important facets of math anxiety.
The book begins with two chapters about the theoretical backgrounds and the
psychophysiological consequences of math anxiety. The first chapter, by Mark
H. Ashcraft, provides a comprehensive summary of four major approaches to
understanding the phenomenon and highlights the strengths and weaknesses of
each of them. The chapter can be viewed as an overview and introduction to
the in-depth chapters that comprise the entire volume. It is followed by Cipora,
Artemenko and Nuerk’s chapter, which presents an exhaustive review of math
anxiety measurement techniques, and by the chapter of Avancini and Szűcs, who
discuss how math anxiety induces physiological reactions within individuals, and
how psychophysiological measures may offer new ways to assess this phenom-
enon without relying on self-report questionnaires.
The subsequent group of chapters discuss the development features of math
anxiety. In particular, Ann Dowker points out the relationships and differences
 Preface ix

between math anxiety and other related constructs (e.g. general- and test-anxiety,
and attitudes to mathematics), and discusses reasons for the well-established
negative relationship between math anxiety and maths performance. Dominic
Petronzi and colleagues, after discussing issues regarding math anxiety measure-
ment, propose a review of the literature surrounding the onset of math anxiety,
focusing on several factors that may inf luence the development of such feelings
of apprehension: e.g. negative evaluation from peers and teachers, pessimistic
attitudes, low self-efficacy and reduced motivation.
Another important aspect involves the cognitive processes, especially work-
ing memory processes often associated with math anxiety. Two chapters specifi-
cally address this topic, providing a detailed summary of the current research.
Passolunghi and colleagues discuss the relationship between math anxiety and
mathematical performance by reviewing studies of both children and adult
populations. The relationship between math anxiety and mathematics achieve-
ment is further analysed by Ng and Lee. In their chapter, they focused on not
only math anxiety but also test anxiety, and discuss the overlap between these
two constructs. A different insight is offered by the subsequent chapter, where
Rubinsten and colleagues, after defining the meaning of attentional bias, report
the most recent studies aimed at investigating whether math anxiety is character-
ized by an attentional bias toward math-related stimuli.
Caviola, Mammarella and Kovas give an overview of the literature in not
only typical but also atypical populations, and in particular on children with
mathematics difficulties or developmental dyscalculia. Their chapter tries to
provide a fresh framework of the individual differences (considering both
genetic and environmental factors) involved in young children’s low math-
ematics performance. In the following chapter, Tommasetto presents the most
recent research on how gender differences in math anxiety are moderated by
gender stereotypes (and self-concept beliefs). Finally, the last chapter, by Herts,
Beilock and Levine, provides a detailed description about the social determi-
nants of children’s and adolescents’ math anxiety by examining their parents’
and teachers’ math achievements and attitudes. Parents’ and teachers’ math
anxiety is conceptualized as a moderator, determining the strength and direc-
tion of the relationships between children’s math anxiety and math education
outcomes.
Thus, the purpose of this book is to stimulate theoretical ref lection on the
ways in which math anxiety can inf luence the achievement and consequently the
future paths of individuals. Findings with regard to gender differences, cogni-
tive networks, types of assessment and psychophysiological correlates may help
generate a better definition of math anxiety and clarify what is known about it.
In this respect, a novel contribution of this book is to bring together different
research fields into one single volume. In doing so, we also hope to challenge
preconceptions about math anxiety and offer a re-evaluation of the negative con-
notations usually associated with the term.
September 2018
x Preface

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(pp. 329–348). Baltimore, MD: Paul H Brookes Publishing.
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cedpsych.2012.09.001
1
MODELS OF MATH ANXIETY
Mark H. Ashcraft

Mathematics anxiety: “a feeling of tension and anxiety that interferes with the manipulation
of numbers and the solving of mathematical problems in a wide variety of ordinary life and
academic situations.”
(Richardson & Suinn, 1972, p. 551)

There is good reason to begin this volume with an introductory chapter on mod-
els of math anxiety – discussing the several models that have guided investiga-
tions of math anxiety almost necessarily involves a general review of the research
on math anxiety, or at least the highlights of that research. As such, this chapter
can serve as an introduction to the more specific, in-depth chapters that follow.
As this introduction will show, the models that have been proposed for under-
standing math anxiety ref lect researchers’ varying viewpoints about expected
consequences of math anxiety as well as factors suspected of inf luencing it,
researchers’ own theoretical orientations, and, to a degree, developments in the
field that have made new kinds of research possible. Thus, the models show how
our thinking about math anxiety has evolved and how different research orienta-
tions have enriched our understanding of math anxiety.
In the title of their recent review, Dowker, Sarkar, and Looi (2016) asked
rhetorically “What have we learned in 60 years?” in our research on math anxi-
ety. The 60 years in question date from the first modern research paper on the
topic by Dreger and Aiken (1957) in which those authors tentatively advanced
the term “number anxiety” as a label for the emotional reaction to numbers and
mathematics. To be sure, there were precursors to this 1957 article; for example,
Browne’s (1906) report on performance on the four arithmetic operations made
passing reference to emotional reactions to math, and Gough (1954) contrib-
uted anecdotal evidence about students’ “mathemaphobia” (along with advice
2 Mark H. Ashcraft

for other teachers). But the precursors were largely anecdotal or clinical; indeed,
several were psychoanalytic writers who suggested that “failure in arithmetic
may be related to maternal overprotection” ( Dreger & Aiken, 1957, p. 344).
But the Dreger and Aiken paper was the first clear example of an empirical
research approach. In their study, Dreger and Aiken added three math-focused
questions to the Taylor Scale of Manifest Anxiety (and dropped three questions
from the Taylor scale that had low validity), and also collected scores on an intel-
ligence test, and final grades in a university math course; a subsample (n = 40)
of the 704 participants were also given an arithmetic test while Galvanic Skin
Response (GSR) def lections were recorded. All measures were inter-correlated,
and the three math-focused questions were factor analyzed. The results showed
that “number anxiety” appeared to be a separate construct from more general
anxiety, that it was unrelated to general intelligence, and that it correlated nega-
tively with math grades. All of these results have been replicated many times
since this original report.

Math anxiety as a personality construct

The Dreger and Aiken (1957) paper began a tradition of research on math anxiety
that treated math anxiety as a personality construct, that is, as a factor or dimen-
sion of the individual that needed to be explored in relation to other personality
characteristics, factors, traits, or differences. An early effort in the research, not
surprisingly, involved assessment. What test or survey was to be used to measure
math anxiety? Although several different tests were devised, the Mathematics
Anxiety Rating Scale (MARS), by Richardson and Suinn (1972), became the
most widespread assessment tool for determining an individual’s level of math
anxiety; it, along with its various revisions and versions for younger individuals,
was the underlying test used in over half of the studies that appeared in Hem-
bree’s (1990) and Ma’s (1999) inf luential meta-analyses on math anxiety.
The original MARS was a 98-item test, with the 98 items describing scenes
or situations that might invoke math anxiety (having to reconcile a checkbook,
checking a restaurant bill that you think has overcharged you, getting ready to
take a math quiz). The test asked for a self-report of how anxious each situation
would make the respondent feel, on a Likert scale of 1 (not anxious) to 5 (very
anxious). Later versions of the test, including the sMARS (s for shortened), by
Alexander and Martray (1989), a 25 item test extracted from the original MARS,
and Hopko, Mahadevan, Bare, and Hunt’s (2003) Abbreviated Math Anxiety
Scale (AMAS), a 9-item test, are also in wide use. All have good to excellent
reliability and show substantial inter-correlations, ranging from .50 to .85 ( Dew,
Galassi, & Galassi, 1983; Hopko et al., 2003; see Chapter 2 for a full discussion).
Beyond the basic work on assessing math anxiety, considerable effort was
devoted across the ensuing two decades to determine whether math anxiety was
in fact a separate construct from general anxiety or the more specific construct of
test anxiety. The well-known meta-analysis by Hembree (1990) devoted appre-
ciable effort to this question and argued that math anxiety is indeed a separate
 Models of math anxiety 3

construct, although one that overlaps with test and general anxiety to a degree
(for further detail, see Chapter 7 in this volume). Repeatedly, the correlations
between math anxiety and test anxiety were reasonably high, but not as high as
those between alternate tests of math anxiety – for instance, various math anxi-
ety tests tend to inter-correlate in the range of .50 to .85, whereas the overall
math-to-test anxiety correlation (Hembree, 1990) is .52 (see also Dew, Galassi, &
Galassi, 1984). The correlation between math anxiety and general anxiety is usu-
ally smaller; in Hembree’s (1990) meta-analysis, the value was .35.
Of more interest, research summarized in Hembree’s (1990) and Ma’s (1999)
meta-analyses covered the relationships investigated since the advent of the
MARS (and its successors) and a variety of personality and achievement fac-
tors. This work revealed an extensive list of worrisome correlations with math
anxiety (see Table 1.1 for a list of factors and correlations). On the educational
side, math anxiety correlates negatively with math achievement at both the pre-
college and college levels, and also negatively with high school and college math
grades. Math anxiety also correlates negatively with the extent of math taken in

TABLE 1.1 Selected correlations with math anxiety (MARS) summarized in Hembree’s
(1990) and Ma’s (1999)

Correlation between MARS and: r

Measures of anxiety
General anxiety .35
Trait anxiety .38
State anxiety .42
Test anxiety .52
Math attitudes
Usefulness of math −.37
Enjoyment of math (pre-college) −.75
Enjoyment of math (college) −.47
Math Self-confidence (pre-college) −.82
Math Self-confidence (college) −.65
Motivation −.64
Avoidance
Extent of high school math −.31
Intent to enroll (college) −.32
Performance measures
IQ −.17
Verbal aptitude / achievement −.06
Math achievement (pre-college) −.27
Math achievement (college) −.31
High school math grades −.30
College math grades −.27
(Adapted from Hembree, 1990; Ma, 1999)
4 Mark H. Ashcraft

high school (elective coursework), and individuals’ intent to enroll in elective

math courses in college; these correlations are routinely interpreted as indica-
tors of avoidance. Note, however, that math anxiety has a fairly low correlation
with overall intelligence (−.17), and is uncorrelated with IQ when only verbal
aptitude or achievement is considered (−.06).
The correlations between math anxiety and attitudes concerning math are
more strongly negative, and are also considered as supportive evidence for an
overall pattern of avoidance. Math anxiety correlates negatively with enjoyment
of math, self-confidence in math, motivation to learn math, and views about the
usefulness of math.
Hembree’s (1990) paper considered the theoretical models for test anxiety as a
guide for initial models of math anxiety and focused on two models in particu-
lar, the interference model and the deficits model. According to the interference
model, test anxiety was thought to disrupt recall of prior learning. The model
also claimed that interference included an individual’s worry during test taking,
which would divert attention away from the test itself. The deficits approach,
in contrast, claimed that an individual’s lower scores on a test were due to poor
study habits and deficient test-taking skills. The individual in a test-taking situ-
ation, accordingly, would remember previous poor test performance, and this
would cause test anxiety in the present moment. Because his earlier work on test
anxiety had supported the interference account, Hembree proposed that math
anxiety too might be better approached from the standpoint of the interference
model.
Interestingly, very little of the research leading up to the time of Hembree’s
meta-analysis appeared to advance theoretical proposals or models of math anxi-
ety. Instead, the research focused on two general topics. First, researchers explored
other personality characteristics and factors with which math anxiety was associ-
ated (for a related perspective on the lack of such theoretical work, see McLeod,
1989). This is the work just discussed, such as studies of the associations between
math anxiety and factors like self-confidence in math, enjoyment of math, self-
efficacy, and so forth. The other focus during this period was research relating
math anxiety to educational outcomes, that is, math achievement. A variety of
studies examined the negative association between math anxiety and grades, and
between math anxiety and math achievement, with the overall correlations (in
Hembree, 1990) found to be −.30 (pre-college) and −.27 (college) for grades, and −.27
(pre-college) and −.31 (college) for math achievement. Relationships of similar
magnitude continue to be obtained, although the relationship is now believed to
be more nuanced than a simple overall negative relationship (see, e.g., Ramirez,
Chang, Maloney, Levine, & Beilock, 2016, and Chapter 4, this volume).

Math anxiety as a cognitive construct

Early on, researchers and theorists acknowledged that math anxiety, along with
other forms of anxiety, involved a cognitive component (e.g., Dew et al., 1983).
 Models of math anxiety 5

Early writings routinely noted that test anxiety involved both an affective com-
ponent, emotionality, and a cognitive component, conscious worry. The theo-
retical model that brought this thinking into the realm of cognitive psychology
was the important processing efficiency theory by Eysenck (1992; Eysenck & Calvo,
1992). According to this theory, worry is an internal process that occupies con-
sciousness during an anxiety reaction. Critically, this preoccupation was pre-
dicted to consume the resources of the limited Working Memory system. Thus,
Eysenck predicted quite specifically that an anxious individual should show dis-
ruption on a cognitive task to the extent that the task relies on working memory
resources.
Interestingly, just before Hembree’s (1990) important meta-analysis on math
anxiety, and likewise just before Eysenck’s (1992) theory, Ashcraft and Faust
(1988) presented a conference report on an initial study concerning the cogni-
tive consequences of math anxiety. Their study examined the underlying cogni-
tive processes of doing mental arithmetic by individuals varying in their math
anxiety; as noted when the study was subsequently published (Ashcraft & Faust,
1994), it appeared to be the first to pose the question whether math anxiety actu-
ally inf luenced the mental processing involved in doing arithmetic.
In this exploratory work, Ashcraft and Faust presented simple addition and
multiplication problems (e.g., 4 + 3 = 7, 8 × 4 = 38), two-digit addition problems
with and without a carry (e.g., 24 + 17 = 43), and a set of complex problems
containing all four arithmetic operations (e.g., 18 + 16 = 34, 47 – 18 = 19,
12 × 14 = 168, 156 ÷ 12 = 13), all for true/false judgments. Participants were
given the MARS assessment and were divided into four math anxiety groups.
For the most part, the simple addition and multiplication problems revealed
no math anxiety effects, these problems showing only the standard effects found
in regular tests of addition and multiplication, namely, that latencies and errors
increased as the problems grew larger. But the two-column addition problems
revealed two particularly interesting math anxiety effects. First, the higher anxi-
ety groups were considerably slower to these problems than the lowest anxiety
group. Second, the higher anxiety groups seemed particularly slowed down by
the presence of a carry problem; that is, when a problem involved a carry, only
the low anxiety group demonstrated efficient performance, whereas perfor-
mance in groups 2, 3, and 4 was particularly disrupted.
In a second set of studies, Faust, Ashcraft, and Fleck (1996) replicated and
extended the exploratory studies, and found several additional effects of math
anxiety on cognitive performance. Three results deserve particular mention.
First, in the initial experiment, we again studied performance of simple addition
problems in the true/false task. But we expanded the range of values (termed
“split”) for the incorrect answers; here, incorrect answers could be wrong by
1, 5, 9, or 23 (e.g., 7 + 5 = 35). Unlike the typical result, which shows perfor-
mance improving as the split grows larger, we found the higher anxiety groups
actually made more errors (and had more extreme scores) when the split grew
larger. This suggested to us a deficiency in “number sense,” in that we expected
6 Mark H. Ashcraft

an unreasonable answer like 35 for the problem 7 + 5 to be rejected immediately

based on a plausibility judgment (see Suarez-Pellicioni, Nunez-Pena, & Colome,
2013, for a replication using event-related potentials methodology). Second, we
again found that the carry operation in two-column addition led to slower and
more error prone performance for the higher levels of anxiety. And finally, to
rule out a simple math competence as a confound in explanations of the math
anxiety effects, we tested all of the experimental stimuli in an untimed, paper-
and-pencil format in a separate study, thus removing the time pressure of the lab-
oratory methods. In this study, there was no relationship between performance
and measured level of math anxiety at all, either in correlations or in analysis of
variance with the four-level math anxiety groups.
Mainstream research in mathematical cognition had firmly established the
important role of working memory in procedural aspects of performance, that
is, carrying in two-column addition (e.g., Ashcraft & Stazyk, 1981; Widaman,
Geary, Cormier, & Little, 1989). Thus, we were confronted with evidence that
this working memory-intensive aspect of performance was especially trouble-
some for those higher in math anxiety. Accordingly, we extended Eysenck’s
(1992) processing efficiency theory to the realm of math anxiety and conducted
a direct test of the hypothesis that math anxiety causes a disruption in working
memory processing while doing math, visible only when the math task relies
on the resources of working memory. To perform this test, Ashcraft and Kirk
(2001) placed participants in a dual-task setting, asking them to perform addi-
tion problems of increasing difficulty: basic facts (single digit operands), medium
size problems (a two-digit plus a one-digit operand), and large problems (two
two-digit operands). Half of the problems required a carry operation. In a letter-
only control condition, either two or six random letters were shown prior to the
addition problem, and then had to be recalled after the addition problem was
removed from the screen. Because we showed the answer to the addition prob-
lem for the participant to read aloud, no actual math processing was required in
this condition. But in the dual-task condition, the letters had to be held in work-
ing memory while solving the addition problem, and then recalled from memory
after giving the answer to the problem.
Our prediction was that the larger addition problems, especially those involving
the carry operation, would be the most taxing of working memory resources, and
thus would interfere the most when six letters had to be held in working memory
for recall. This is the classic dual-task interference effect, of course. But our pre-
diction went further. The prediction we derived from Eysenck (1992) was that the
dual-task interference effect should be especially pronounced for the high math
anxious group, which would essentially be performing in a triple-task situation –
difficult carry problems being solved under a heavy working memory load while
their working memory was being drained by their anxiety-induced worries.
In short, this is exactly what the results demonstrated. Higher working mem-
ory loads led to more errors, especially when the addition problem involved
carrying, but this of course was only found in the dual-task condition; letter
 Models of math anxiety 7

recall was nearly perfect in the letter-only control condition. But the critical
prediction involving math anxiety was confirmed; the high math anxious group
scored almost 40% errors on the working memory task when working memory
load was high and the problem involved a carry, compared to 18% for the low
anxious group. And these two groups had identical error rates in the six-letter
load condition when the problem did not involve carrying. Thus, the critical role
of working memory in the procedure of carrying was confirmed, and the crip-
pling of working memory on the part of highly math anxious participants was
also demonstrated (see Chapters 6 and 7 for additional information on working
memory; for related work showing working memory’s involvement in algebra
problem solving, see Trezise & Reeve, 2014).
Ramirez, Shaw, and Maloney (2018) have termed this model of math anxiety
the disruption account; math anxiety disrupts math performance because it reduces
the working memory resources necessary for successful performance. Of course,
working memory is the attentional and executive control system that manipu-
lates and maintains the limited amount of information immediately relevant for
a task; it keeps important information available while inhibiting attention to
irrelevant information (see, e.g., Baddeley, 1986; Engle, 2002; Miyake & Shah,
1999). In this disruption account, it is the worry and ruminations about one’s
math anxiety that cause the disruption in working memory, either that working
memory’s resources are in some sense consumed by those worries and rumina-
tions, or perhaps equivalently that one fails to inhibit attention to those worries
and ruminations.
Recall that in Faust et al. (1996), the final study gave participants an untimed,
pencil-and-paper test on the math problems and found no differences in perfor-
mance (accuracy) at the different levels of math anxiety. This is consonant with
the implication of the disruption account, that the math anxiety effect is one of
a transient disruption of performance due to interference in working memory,
rather than a global disruption due to overall lower competence at math. As
Ashcraft and colleagues have been careful to note, however, this assumption
about competence cannot be made at higher levels of math difficulty, given
the wealth of evidence that people higher in math anxiety avoid taking higher-
level (elective) math coursework. There surely are math competence differences
between levels of math anxiety when truly high-level math is involved; however,
to date, only relatively lower-level math problems have been studied in experi-
mental work, where competence, in terms of educational attainment, seems to
be equivalent across the levels of math anxiety (though see Trezise & Reeve,
2014). But when higher levels of math are concerned, given the clear evidence
that individuals with higher levels of math anxiety take fewer math courses (e.g.,
Hembree, 1990), we would expect a lower level of competence as a function of
math anxiety. This has been described as an education-based reduced competency
account of math anxiety by Ramirez et al. (2018).
In an offshoot of this work, several studies have examined what particu-
lar aspect of working memory might be disrupted by math anxiety. A likely