Abstract
Objective: Math anxiety has been shown to correlate negatively with math performance among students. It remains unclear whether this relationship differs between boys and girls. The current study aimed to examine gender differences in the link between math anxiety and math achievement in elementary and secondary school students. Methods: All students involved in the study (17,382 fourth-grade students and 11,346 eighth-grade students) completed a math-anxiety questionnaire and several math-achievement tests. Results: Math anxiety and math achievement were negatively correlated in both boys and girls. The moderating effect of gender on this correlation was significant, and the correlation was stronger in girls than in boys, regardless of grade. Conclusion: The link between math anxiety and math achievement is stronger for girls than for boys, which suggests we should pay more attention to how girls react emotionally to math.
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Data Availability
The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
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This study has been supported by the STI 2030—Major Projects 2021ZD0200500, the MOE (Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China) Project of Humanities and Social Sciences [No. 18YJC190030] and Qingdao Municipal Planning Project of Social Sciences [No. QDSKL2001017].
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Xiaodan Yu, Haitao Wang and Xinlin Zhou designed experiment and revised the manuscript. Xiaodan Yu and Haitao Wang collected data. Xiaodan Yu, Huimin Zhou, Panpan Sheng, Bingqian Ren analysed data and wrote the manuscript. Yiguo Wang revised the manuscript.
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Yu, X., Zhou, H., Sheng, P. et al. Math anxiety is more closely associated with math performance in female students than in male students. Curr Psychol 43, 1381–1394 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-023-04349-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-023-04349-y