Top

Psychological Research

Tip

Swipe om te navigeren naar een ander artikel

Gepubliceerd in:

18-05-2021 | Original Article

Math anxiety relates positively to metacognitive insight into mathematical decision making

Auteurs: Kobe Desender, Delphine Sasanguie

Gepubliceerd in: Psychological Research | Uitgave 3/2022

Abstract

The current study reports a pre-registered investigation into the interrelations between mathematics anxiety, metacognition and mathematical decision-making. Although this question has already received some attention in previous work, reliance on self-report measures of metacognition has hindered its interpretation. Here, a novel experimental mathematical decision-making task was used in which participants solved mathematical assignments of varying difficulty, and expressed their level of confidence in the accuracy of their decision both prospectively and retrospectively. Mathematics anxiety was measured using a standardized questionnaire. Both prospective and retrospective confidence judgments predicted unique variation in accuracy; however, the explanatory effect of prospective confidence disappeared after taking task difficulty into account. This suggests that prospective, but not retrospective, confidence is largely based on easily available cues indicative of performance. Results of a multiple regression analysis indicated that individual differences in mathematics anxiety were negatively related to the overall level of confidence (both prospectively and retrospectively), and positively related to metacognitive efficiency (only prospectively). Having insight in these interrelationships is important in the context of remediating mathematics anxiety, which might in turn be useful with regard to the worldwide need for more workers with degrees in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM).

vorige artikel Day versus night consolidation of implicit sequence learning using manual and oculomotor activation versions of the serial reaction time task: reaction time and anticipation measures

volgende artikel Correction to: In Medio Stat Virtus: intermediate levels of mind wandering improve episodic memory encoding in a virtual environment

Ackerman, R., & Thompson, V. A. (2017). Meta-reasoning: Monitoring and control of thinking and reasoning. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 21(8), 607–617. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2017.05.004. CrossRefPubMed

Ahmed, W., Minnaert, A., Kuyper, H., & van der Werf, G. (2012). Reciprocal relationships between math self-concept and math anxiety. Learning and Individual Differences, 22, 385–389. CrossRef

Aschraft, M. H., & Faust, M. W. (1994). Mathematics anxiety and mental arithmetic performance: An exploratory investigation. Cognition and Emotion, 8, 97–125. CrossRef

Ashcraft, M. H. (2002). Math anxiety: Personal, educational and cognitive consequences. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 11, 181–185. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8721.00196. CrossRef

Ashcraft, M. H., & Kirk, E. P. (2001). The relationships among working memory, math anxiety, and performance. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 130, 224–237. https://doi.org/10.1037/0096-3445.130.2.224. CrossRef

Ashcraft, M. H., & Moore, A. M. (2009). Mathematics anxiety and the affective drop in performance. Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment, 27(3), 197–205. https://doi.org/10.1177/0734282908330580. CrossRef

Ashcraft, M. H., & Ridley, K. S. (2005). Math anxiety and its cognitive consequences: A tutorial review. In J. I. D. Campbell (Ed.), Handbook of mathematical cognition (pp. 315–327). Psychology Press.

Ashcraft, M. H., & Rudig, N. O. (2012). Higher cognition is altered by non-cognitive factors: How affect enhances and disrupts mathematics performance in adolescence and young adulthood. In V. F. Reyna, S. B. Chapman, M. R. Dougherty, & J. Confrey (Eds.), The Adolescent Brain: Learning, Reasoning, and Decision Making (pp. 243–263). Washington, DC: APA. CrossRef

Bandalos, D. L., Yates, K., & Thorndike-Christ, T. (1995). Effects of Math Self-Concept, Perceived Self-Efficacy, and Attributions for Failure and Success on Test Anxiety. Journal of Educational Psychology, 87, 611. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.87.4.611. CrossRef

Bates, D. M., Maechler, M., Bolker, B., & Walker, S. (2015). Fitting linear mixed-effects models using lme4. Journal of Statistical Software, 67(1), 1–48. CrossRef

Bjork, R. A., Dunlosky, J., & Kornell, N. (2013). Self-regulated learning: Beliefs, techniques, and illusions. Annual Review of Psychology, 64(1), 417–444. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-113011-143823. CrossRefPubMed

Boldt, A., Schiffer, A., Waszak, F., & Yeung, N. (2019). Confidence predictions affect performance confidence and neural preparation in perceptual decision making. Scientific Reports, 2018, 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-40681-9. CrossRef

Boldt, A., de Gardelle, V., & Yeung, N. (2017). The Impact of Evidence Reliability on Sensitivity and Bias in Decision Confidence. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance. https://doi.org/10.1037/xhp0000404.

Carey, E., Hill, F., Devine, A., & Szücs, D. (2016). The chicken or the egg? The direction of the relationship between mathematics anxiety and mathematics performance. Frontiers in Psychology, 6, 1987. CrossRef

Cargnelutti, E., Tomasetto, C., & Passolunghi, M. C. (2017). How is anxiety related to math performance in young students? A longitudinal study of Grade 2 to Grade 3 children. Cognition and Emotion, 31(4), 755–764. CrossRef

Cipora, K., Szczygieł, M., Willmes, K., & Nuerk, H.-C. (2015). Math anxiety assessment with the Abbreviated Math Anxiety Scale: Applicability and usefulness: Insights from the Polish adaptation. Frontiers in Psychology, 6, Article 1833.

Civitci, N., & Civitci, A. (2009). Self-esteem as mediator and moderator of the relationship between loneliness and life satisfaction in adolescents. Personality and Individual Differences, 47, 954–958. CrossRef

Cragg, L., Keeble, S., Richardson, S., Roome, H. E., & Gilmore, C. (2017). Direct and indirect influences of executive functions on mathematics achievement. Cognition, 162, 12–26. CrossRef

De Vos, T. (1992). Handleiding Tempo Test Rekenen, T.T.R.. Lisse, the Netherlands: Harcourt Test Publishers.

Desender, K., Van Opstal, F., & Van den Bussche, E. (2017). Subjective experience of difficulty depends on multiple cues. Scientific Reports, 13(7), 44222. https://doi.org/10.1038/srep44222. CrossRef

Devine, A., Fawcett, K., Szűcs, D., & Dowker, A. (2012). Gender differences in mathematics anxiety and the relation to mathematics performance while controlling for test anxiety. Behavioral and Brain Functions, 8(9), 33. CrossRef

Dew, K. H., & Galassi, J. P. (1983). Mathematics anxiety: some basic issues. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 30(3), 443. CrossRef

Dougherty, C. (2003). Numeracy, literacy and earnings: Evidence from the national longitudinal survey of youth. Economics of Education Review. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0272-7757(03)00040-2. CrossRef

Dowker, A., Sarkar, A., & Looi, C. Y. (2016). Mathematics anxiety: What have we learned in 60 years? Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 508. PubMedPubMedCentral

Drescher, L. H., Van den Bussche, E., & Desender, K. (2018). Absence without leave or leave without absence: Examining the interrelations among mind wandering, metacognition, and cognitive control. PLoS ONE.

Erickson, S., & Heit, E. (2015). Metacognition and confidence: Comparing math to other academic subjects. Frontiers in Psychology, 6(June), 1–10. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00742. CrossRef

Eysenck, M. W., Derakshan, N., Santos, R., & Calvo, M. G. (2007). Anxiety and cognitive performance: Attentional control theory. Emotion, 7(2), 336–353. CrossRef

Fleming, S. M., & Dolan, R. J. (2012). The neural basis of metacognitive ability. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, 367(1594), 1338–1349. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2011.0417. CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentral

Fleming, S. M., Gajdos, T., & Vergnaud, J. (2016). Metacognition about the past and future: Quantifying common and distinct influences on prospective and retrospective judgments of self-performance. Neuroscience of Consciousness. https://doi.org/10.1093/nc/niw018. CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentral

Fleming, S. M., & Lau, H. C. (2014). How to measure metacognition. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 8(July), 1–9. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00443. CrossRef

Foley, A. E., Herts, J. B., Borgonovi, F., Guerriero, S., Levine, S. C., & Beilock, S. L. (2017). The math anxiety-performance link: A global phenomenon. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 26(1), 52–58. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721416672463. CrossRef

Gerardi, K., Goette, L., & Meier, S. (2013). Numerical ability predicts mortgage default. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 110(28), 11267–11271. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1220568110. CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentral

Gherman, S., & Philiastides, M. G. (2018). Human VMPFC encodes early signatures of confidence in perceptual decisions. eLife, 7, 1–28. https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.38293. CrossRef

Green, D. M., & Swets, J. A. (1966). Signal Detection Theory and Psychophysics.

Gunderson, E. A., Park, D., Maloney, E. A., Beilock, S. L., & Levine, S. C. (2019). Reciprocal relations among motivational frameworks, math anxiety, and math achievement in early elementary school. Journal of Cognition and Development, 19, 21–46. https://doi.org/10.1080/15248372.2017.1421538. CrossRef

Harmon-Jones, E., Simon, L., Greenberg, J., Pyszczynski, T., Solomon, S., & McGregor, H. (1997). Terror management theory and self-esteem: Evidence that increased self-esteem reduced mortality salience effects. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 72(1), 24–36. CrossRef

Hauser, T. U., Allen, M. G., Rees, G., & Dolan, R. J. (2017). Metacognitive impairments extend perceptual decision making weaknesses in compulsivity Metacognitive impairments extend perceptual decision making weaknesses in compulsivity. Scientific Reports. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-06116-z.

Hauser, T. U., Allen, M., Purg, N., Moutoussis, M., Rees, G., & Dolan, R. J. (2017). Noradrenaline blockade specifically enhances metacognitive performance. eLife, 6, 24901. https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.24901.

Hembree, R. (1990). The Nature, Effects, and Relief of Mathematics Anxiety. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 21, 33–46. CrossRef

Henschel, S., & Roick, T. (2017). Relationships of mathematics performance, control and value beliefs with cognitive and affective math anxiety. Learning and Individual Differences, 55, 97–107. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2017.03.009. CrossRef

Hopko, D. R., Ashcraft, M. H., Gute, J., Ruggiero, K. J., & Lewis, C. (1998). Mathematics anxiety and working memory: Support for the Existence of a Deficient Inhibition Mechanism. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 12(4), 343–355. CrossRef

Hopko, D. R., Mahadevan, R., Bare, R. L., & Hunt, M. K. (2003). The Abbreviated Math Anxiety Scale (AMAS): Construction, validity, and reliability. Assessment, 10(2), 178–182. https://doi.org/10.1177/1073191103010002008. CrossRefPubMed

Jacobse, A. E., & Harskamp, E. G. (2012). Towards efficient measurement of metacognition in mathematical problem solving. Metacognition Learning, 7, 133–149. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11409-012-9088-x. CrossRef

Jain, S., & Dowson, M. (2009). Mathematics anxiety as a function of multidimensional self-regulation and self-efficacy. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 34, 240–249. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cedpsych.2009.05.004. CrossRef

Jansen, B. R. J., Louwerse, J., Straatemeier, M., Van der Ven, S. H. G., Klinkenberg, S., & Van der Maas, H. L. J. (2013). The influence of experiencing success in math on math anxiety, perceived math competence, and math performance. Learning and Individual Differences, 24, 190–197. CrossRef

Karpicke, J. D., & Roediger, H. L. (2008). The critical importance of retrieval for learning. Science, 319(February), 966–969. CrossRef

Kepecs, A., Uchida, N., Zariwala, H. A., & Mainen, Z. F. (2008). Neural correlates, computation and behavioural impact of decision confidence. Nature, 455(7210), 227–231. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature07200. CrossRefPubMed

Kiani, R., & Shadlen, M. N. (2009). Representation of confidence associated with a decision by neurons in the parietal cortex. Science, 324(5928), 759–764. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1169405. CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentral

Koriat, A. (1997). Monitoring one’s own knowledge during study: A cue-utilization approach to judgments of learning. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 126(4), 349–370. https://doi.org/10.1037/0096-3445.126.4.349. CrossRef

Kuznetsova, A., Brockhoff, P. B., & Christensen, R. H. B. (2014). lmerTest: test in linear mixed effect models. R package version 2.0–20. http://CRAN.R-project.org/package=lmerTest.

Lai, Y., Zhu, X., Chen, Y., & Li, Y. (2015). Effects of Mathematics Anxiety and Mathematical Metacognition on Word Problem Solving in Children with and without Mathematical Learning Difficulties. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0130570.

Legg, A. M., & Locker, L. (2009). Math performance and its relationship to math anxiety and metacognition Math Performance and Its Relationship to Math Anxiety and Metacognition. North American Journal of Psychology, 11(3), 471–486.

Leonesio, R. J., & Nelson, T. O. (1990). Do Different Metamemory Judgments Tap the Same Underlying Aspects of Memory? Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 16(3), 464–470. https://doi.org/10.1037/0278-7393.16.3.464. CrossRefPubMed

Lucangeli, D., & Cornoldi, C. (1997). Mathematics and metacognition: What is the nature of the relationship? Mathematical Cognition, 3(2), 121–139. https://doi.org/10.1080/135467997387443. CrossRef

Ma, X. (1999). A meta-analysis of the relationship between anxiety toward mathematics and achievement in mathematics. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 30, 520–540. https://doi.org/10.2307/749772. CrossRef

Maechler, M. (2018). sfsmisc: Utilities from “Seminar fuer Statistik” ETH Zurich. Retrieved from https://cran.r-project.org/package=sfsmisc.

Maloney, E., Ansari, D., & Fugelsang, J. (2011). The effect of mathematics anxiety on the processing of numerical magnitude. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 64(1), 10–16. CrossRef

Maloney, E. A., Risko, E. F., Ansari, D., & Fugelsang, J. (2010). Mathematics anxiety affects counting but not subitizing during visual enumeration. Cognition, 114(2), 293–297. CrossRef

Mammarella, I. C., Caviola, S., Giofrè, D., & Borella, E. (2018). Seperating math from anxiety: The role of inhibitory mechanisms. Applied Neuropsychology: Child, 7, 342–353. https://doi.org/10.1080/21622965.2017.1341836 Epub 2017 Jul 6. CrossRef

Mammarella, I. C., Donolato, E., Caviola, S., & Giofrè, D. (2018). Anxiety profiles and protective factors: A latent profile analysis in children. Personality and Individual Differences, 124, 201–208. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2017.12.017. CrossRef

Maniscalco, B., & Lau, H. (2012). A signal detection theoretic approach for estimating metacognitive sensitivity from confidence ratings. Consciousness and Cognition, 21(1), 422–430. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2011.09.021. CrossRefPubMed

Maniscalco, B., Peters, M. A. K., & Lau, H. (2016). Heuristic use of perceptual evidence leads to dissociation between performance and metacognitive sensitivity. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-016-1059-x. CrossRef

Mayes, S. D., Calhoun, S. L., Bixler, E. O., & Zimmerman, D. (2009). IQ and neuropsychological predictors of academic achievement. Learning and Individual Differences, 19, 238–241. CrossRef

Metcalfe, J., & Finn, B. (2008). Evidence that judgments of learning are causally related to study choice. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 15(1), 174–179. https://doi.org/10.3758/PBR.15.1.174. CrossRef

Morsanyi, K., Ní Cheallaigh, N., & Ackerman, R. (2019). Mathematics anxiety and metacognitive processes: Proposal for a new line of inquiry. Psychological Topics, 28(1), 147–169.

Namkung, J.M., Peng, P., & Li, X. (2019). The relation between mathematics anxiety and mathematics performance among school-aged students: A meta-analysis. Review of Educational Research, pp. 1–38. https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654319843494.

O’Neil, H. F., & Abedi, J. (1996). Reliability and Validity of a State Metacognitive Inventory: Potential for Alternative Assessment. Journal of Educational Research, 89(4), 234–245. CrossRef

Özsoy., G., Ataman, A. (2009). The effect of metacognitive strategy training on mathematical problem solving achievement. International Electronic Journal of Elementary Education, 1(2), 67–82.

Parsons, S., & Bynner, J. (2005). Does numeracy matter more? National Research and Development Centre for Adult Literacy and Numeracy.

Paternoster, R., Brame, R., Mazerolle, P., & Piquero, A. (1998). Using the correct statistical test for the equality of regression coefficients. Criminology, 36(4), 859–866. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-9125.1998.tb01268.x. CrossRef

Pipere, A., & Mieriņa, I. (2017). Exploring non-cognitive predictors of mathematics achievement among 9th grade students. Learning and Individual Differences, 59, 65–77. CrossRef

Primi, C., Busdraghi, C., Tomasetto, C., Morsanyi, K., & Chiesi, F. (2014). Measuring math anxiety in Italian college and high school students: Validity, reliability and gender invariance of the Abbreviated Math Anxiety Scale (AMAS). Learning and Individual Differences, 34, 51–56. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2014.05.012. CrossRef

R Development Core Team. (2008). R: A language and environment for statistical computing.

Reyna, V. F., Nelson, W. L., Han, P. K., & Dieckmann, N. F. (2009). How numeracy influences risk comprehension and medical decision making. Psychological Bulletin. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0017327. CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentral

Richardson, F. C., & Suinn, R. M. (1972). The mathematics anxiety rating scale: Psychometric data. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 19(6), 551. CrossRef

Rouault, M., Seow, T., Gillan, C. M., & Fleming, S. M. (2018). Psychiatric symptom dimensions are associated with dissociable shifts in metacognition but not task performance. Biological Psychiatry, 84(6), 443–451. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2017.12.017. CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentral

Rubinsten, O., Eidlin, H., Wohl, H., & Akibli, O. (2015). Attentional bias in math anxiety. Frontiers in Psychology, 6, 1539. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01539. CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentral

Schillinger, F. L., Vogel, S. E., Diedrich, J., & Grabner, R. H. (2018). Math anxiety, intelligence, and performance in mathematics: Insights from the German adaptation of the Abbreviated Math Anxiety Scale (AMAS-G). Learning and Individual Differences, 61, 109–119. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2017.11.014. CrossRef

Schraw, G., & Moshman, D. (1995). Metacognitive theories. Educational Psychology Review, 7, 351–371. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02212307. CrossRef

Sokolowski, H. M., Hawes, Z., & Lyons, I. M. (2019). What explains sex differences in math anxiety: A closer look at the role of spatial processing. Cognition, 182, 193–212. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2018.10.005. CrossRefPubMed

Tingley, D., Yamamoto, T., Hirose, K., Keele, L., & Imai, K. (2014). mediation: R package for causal mediation analysis. Journal of Statistical Software, 59(5), 1–38. https://doi.org/10.18637/jss.v059.i05.

Träff, U. (2013). The contribution of general cognitive abilities and number abilities to different aspects of mathematics in children. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 116, 139–156. CrossRef

Undorf, M., Zimdahl, M. F., & Bernstein, D. M. (2017). Perceptual fluency contributes to effects of stimulus size on judgments of learning. Journal of Memory and Language, 92, 293–304. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jml.2016.07.003. CrossRef

Xie, F., Xin, Z., Chen, X., & Zhang, L. (2018). Gender Difference of Chinese High School Students’ Math Anxiety: The Effects of Self-Esteem. Sex roles. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-018-0982-9. CrossRef

Titel: Math anxiety relates positively to metacognitive insight into mathematical decision making
Auteurs: Kobe Desender
Delphine Sasanguie
Publicatiedatum: 18-05-2021
Uitgeverij: Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Gepubliceerd in: Psychological Research / Uitgave 3/2022
Print ISSN: 0340-0727
Elektronisch ISSN: 1430-2772
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-021-01511-8

Bohn Stafleu van Loghum

Tip

Swipe om te navigeren naar een ander artikel

Deel dit onderdeel of sectie (kopieer de link)

Abstract

Log in om toegang te krijgen

Andere artikelen Uitgave 3/2022

Correction to: In Medio Stat Virtus: intermediate levels of mind wandering improve episodic memory encoding in a virtual environment

The effect of binaural beat stimulation on sustained attention

Response inhibition deficits are positively associated with trait rumination, but attentional inhibition deficits are not: aggressive behaviors and interpersonal stressors as mediators

Disentangling interoceptive abilities in alexithymia

Implementation of the diffusion model on dot-probe task performance in children with behavioral inhibition

Learning of across- and within-task contingencies modulates partial-repetition costs in dual-tasking