Missing factors in math anxiety The role of emotional components, math behaviour, and cognitive biases in adolescents’ math anxiety

Math anxiety is a negative emotional response in math-related situations that disrupts performance. Its negative consequences might be most prominent in adolescents. The general aim of this dissertation was to improve our understanding of math anxiety in adolescents. It was proposed that there are three missing factors in our understanding of math anxiety: (1) the conceptualization of math anxiety, (2) math behaviour, and (3) cognitive biases. These missing factors were investigated across the studies in unselected secondary school students (Chapters 2 to 5) and (selected) undergraduate students (Chapters 3 and 6). The results suggest that math anxiety consists of four components: Affect & Physiology, Worry, Avoidance, and Effort (missing factor 1), which were differentially related to aspects of math behaviour (missing factor 2; Chapter 2). Also, math anxiety could be measured using the AMAS in a comparable way across subgroups (Chapter 3). For cognitive biases (missing factor 3), the strength of associations between math and failure was related to math anxiety, and it predicted math behaviour. However, no support was found for attentional and avoidance biases in math anxiety and behaviour, possibly due to task limitations. The findings demonstrated that failure is a central threat in math anxiety and suggested that expectancies of failure are activated quickly and automatically in high math-anxious individuals. Further research could (1) pursue research on mechanisms in math anxiety to improve our understanding, or (2) apply the findings to develop interventions targeting math anxiety.