Abstract
Participants with mathematical anxiety (MA) tend to show particular difficulty in mathematical operations with high working memory (WM) demands compared to operations with lower WM demands. Accordingly, we examined strategy selection to test the cognitive mechanism underlying the observed weakness of high MA participants in mathematical operations with high WM demands. We compared two groups of college students with high or low MA, in the solution of simple non-carry addition problems (e.g., 54 + 63) and complex carryover addition problems (e.g., 59 + 63). The results indicated that high MA participants showed particular difficulty in the harder carry condition. Testing the strategy selection mechanism among high MA participants, we found in the carry condition 1) they used the common strategy less often compared to low MA participants and 2) employed unusual strategies more often compared to low MA participants. Therefore, high MA participants were less efficient in their strategy selection, which may be due to weaker spatial representations, numerical difficulties, or less experience solving complex problems. These primitive representations are not adaptive, and can negatively impact performance in math tasks with high WM demands.
Highlights
Mathematical anxiety (MA) is a feeling of tension and anxiety that interferes with the manipulation of numbers and the solution of mathematical problems in a wide variety of everyday life and academic situations[1]
Contrary to the limited working memory (WM) resources theory regarding MA2,7,8, studies have found that participants with high MA (HMA) had lower performance compared to participants with low MA (LMA) in basic numerical tasks related to number sense, which have minimal WM demands[9,10,11]
Using a similar methodology to Hodzik and Lemaire[24], with the addition of WM manipulation, we found that strategy selection was modulated by WM demand, number sense ability and central executive abilities[26]
Summary
Mathematical anxiety (MA) is a feeling of tension and anxiety that interferes with the manipulation of numbers and the solution of mathematical problems in a wide variety of everyday life and academic situations[1]. Contrary to the limited WM resources theory regarding MA2,7,8, studies have found that participants with high MA (HMA) had lower performance compared to participants with low MA (LMA) in basic numerical tasks (such as symbolic and non-symbolic comparison tasks) related to number sense, which have minimal WM demands[9,10,11]. One way to understand the origin of MA, and the situational influences of MA in the case of high anxiety, is to test strategy selection (i.e., choice of appropriate strategies in relation to task characteristics) and strategy execution (i.e., performance of the cognitive processes involved in each strategy) during the solution of math problems (for an explanation of the common strategies employed during complex arithmetic problem see our explanation of the task below). Children with MA and high WM capabilities have poorer performance in mathematics tasks with high WM demands because they cannot access strategies they would normally rely on
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