An investigation of boys’ and girls’ emotional experience of math, their math performance, and the relation between these variables

Abstract

Gender differences in children's emotional experience of math, their math performance, and the relation between these variables were investigated in two studies. In Study 1, test anxiety, math anxiety, and math performance (whole-number computation) were measured in 134 children in grades 3-8 (ages 7-15 years). In Study 2, perceived math competence, math anxiety, and math performance (whole-number computation) were measured in 208 children in grades 3-6 (ages 8-13 years) using data from the study of Jansen et al. (Learning and Individual Differences, 24, 190-197, 2013). Gender differences occurred only in test anxiety (boys had lower test anxiety than girls). Concerning the relationship between emotional experience of math and math performance, math anxiety and math performance were negatively related, but only for girls, even when controlled for test anxiety (Study 1). However, only the relation between perceived math competence and math performance was significant in Study 2, for both boys and girls. The relation between math anxiety and math performance was not significant in this study after controlling for perceived math competence. Therefore, we might conclude that perceived math competence is a crucial variable when investigating children's emotional experience concerning math.Keywords Gender . Math performance . Age groups . Mathanxiety . Perceived math competence Developing adequate math skills is important. Math is not only merely an important factor for success in natural sciences such as physics and chemistry but also to function adequately in daily life. Although gender differences have decreased and some studies suggest that there are almost no gender differences in levels of math achievement (Else-Quest et al.

Mathematics: I don't like it! I like it! Very much, a little, not at all... Social support and emotions in students from 2nd and 3rd cycles of education

“…Most of the empirical evidence on achievement emotions has originated from the extensive research on Anxiety, and Mathematics Anxiety in particular, which has typically been negatively associated to student math achievement and performance (Ahmed et al, 2010;Ahmed et al, 2013;Luo et al, 2014;Radišić, Vidennović, & Baucal, 2015;Ramirez, Gunderson, Levine, & Beilock, 2013;Wu, Willcutt, Escovar, & Menon, 2014). There is however mixed evidence, since math Anxiety has also been either positively related (e.g., Macher et al, 2013), or unrelated to students' performance (e.g., Kyttala & Bjorn, 2010), particularly when competence beliefs were taken into account (Erturan & Jansen, 2015). These results appear to corroborate one of the premises of the Control-value theory (Pekrun, 2006), according to which negative activating emotions may sometimes be detrimental to achievement and performance, but at other times may be beneficial.…”

“…Indeed, although girls show higher levels of math Anxiety than boys (Erturan & Jansen, 2015;Frenzel et al, 2007;, most studies show that their performance in mathematics is not significantly different (Else-Quest, Hyde, Lindberg, Linn, Ellis, & Williams, 2008;Lindberg, Hyde, Petersen, & Linn, 2010). These results suggest that girls tend to inaccurately exhibit low outcome expectancies about their math performance or to overestimate their math Anxiety, probably due to their lower levels of math competence beliefs (e.g., Else-Quest et al, 2010;Huang, 2013) or to their endorsement of gender stereotypes , such as "girls are not good at math".…”

Affective and Motivational Factors Mediate the Relation between Math Skills and Use of Math in Everyday Life

“…Indeed, this relationship is supported empirically for the domain of math (Bieg et al, 2013). The mutual relation between self-belief and mathematics performance is established as well (Marsh et al, 2005; Liu, 2009; Erturan and Jansen, 2015). Here, we focus on perceived math competence: A person's feeling of being competent to successfully accomplish math tasks.…”

“…Additionally, gender differences are of specific relevance, as numerous studies show that women report higher levels of math anxiety than men (Hembree, 1990; Meece et al, 1990; Miller and Bichsel, 2004; Bonnot and Croizet, 2007; Marsh et al, 2008; Devine et al, 2012), although other studies show only small gender differences (Chinn, 2009) or no gender differences at all (Chiu and Henry, 1990; Ma, 1999; Ho et al, 2000; Ma and Xu, 2004; Birgin et al, 2010; Erturan and Jansen, 2015). A gender difference in math anxiety may relate to the lower female participation in professions in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM; Bureau of Labor Statistics, US Department of Labor, 2014; www.cbs.nl).…”

“…We hypothesize that there is a positive relation between math skills and use of math in everyday life that is however mediated by math anxiety, in the sense that higher skills are negatively related to math anxiety, which is again negatively related to use of math in everyday life. The relations between math skills, use of math in everyday life and math anxiety are investigated for women and men separately because the relationship between math skills and math anxiety is expected to be stronger for women than for men (Devine et al, 2012; Erturan and Jansen, 2015; but see Hembree, 1990; Meece et al, 1990; Ma and Xu, 2004; Miller and Bichsel, 2004). …”