The Influence Of Math Anxiety On Mathematical Performance Among High School Students

Nowadays,math anxiety is a common problem in high school students,and it is also an important factor for high school students'mathematics learning and career choice in the future.In order to offer effective methods for high school students to improve their mathematics learning and reduce the stress for the sociaty in the need of mathematics professionals,present study aims at the role inhibition(the core function of central executive system)in the influence of math anxiety on mathematical performance among high school students.In experiment 1,a total of 100 subjects were selected to participate in the two-factor test(conceptual word:mathematical correlation,mathematical independence)×2(attribute word:calm,anxiety)to explore the relationship between implicit math anxiety and explicit math anxiety under the IAT paradigm(the implicit association test paradigm).The results showed that the IAT effect of implicit math anxiety is not significant(D=0.357),indicating that there might be no implicit math anxiety and no need to further analyze whether implicit math anxiety was consistent with or separate from explicit math anxiety.In experiment 2,a total of 210 subjects were selected to do addition with the three-factor test 3(math anxiety:high,middle,low)×3(inhibition:strong,medium,weak)×3(computational difficulty:no carry,carry one,carry two),in which math anxiety and inhibition were intertest variables,computational difficulty was internal variable.Furthermore,affective priming paradigm and math anxiety questionnaire were used to investigate the validity of affective priming paradigm and the relationship among math anxiety,inhibition and arithmetic operating.There was no affective priming effect,while there was a significant negative correlation between math anxiety and arithmetic operating without considering inhibition(r=-0.203,p<0.01),which disappeared among subjects with high-inhibition.Repeated measures ANOVA(analysis of variance)showed that the interaction between math anxiety and inhibition was significant(F_(4,202)=2.528,p<0.05).That is,inhibition moderates the relationship between math anxiety and arithmetic operating.To be more specific,the performance of subjects with high math anxiety and high inhibition was significantly better than that of subjects with higher math anxiety and lower inhibition,while there was no significant difference between the subjects with lower math anxiety and higher inhibition and those with low mathematics anxiety and low inhibition.