The Relationship Between Math Gender Stereotypes,math Anxiety,and Cognitive Flexibility In Middle School Students

Cognitive flexibility affects the process of processing multiple pieces of information simultaneously,and students with high cognitive flexibility tend to have a strong ability to assimilate previously learned knowledge and concepts to generate new solutions to problem,to think more diffusely,and to be more emotionally stable.Learning mathematics cannot be achieved without cognitive involvement,and studies have shown that the higher the cognitive flexibility of students,the better their performance in mathematics.The development of cognitive flexibility is influenced by an individual’s cognitive perceptions;the presence of negative stereotypes can take up cognitive resources and increase cognitive load,requiring individuals to put more effort into suppressing the negative effects of such perceptions,resulting in poor performance in our current task.In addition,anxiety can have an impact on students’ cognitive flexibility.Anxiety has been found to impede the ability to flexibly switch between strategies in response to changing task demands,which is highly detrimental to mathematical problem solving.The present study introduced math anxiety and gender stereotypes to explore the relationship between cognitive flexibility and math anxiety and math gender stereotypes.In first Study,middle school students were selected as the subjects,and the relationship between the Mathematics Gender Stereotype Inventory,the Mathematics Anxiety Inventory and the Cognitive Flexibility Inventory was explored and verified whether mathematical anxiety could play a mediating role in the study;The second Study,students from the high and low cognitive flexibility groups were selected for semi-structured interviews using purposive sampling method through a self-administered interview outline,and the contents of the interviews were coded and analyzed.The relationship between mathematical gender stereotypes,mathematical anxiety,and cognitive flexibility was further verified.Based on the analysis and discussion of the questionnaires and semi-structured interviews,the following conclusions were drawn from the conditions of this study.(1)Junior high school students’ level of cognitive flexibility was generally higher;boys’ level of cognitive flexibility was higher than girls’;thinking training and accumulation of knowledge were more important for the development of cognitive flexibility;junior high school students’ level of mathematics anxiety was higher,mainly reflected in anxiety about exams and emotional concerns.(2)The higher the junior high school students’ gender stereotype of mathematics,the higher their level of mathematics anxiety;mathematics anxiety plays a partially mediating role between gender stereotype of mathematics and cognitive flexibility,i.e.,the higher the level of cognitive flexibility of junior high school students,the lower their level of mathematics anxiety and the lower their gender stereotype of mathematics.(3)The results of the semi-structured interviews verified the relationship between middle school students’ gender stereotypes of mathematics,mathematics anxiety,and cognitive flexibility;among them,middle school students with high cognitive flexibility reported lower mathematics anxiety and lower gender stereotypes,and they believed that the key to improving mathematics performance was to conduct thinking training,acquire correct learning methods,and develop an interest in mathematics.