Math Anxiety, Mother's Education, and the Mathematics Performance of Adolescent Boys and Girls: Evidence from the United States and Thailand

In this study, I investigated the relationship of mathematics performance to math anxiety, mother's education, and gender. A secondary analysis was conducted using nationally representative samples of 13-year-old children in the United States (N = 4,091) and Thailand (N = 3,613) collected as a part of the Second International Mathematics Study (Garden, 1987). Separate ANOVAs (Math Anxiety x Mother's Education x Gender) were run within each country using a 40-item math performance test as the dependent variable. Math anxiety has an inverse relationship with mathematics performance in the United States (r = -.24) and in Thailand (r = -.14). The relationship between math anxiety and mathematics performance is significant in both countries after controlling for previous achievement, mother's education, and gender, although the data suggest that there is a three-way interaction between math anxiety, mother's education, and gender in Thailand.