Mathematics anxiety (MA) affects a significant number of students in primary schools. Recent research has emphasized the importance of situational and subjective assessment of MA. In particular, the relevance of a mathematical situation as well as the difficulty of tasks affect students’ experience of MA. Whereas a growing body of studies examine inter-individual variance in MA experience, research on intra-individual MA is still scarce. The experience sampling method (ESM) appears to be a suitable approach to address intra-individual differences in MA. The current study aims at investigating associations of situational characteristics and MA experience with particular focus on gender differences. A total of 57 students from four Grade 4 classes were followed over the course of one lesson. Students’ MA, their subjective evaluation of situation relevance, and task difficulty were assessed with ESM four times during each lesson at semi-randomized time points. Data was analyzed with multilevel regression models. Results showed that higher task difficulty was associated with an increased MA. Situational relevance showed a gender-specific association with MA: Girls reported significantly higher MA in more relevant situations, while higher MA in boys was (not significantly) associated with less relevant situations. The results bolster the importance of in situ assessment of MA focusing on intra-individual variance. Gender differences in the situational interplay suggest that task difficulty is evaluated by all students based on similar information, whereas situational relevance is evaluated differently by boys and girls. (DIPF/Orig.)
Herzog et al. (Wed,) studied this question.