BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article
Front. Educ.
Sec. Assessment, Testing and Applied Measurement
Volume 10 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/feduc.2025.1669267
PSYCHOMETRIC EVALUATION OF THE ABBREVIATED MATH ANXIETY SCALE IN RUSSIAN UNIVERSITY STUDENTS
Provisionally accepted
Sergey Malykh*
Anna Pavlova
Artem Malykh
Timofey AdamovichAlexey Tikhoniyk
Victoria Ismatullina
Pavel Kolyasnikov
Tatiana Tikhomirova- FGBU Rossijskaa akademia obrazovania, Moscow, Russia
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Math anxiety can hinder learning and deter students from pursuing STEM fields. The Abbreviated Math Anxiety Scale (AMAS) is a short measure of math anxiety, but its use among Russian university students has not been previously evaluated. We assessed the psychometric properties of the AMAS in a sample of 6,337 Russian first-year university students (mean age 18.6 ± 0.96; 64.4% female). Confirmatory factor analysis indicated that a bifactor model – with a general Math Anxiety factor and two specific factors (Learning Math Anxiety and Math Evaluation Anxiety) – fit the data best (CFI = 0.995, RMSEA = 0.048). The AMAS demonstrated good internal consistency (Cronbach's α = 0.82–0.86; McDonald's ω = 0.83–0.86) and convergent validity via moderate correlations with trait anxiety (r = 0.35–0.44, p < 0.001). Measurement invariance across gender and academic profile (STEM vs. non-STEM majors) was supported, suggesting that the scale functions equivalently across these groups. Overall, the Russian version of the AMAS exhibits strong psychometric properties in this population and can be confidently used to assess math anxiety among Russian university students.
Keywords: Abbreviated Math Anxiety Scale, Math Anxiety, factor structure, Reliability, validity, university students
Received: 22 Jul 2025; Accepted: 01 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Malykh, Pavlova, Malykh, Adamovich, Tikhoniyk, Ismatullina, Kolyasnikov and Tikhomirova. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Sergey Malykh, malykhsb@mail.ru
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