ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Educ.
Sec. Mental Health and Wellbeing in Education
This article is part of the Research TopicExploring the determinants of academic underachievement in children and adolescentsView all 13 articles
Understanding the selective impact of Math Anxiety on Mathematical Skills in first graders
Provisionally accepted
- 1University of the Sacred Heart, Bauru, Brazil
- 2São Paulo State University, UNESP, Bauru, Brazil
- 3University of Nebraska-Lincoln School of Computing, Lincoln, United States
- 4University College London, London, United Kingdom
- 5University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
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Introduction: A negative correlation between math anxiety and mathematical performance is well-established. Yet, some studies suggest that math anxiety tends to impact more symbolic tasks, such as calculations and verbally formulated problems, than nonsymbolic math skills, such as number sense. Since most of these studies were conducted with older school children and young adults, this raises the question of whether the effect of math anxiety is widespread in early mathematics learning. The present study investigates how math anxiety manifests itself in first graders and whether its influence varies according to the different components of mathematics (symbolic vs. nonsymbolic). Method: 229 Brazilian first-grade students from ten public elementary schools participated in this study (mean age = 6.28, SD = 0.55; 55% female). Mathematical skills were assessed using the Zareki-R, which evaluates intuitive skills such as number sense (e.g., visual estimation of quantities), and symbolic skills such as numerical comprehension (e.g., number comparison), number production (e.g., reading number), and calculation (e.g., problem-solving). Participants also completed measures of math anxiety (EES-AMAS), nonverbal reasoning (Raven's Progressive Matrices), reading, and writing skills. Multiple linear regression was performed to examine how math anxiety impacts symbolic vs nonsymbolic mathematical skills while controlling for nonverbal reasoning, language skills, age, and gender. Results: Higher math anxiety was correlated with lower performance in number production and comprehension but not number sense, and calculation. Discussion: The findings suggest that the impacts of math anxiety vary across math skills as early as in the first grade, affecting more some symbolic math skills linked to number production and comprehension than calculation. Based on this, we discuss how different cognitive demands (e.g., working memory and attention), along with the neurodevelopment of numerical cognition, may contribute to the selective relationship observed in early elementary school.
Keywords: Arithmetics2, Children5, Math anxiety1, Mathematical Achievement3, Mathematics Education6, Primary Schoo4
Received: 14 Oct 2025; Accepted: 25 Dec 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 TRASSI, Starling-Alves and Santos. 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: ANGELICA POLVANI TRASSI
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