The interplay between affective and cognitive factors in shaping early proficiency in mathematics

Performing math tasks is a complex process that requires the recruitment of many cognitive and affective factors. Research on the interplay between cognitive and affective factors associated with math ability is surprisingly scarce in primary school children. In the present study, we examined the contribution of both general and math-specific anxiety to math performance in a large sample of second-grade schoolchildren, and also their relation with different measures of both domain-general (i.e., spatial and verbal working memory, intelligence) and domain-specific cognitive correlates of math ability (i.e., different skills tapping the approximate number system, ANS). Results revealed a negative relation between general anxiety (but not math anxiety) and math performance, beyond the contribution of the cognitive abilities. Importantly, specific components of both verbal working memory (i.e., digit span) and ANS (i.e., approximate addition) mediated the relation between general anxiety and math performance. The educational implications of these findings are discussed