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Does mathematics anxiety moderate the effect of problem difficulty on cognitive effort?
A negative relationship between mathematics anxiety (MA) and mathematics performance is well documented. One suggested explanation for this relationship is that MA interferes with the cognitive processes needed when solving mathematics problems. A demand for using more cognitive effort (e.g., when p...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
John Wiley and Sons Inc.
2022
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9796384/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35752948 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/sjop.12852 |
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author | Throndsen, Terje Ulv Lindskog, Marcus Niemivirta, Markku Mononen, Riikka |
author_facet | Throndsen, Terje Ulv Lindskog, Marcus Niemivirta, Markku Mononen, Riikka |
author_sort | Throndsen, Terje Ulv |
collection | PubMed |
description | A negative relationship between mathematics anxiety (MA) and mathematics performance is well documented. One suggested explanation for this relationship is that MA interferes with the cognitive processes needed when solving mathematics problems. A demand for using more cognitive effort (e.g., when performing harder mathematics problems), can be traced as an increase in pupil dilation during the performance. However, we lack knowledge of how MA affects this relationship between the problem difficulty and cognitive effort. This study investigated, for the first time, if MA moderates the effect of arithmetic (i.e., multiplication) problem difficulty on cognitive effort. Thirty‐four university students from Norway completed multiplication tasks, including three difficulty levels of problems, while their cognitive effort was also measured by means of pupil dilation using an eye tracker. Further, the participants reported their MA using a questionnaire, and arithmetic competence, general intelligence, and working memory were measured with paper‐pencil tasks. A linear mixed model analysis showed that the difficulty level of the multiplication problems affected the cognitive effort so that the pupil dilated more with harder multiplication problems. However, we did not find a moderating effect of MA on cognitive effort, when controlling for arithmetic competence, general intelligence, and working memory. This suggests that MA does not contribute to cognitive effort when solving multiplication problems. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-9796384 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | John Wiley and Sons Inc. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-97963842022-12-30 Does mathematics anxiety moderate the effect of problem difficulty on cognitive effort? Throndsen, Terje Ulv Lindskog, Marcus Niemivirta, Markku Mononen, Riikka Scand J Psychol Cognition and Neurosciences A negative relationship between mathematics anxiety (MA) and mathematics performance is well documented. One suggested explanation for this relationship is that MA interferes with the cognitive processes needed when solving mathematics problems. A demand for using more cognitive effort (e.g., when performing harder mathematics problems), can be traced as an increase in pupil dilation during the performance. However, we lack knowledge of how MA affects this relationship between the problem difficulty and cognitive effort. This study investigated, for the first time, if MA moderates the effect of arithmetic (i.e., multiplication) problem difficulty on cognitive effort. Thirty‐four university students from Norway completed multiplication tasks, including three difficulty levels of problems, while their cognitive effort was also measured by means of pupil dilation using an eye tracker. Further, the participants reported their MA using a questionnaire, and arithmetic competence, general intelligence, and working memory were measured with paper‐pencil tasks. A linear mixed model analysis showed that the difficulty level of the multiplication problems affected the cognitive effort so that the pupil dilated more with harder multiplication problems. However, we did not find a moderating effect of MA on cognitive effort, when controlling for arithmetic competence, general intelligence, and working memory. This suggests that MA does not contribute to cognitive effort when solving multiplication problems. John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2022-06-26 2022-12 /pmc/articles/PMC9796384/ /pubmed/35752948 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/sjop.12852 Text en © 2022 The Authors. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology published by Scandinavian Psychological Associations and John Wiley & Sons Ltd. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non‐commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made. |
spellingShingle | Cognition and Neurosciences Throndsen, Terje Ulv Lindskog, Marcus Niemivirta, Markku Mononen, Riikka Does mathematics anxiety moderate the effect of problem difficulty on cognitive effort? |
title | Does mathematics anxiety moderate the effect of problem difficulty on cognitive effort? |
title_full | Does mathematics anxiety moderate the effect of problem difficulty on cognitive effort? |
title_fullStr | Does mathematics anxiety moderate the effect of problem difficulty on cognitive effort? |
title_full_unstemmed | Does mathematics anxiety moderate the effect of problem difficulty on cognitive effort? |
title_short | Does mathematics anxiety moderate the effect of problem difficulty on cognitive effort? |
title_sort | does mathematics anxiety moderate the effect of problem difficulty on cognitive effort? |
topic | Cognition and Neurosciences |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9796384/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35752948 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/sjop.12852 |
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