Anxiety and verbal learning in typically developing primary school children: Less efficient but equally effective

Area of Science:

• Child Psychology
• Cognitive Science
• Educational Psychology

Background:

• High anxiety levels are known to impair Working Memory (WM) functioning.
• The specific impact of anxiety on classroom learning activities demanding verbal WM is not well understood.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the relationship between anxiety and learning in children using a task that heavily relies on verbal WM.
• To understand how different levels and types of anxiety affect learning trajectories in elementary school children.

Main Methods:

• 119 Australian elementary school children (mean age 9.25 years) participated.
• Trait and state anxiety were measured using the Spence Childhood Anxiety Scales and a Visual Analogue scale, respectively.
• The Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test was administered to assess verbal learning and WM demands.

Main Results:

• Anxiety did not directly correlate with overall recall, but an interaction effect was observed.
• Children with high trait and state anxiety learned more slowly in the initial trials compared to less anxious peers.
• Despite slower initial learning, highly anxious children caught up on later trials and showed similar delayed recall, indicating effective learning.

Conclusions:

• Early learning stages of demanding verbal tasks are vulnerable to heightened anxiety in typically developing children.
• Extended learning opportunities allow anxious children to achieve comparable learning outcomes to less anxious peers.
• Anxiety impacts learning efficiency but not necessarily learning effectiveness in verbal tasks.