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Updated: May 29, 2025

Reducing State Anxiety Using Working Memory Maintenance
Published on: July 19, 2017
The relationship between trait- and state-math anxiety and math engagement: The role of math learning context and
1Department of Psychology, Renmin University of China, Beijing, China.
Background:
Various findings regarding the relationship between math anxiety and engagement have been identified in the literature, with many focusing on general math anxiety and overall math engagement.
Objectives:
Based on the control-value theory, this study examined the relationships between trait- and state-math anxiety and behavioural and cognitive engagement in math under daily practice and exam preparation conditions across math tasks of varying difficulty levels.
Methods:
A survey study with 449 high school students and an experimental study with 33 freshmen were conducted. Students' trait- and state-math anxiety, as well as behavioural and cognitive engagement in math, were measured under daily practice and exam preparation conditions across easy and difficult math tasks.
Results:
A two-level latent variable model was built in the survey study, and two-way ANOVAs and regressions were used in the experimental study. Students exhibited greater state anxiety under exam preparation conditions in the survey study and showed differences in state-math anxiety and engagement across learning contexts and math tasks in the experimental study. Students with higher trait-math anxiety displayed less engagement in both studies, while those with higher state-math anxiety when facing difficult tasks tended to engage more cognitively in the experiment.
Conclusions:
These findings demonstrated discrepancies in the relationships between trait- and state-math anxiety and math engagement, while accounting for learning context and task difficulty.
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