Towards a Multi-Informant Assessment of Math Anxiety in Primary School Children

A comprehensive understanding of children's psychological functioning benefits from a multi-informant approach, gathering information from parents, teachers, and, when possible, the children themselves. This strategy enhances reliability, validity, and contextual coverage, addressing the limitations of relying solely on self-reports in young populations. Building on this rationale, the present study aimed to develop and validate parent- and teacher-proxy versions of the Abbreviated Math Anxiety Scale for elementary school children, complementing child self-report measures. A total of 1146 children (50.66% females) aged 6 to 11 years, along with their parents and teachers, participated in the study. Confirmatory factor analyses supported the hypothesized two-factor structure, reflecting learning-related and evaluation-related math anxiety. All scales demonstrated good internal consistency, and correlations among informants were small-to-medium, highlighting the unique contribution of each perspective. Multi-informant scores were negatively associated with children's mathematical competence, and each informant's perspective uniquely explains variance in mathematical competence, with teachers' ratings showing the strongest association. These findings underscore the importance of a multi-informant assessment for capturing children's math anxiety more accurately, enabling a nuanced understanding of its impact on academic outcomes and supporting early identification and targeted interventions.