Week 7: Anxiety

Question 1

Recap Q: Medications typically administered for ADHD in children are known as what

Answer 1

Stimulants

Question 2

Anxiety

Answer 2

• Conditions in the classroom to minimize distraction
  
  • Instruction of the teacher so that they use more appropriate teaching methods or promoting peer
    tutoring
    Drechsler et al. (2020)

Question 3

Generalised anxiety disorder (Stein & Sareen, 2015)

Answer 3

I s a continuum

Sub-thresholds levels may still negatively affect individuals well-being and performance

Criteria:
Excessive anxiety and worry about events (>6 months)

Difficult to control the worry

Associated with at least 3 of the following 6 symptoms (1 in children): restlessness, easily fatigued, difficulty concentrating, irritability, muscle tension and sleep disturbance.

Disturbance is not due to medication/ other condition

Disturbance not better accounted for by other mental disorders.

Question 4

Diagnosis: GAD-7

Answer 4

from 0-21

Scores of 5-9 indicate mild, subclinical anxiety - monitoring recommended.

10-14 indicate moderate, clinically significant anxiety - further evaluation and possibly treatment if required.

15-21 indicate severe clinical anxiety - treatment probably warranted

Question 5

Anxiety Endler & Kocovski (2001)

Answer 5

According to Spielberger, trait anxiety is an individual’s predisposition to respond, and state
anxiety as a transitory emotion characterized by physiological arousal and consciously perceived feelings of apprehension, dread, and tension.

Question 6

State anxiety

Answer 6

Anxiety is an aversive motivational state that occurs in situations in
which level of perceived threat to the individual is high. State anxiety is
interactively determined by trait anxiety and by situational stress
(Eysenck, 1992). According to Power and Dalgleish (1997; pp. 206–
207) anxiety can be conceptualized as “a state in which an individual is
unable to instigate a clear pattern of behavior to remove or alter the
event/object/interpretation that is threatening and existing goal.”
Anxious individuals worry about threat to a current goal and try and try
to use strategies to reduce the effects of anxiety to achieve the goal.
Derakshan et al. (2009)
People can have a low or high state anxiety

Question 7

Positive features of anxiety Endler & Kocovski (2001)

Answer 7

• energises
• warning of threats
• motivation induced

Question 8

STATE TRAIT DISTINCTION

Answer 8

• Very important and useful in anxiety research, originally proposed by Spielberger
  * Trait anxiety – stable individual characteristic
  * State anxiety – felt at the moment
  – Cognitive component – worry
  – Autonomic-emotional
  • Individuals with high trait anxiety are likely to react with high state anxiety
  • The rank order of persons with respect to anxiety is consistent across all situations
    Endler & Kocovski (2001)

Question 9

Anxiety affects on cognition

Answer 9

• Lots of studies aimed at looking into how anxiety affects cognition, and thus how it might be detrimental in the educational context
  • Attentional Control Theory seems to be an interesting framework here

Question 10

Cognitive interference theory (Sarason 1988)

Answer 10

• Model (see notes)
  
  • We start with anxiety, when do a cognitively demanding task it can induce negative thought (e.g. this is going to go horribly wrong)

= fewer cognitive resources to cope with the task and anxiety

Question 11

Processing efficiency theory (Calvo & Eysenck 1992)

Answer 11

see notes for image

Anxious individuals do a dual task - what they need to do + worry

= more cognitive effort required

Question 12

Attentional Control Theory (Derakshan et al., 2009)

Answer 12

• Elaboration and extension of the cognitive interference theory and the processing efficiency
  theory
• Focused on proposing the cognitive mechanism underlying the effect of anxiety on cognition

(see image in notes)

Has an effect on the inhibition mechanism

Question 13

Cognitive models – what do they tell us?

Answer 13

• Anxious individuals seem to struggle because of worrisome thoughts (both try to do the task and handle worry)
  - Suggests why it’s harder for high anxiety individuals to complete cognitively demanding tasks
  
  • Anxious individuals seem to be prone to distraction while doing the task, coming either from worrisome thoughts or some external stimuli…
    – … especially those, which are threat-related
  • Even when they reach high performance, it happens at a cost of more resources being used

Question 14

Test Anxiety

Answer 14

• Can be a form of Academic Anxiety
  
  • About 15-22% of students reveal high test anxiety (von der Embse et al. (2018)
  Test anxiety, exam stress, or test stress are often synonymous with the fear or worry of negative
  evaluation that results in a negative behavioral, physiological, or emotional responses
  von der Embse et al. (2018)

Question 15

Test anxiety consequences

Answer 15

• increased risk for subsequent anxiety and depression,
  
  • poor class grades,
  • difficulties engaging in instructional content
  • low test performance (especially in high stakes exams)
    von der Embse et al. (2018)

Question 16

Test anxiety: Correlates / consequences

Answer 16

• Correlations with performance relatively low (about .20)
  
  • Correlations with self-concept (about .30), selfesteem (about .45)
    - How they feel they did is less accurate to how they actually did
  • Higher in girls/women than in boys/men
    von der Embse et al. (2018)

Question 17

Mathematics Anxiety (MA)

Answer 17

“a feeling of tension and anxiety that interferes with the manipulation of numbers and the solving of mathematical problems in (…) ordinary life and academic situations”
Richardson & Suinn (1972, p. 551)

Separate from general anxiety, dyscalculia and poor maths skills

Question 18

MA and dyscalculia

Answer 18

80% of people with high MA score well despite it.

People do less well with dyscalculia.

Therefore dyscalculia is separate to MA.

Question 19

MA is separate from general anxiety: psychometric and physiological arguments

Answer 19

Psychometric arguments – correlations between different maths anxiety measures are higher than correlations between MA and other anxiety types

Physiological arguments – in high MA individuals, physiological reactions to maths problems of increasing difficulty increase, while it is not the case for other types of problems

Question 20

MA is separate from poor maths skills

Answer 20

• Effects of anxiety on performance depend on testing conditions – high stakes vs. relaxed context (worse performance in high stakes situations)
• Interventions aimed at reducing MA led to better achievement in maths, even though they do not comprise any maths instruction

Question 21

MA is independent from positive feelings towards maths (Cipora et al., 2023)

Answer 21

positive feelings towards maths is negatively correlated to concepts like Flow (losing yourself in doing something), calm, Aha (Eureka moments), relax and beauty.

Question 22

Correlates of MA (Ashcraft & Ridley, 2005)

Answer 22

Higher correlations with test anxiety than trait and state anxiety.

Moderate/ high correlations with attitudes

Moderate/ low correlations with performance

Question 23

Gender differences and maths anxiety - Cipora et al. (2022)

Answer 23

• Girls typically report higher maths anxiety level than boys
  
  • However, this difference does not translate to their lower maths performance
  • Role of maths-gender stereotypes
  • Girls more likely to more openly report their anxiety than boys

Question 24

Maths anxiety or performance: which comes first??

Answer 24

Reciprocal model: most likely, poor maths skills <> maths anxiety

Question 25

Origins/ causes of MA?

Answer 25

* Genetics (about 40%, Wang et al., 2014) * Role of early experiences * Gender stereotypes * Role of teachers, especially in early years * Vicious cycle – MA →avoidance of learning → low achievement → more MA

Question 26

Role of teachers and MA

Answer 26

Primary school teachers not really teaching maths because they like it - more that they're wanting to work with children Primary school teachers are among groups of higher scoring maths anxiety - a pattern across countries (Artemenko et al., 2021) High proportion of teachers report they notice students have high anxiousness towards maths

Question 27

Development of MA

Answer 27

* Early studies suggested that it develops during primary school * However, later evidence shows that one can observe maths anxiety as early as in preschool * The strength of correlation between maths anxiety and performance increases in development Dowker et al. (2016)

Question 28

Consequences of MA: avoidance (3 types)

Answer 28

* Avoidance – Local – drive to leave the stress-provoking situation – sacrifice accuracy for speed, leave the exam earlier – Micro-avoidance – less attention during the class, skipping lessons (Procrastination!!) – Global – Avoidance of maths related STEM careers

Question 29

Consequences of MA

Answer 29

* Working memory overload (see Attentional Control Theory) * “Choking under pressure” ( See Ashcraft & Ridley (2005), Daker et al. (2021) - avoidance Consequences of MA * Maths anxiety is present through education and it affects career choices still at the university level * More and more studies show that it affects individual’s life above and beyond academic contexts – Risk assessment and decision making – Shopping decisions – Administration of medications Cipora et al. (2022)

Question 30

MA Interventions

Answer 30

* Interventions inspired by psychotherapy aimed at targeting specific phobias – Most efficient were those working within behavioural and cognitive-behavioural approaches. e.g. breathing techniques * Short term interventions – E.g., relaxation based, cognitive reframing, expressive writing (but evidence for this is not very strong) See Cipora et al. (2022) * Newer studies show that interventions at the level of the classroom instruction are also efficient: – Co-operative learning – Flipped classroom * Game based interventions: – Overall small and not very robust effect – Non-digital games were more efficient than digital ones (the effect of the latter was non-significant) – Longer interventions more efficient than short ones – Most efficient if promoted collaborative and social interactions Petronzi et al. (2021); Dondio et al. (2023)

Question 31

MA Interventions – new meta-analysis Sammallahti et al. (2023)

Answer 31

Interventions that focused on Cognitive support or regulating Emotions were effective both in reducing math anxiety and improving math performance. In addition, longer interventions and interventions targeting students older than 12 had the biggest decrease in math anxiety. Study quality was not related to intervention outcomes. Sammallahti et al. (2023)

Question 32

Most successful intervention approach for mathematics anxiety:

Answer 32

CBT (however getting 1-1 support for all students with maths anxiety does not seem feasilble)