Presenting: A Calculated Choice: Math Anxiety Leads to Math Avoidance in Effort-Based Decision-Making
Math anxiety can be described as a fear of math that impairs math performance. Previous research suggests that math anxiety affects math performance by causing individuals to avoid math-related activities, a behavioral consequence that could reduce one’s likelihood of enrolling in math courses and pursuing STEM careers. In this talk, I will discuss a study that investigated these behavioral effects through an effort-reward decision-making task. In the task, participants chose between solving easy, low-reward math problems and hard, high-reward math problems over multiple trials. Results from our study showed that higher levels of math anxiety were associated with a tendency to select the easier, low-reward math problems over the harder, high-reward math problems, ultimately demonstrating math effort avoidance, even after controlling for related factors. The implications of this research for STEM education will be discussed.