Understanding Health Risk Comprehension: The Role of Math Anxiety, Subjective Numeracy, and Objective Numeracy (original) (raw)
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Health risks are often communicated to the lay public in statistical formats even though low math skills, or innumeracy, have been found to be prevalent among lay individuals. Although numeracy has been a topic of much research investigation, the role of math self-efficacy and math anxiety on health and risk communication processing has received scant attention from health communication researchers. To advance theoretical and applied understanding regarding health message processing, the authors consider the role of math anxiety, including the effects of math self-efficacy, numeracy, and form of presenting statistics on math anxiety, and the potential effects for comprehension, yielding, and behavioral intentions. The authors also examine math anxiety in a health risk context through an evaluation of the effects of exposure to a message about genetically modified foods on levels of math anxiety. Participants (N ¼ 323) were randomly assigned to read a message that varied the presentation of statistical evidence about potential risks associated with genetically modified foods. Findings reveal that exposure increased levels of math anxiety, with increases in math anxiety limiting yielding. Moreover, math anxiety impaired comprehension but was mediated by perceivers' math confidence and skills. Last, math anxiety facilitated behavioral intentions. Participants who received a text-based message with percentages were more likely to yield than participants who received either a bar graph with percentages or a combined form. Implications are discussed as they relate to math competence and its role in processing health and risk messages.
This paper explores how undergraduates' mathematics anxiety influences their attitudes towards the development of numeracy skills and perceptions of their competence in the latter. The preliminary data presented were obtained using an online survey, which was completed by 174 undergraduates, from four faculties at the University of Central Lancashire, UK. Although respondents were studying a variety of academic subjects, all their degree programmes incorporated some mathematical, numerical and/or statistical elements. Correlation analyses indicated that undergraduates revealing high levels of maths anxiety tended to hold negative attitudes towards the development of numeracy skills. They lacked confidence in and the motivation to develop numeracy skills, and expressed little enjoyment of numeracy. High levels of maths anxiety and negative attitudes towards developing numeracy skills were also linked with low levels of competency in terms of students' self-evaluation of their numeracy skills. Students possessing higher pre-university mathematics qualifications tended to exhibit lower levels of maths anxiety and greater confidence, motivation, enjoyment and competence. Younger students also expressed more confidence and competence. An exploration of the effects of gender revealed that male students exhibited lower levels of maths anxiety and higher levels of confidence, enjoyment, and perceptions of competency in numeracy than female students, even though no significant differences were found between male and female students in terms of their pre-university mathematics (related) qualifications. Students' maths anxiety, confidence, motivation and self-evaluated numerical competence varied with academic discipline (i.e. faculty).
British Journal of …, 2009
Objectives. Numeracy, the ability to process basic mathematical concepts, may affect responses to graphical displays of health risk information. Displays of probabilistic risk information using grouped dots are easier to understand than displays using dispersed dots. However, dispersed dots may better convey the randomness with which health threats occur, so increasing perceived susceptibility. We hypothesized that low numeracy participants would better understand risks presented using grouped dot displays, while high numeracy participants would have good understanding, regardless of display type. Moreover, we predicted that dispersed dot displays, in contrast to grouped dot displays, would increase risk perceptions and worry only for highly numerate individuals.
The Development and Validation of a Revised Version of the Mathematics Anxiety Rating Scale
Educational and Psychological Measurement, 1982
Although there is an extensive amount of research that examines the relation between math anxiety and math performance in adolescents and adults, little work has focused on this relation in young children. Recently more attention has been paid to the early development of math anxiety, and new measures have been created for use with this age group. In the present study, we report on the development and validation of a revised version of the Math Anxiety Scale for Young Children (MASYC; Harari et al., 2013). We conducted cognitive interviews with the 12 MASYC items with nine children and then administered the MASYC and five newly-developed items to 296 first-, second-and third-grade children. Results from cognitive interviews show that three of the items from the original scale were being systematically misinterpreted by young children. We present a revised measure (the MASYC-R) consisting of 13 items (eight original, five newly-developed) that shows strong evidence for reliability and validity. Results also showed that a small, but meaningful, proportion of children at this age show signs of high math anxiety. Validity of the MASYC-R was supported through correlations with a number of other factors, including general anxiety, math performance, and math attitudes. In addition, results suggest that a substantial proportion of the variance in math anxiety can be explained from these other variables together. The findings suggest that the MASYC-R is appropriate for use with young children and can help researchers to answer important questions about the nature and development of math anxiety at this age.