Parental involvement and math anxiety: a dual pathway to the math anxiety of children

ObjectiveDespite the importance of parental factors in the math anxiety of children, the influence of the interaction between parental involvement and parental math anxiety on the math anxiety of children has not been sufficiently explored. This study is aimed at investigating how parental math anxiety moderates the association of parental involvement with the math anxiety of children.MethodsData were collected from 450 seventh-grade students and their parents in China, including parental involvement, parental math anxiety and the math anxiety of children. Process Model 1 was used to perform moderated regression analysis.ResultsRelationship analysis indicated that mother (r = −0.15, p  0.05; father: β = −0.053, p > 0.05). Furthermore, gender analysis demonstrated that this moderating effect was significant only for girls instead of boys.ConclusionParental math anxiety moderates the association of parental involvement with the math anxiety of children. Overall, parental involvement is negatively linked to the math anxiety of children (significant main effect). After parental math anxiety was included as a moderator, this negative relationship was present only in the group with high parental math anxiety and was non-significant in the group with low parental math anxiety. This finding poses a challenge to the assumption that “high parental math anxiety is necessarily harmful”. Furthermore, this moderating effect was more pronounced among girls.