The relation of spatial skills, spatial memory span, and two anxiety types with statistics anxiety in European and North American University students. - 2026
The relation of spatial skills, spatial memory span, and two anxiety types with statistics anxiety in European and North American University students.pdf
mathematics anxiety; spatial anxiety; spatial skills; statistics anxiety; working memory
Abstract :
[en] [en] BACKGROUND & AIMS: The present two studies investigated the role of spatial cognition in statistics anxiety. The hypothesis that spatial representations and/or visuospatial skills are related to the acquisition of statistics abilities which, when lacking or unused, generate statistics anxiety is examined.
MATERIALS & METHODS: To this end, a total of 680 students in Social Sciences from 14 different universities located in one of three countries enrolled in a statistics class at the time of the study were recruited. Study 1 examined a mediation model where visuospatial and verbal working memory (WM) spans as well as spatial anxiety are predictors of statistics anxiety with mathematics anxiety as the mediator.
RESULTS: The results show a partial mediation and strong associations between all three types of anxiety (i.e., spatial anxiety, mathematics anxiety and statistics anxiety). The subscale statistics interpretation anxiety was best predicted by visuospatial WM span. Study 2 examined a path regression model where performance on a spatial and a verbal task along with spatial anxiety are predictors of statistics anxiety.
DISCUSSION: The results indicate that the mental manipulation subscale of spatial skills is a strong predictor of mental manipulation anxiety which, in turn, predicts interpretation anxiety in statistics.
CONCLUSION: Both studies support the role of spatial cognition in statistics understanding. These results have implications for the teaching and learning of statistics.
Disciplines :
Social & behavioral sciences, psychology: Multidisciplinary, general & others
Abdi, H. (2007). Part (semi partial) and partial regression coefficients. In N. Salkind (Ed.), Encyclopedia of measurement and statistics. Sage.
Allen, M. S., Iliescu, D., & Greiff, S. (2022). Single item measures in psychological science: A call to action. European Journal of Psychological Assessment, 38(1), 1–5. https://doi.org/10.1027/1015-5759/a000699
Ashkenazi, S., & Velner, H. (2023). The interplay between math performances, spatial abilities, and affective factors: The role of task. Trends in Neuroscience and Education, 33, 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tine.2023.100211
Atit, K., Power, J. R., Pigott, T., Lee, J., Geer, E. A., Uttal, D. H., Ganley, C. M., & Sorby, S. A. (2022). Examining the relations between spatial skills and mathematical performance: A meta-analysis. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 29(3), 699–720. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-021-02012-w
Baddeley, A. (1992). Working memory. Science, 255(5), 556–559.
Baddeley, A. (2010). Working memory. Current Biology, 20(4), 136–140. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2009.12.014
Baloglu, M. (1999). A comparison of mathematics anxiety and statistics anxiety in relation to general anxiety.
Baloglu, M. (2004). Statistics anxiety and mathematics anxiety: Some interesting differences I. Educational Research Quarterly, 27(3), 38–48.
Béland, S., Cousineau, D., & Loye, N. (2017). Utiliser le coefficient omega de McDonald à la place de l'alpha de Cronbach. McGill Journal of Education, 52(3), 791–804. https://doi.org/10.7202/1050915ar
Bennett-Pierre, G., & Gunderson, E. A. (2023). Fiber arts require spatial skills: How a stereotypically feminine practice can help us understand spatial skills and improve spatial learning. Sex Roles, 88(1), 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-022-01340-y
Berggren, N., & Derakshan, N. (2013). Attentional control deficits in trait anxiety: Why you see them and why you Don't. Biological Psychology, 92(3), 440–446. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsycho.2012.03.007
Blajenkova, O., Kozhevnikov, M., & Motes, M. A. (2006). Object-spatial imagery: A new self-report imagery questionnaire. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 20(2), 239–263. https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.1182
Blazhenkova, O., & Kozhevnikov, M. (2009). The new object-spatial-verbal cognitive style model: Theory and measurement. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 23(5), 638–663. https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.1473
Bonnot, V., & Croizet, J.-C. (2007). Stereotype internalization and Women's math performance: The role of interference in working memory. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 43(6), 857–866. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2006.10.006
Bradley-Garcia, M., & Bolton, V. (2023). Programming an n-Back task in Qualtrics using HTML and JavaScript. The Quantitative Methods for Psychology, 19(2), 136–155. https://doi.org/10.20982/tqmp.19.2.p136
Burte, H., Gardony, A. L., Hutton, A., & Taylor, H. A. (2017). Think3d!: Improving mathematics learning through embodied spatial training. Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications, 2, 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41235-017-0052-9
Campos, A. (2011). Internal consistency and construct validity of two versions of the revised vividness of visual imagery questionnaire. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 113(2), 454–460. https://doi.org/10.2466/04.22.PMS.113.5.454-460
Campos, A., Chiva, M., & Moreau, M. (2000). Alexithymia and mental imagery. Personality and Individual Differences, 29, 787–791. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0191-8869(99)00231-7
Cantinotti, M., Lalande, D., Ferlatte, M.-A., & Cousineau, D. (2017). Validation de la version francophone du Questionnaire d'anxiété statistique (SAS-F-24). Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science, 49(2), 133–142. https://doi.org/10.1037/cbs0000074
Carver, R., Everson, M., Gabrosek, J., Horton, N., Lock, R., Mocko, M., Rossman, A., Roswell, G. H., Velleman, P., Witmer, J., & Wood, B. (2016). Guidelines for Assessment and Instruction in Statistics Education (GAISE) college report 2016. American Statistical Association.
Chiesi, F., & Primi, C. (2010). Cognitive and non-cognitive factors related to students' statistics achievement. Statistics Education Research Journal, 9(1), 1. https://doi.org/10.52041/serj.v9i1.385
Chiou, C.-C., Wang, Y.-M., & Lee, L.-T. (2014). Reducing statistics anxiety and enhancing statistics learning achievement: Effectiveness of a one-minute strategy. Psychological Reports, 115(1), 297–310. https://doi.org/10.2466/11.04.PR0.115c12z3
Clark, I. A., & Maguire, E. A. (2020). Do questionnaires reflect their purported cognitive functions? Cognition, 195, 104114. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2019.104114
Cohen, J., & Cohen, P. (1975). Applied multiple regression/correlation analysis for the behavioral sciences (p. xxi). Lawrence Erlbaum.
Corsi, P. M. (1972). Human memory and the medial temporal region of the brain. [Doctoral dissertation, McGill University]. https://escholarship.mcgill.ca/concern/theses/05741s554
Cousineau, D. (2020). How many decimals? Rounding descriptive and inferential statistics based on measurement precision. Journal of Mathematical Psychology, 97, 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmp.2020.102362
Cousineau, D., & Harding, B. (2017). Pourquoi les statistiques sont-elles difficiles à enseigner et à comprendre? Quelques réflexions. Revue de psychoéducation, 46(2), 397–419. https://doi.org/10.7202/1042257ar
Cui, S., Zhang, J., Guan, D., Zhao, X., & Si, J. (2019). Antecedents of statistics anxiety: An integrated account. Personality and Individual Differences, 144, 79–87. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2019.02.036
Da Silva, M. P. M., & Pinto, S. S. (2014). Teaching statistics through learning projects. Statistics Education Research Journal, 13(2), 177–186. https://doi.org/10.52041/serj.v13i2.289
Daker, R. J., Gattas, S. U., Sokolowski, H. M., Green, A. E., & Lyons, I. M. (2021). First-year students' math anxiety predicts STEM avoidance and underperformance throughout university, independently of math ability. npj Science of Learning, 6(1), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41539-021-00095-7
Dance, C. J., Ipser, A., & Simner, J. (2022). The prevalence of aphantasia (imagery weakness) in the general population. Consciousness and Cognition, 97, 103243. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2021.103243
Davis, H. E., Stack, J., & Cashdan, E. (2021). Cultural change reduces gender differences in mobility and spatial ability among seminomadic pastoralist-forager children in northern Namibia. Human Nature, 32(1), 178–206. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12110-021-09388-7
Delage, V., Trudel, G., Retana, F., & Maloney, E. A. (2021). Spatial anxiety and spatial ability: Mediators of gender differences in math anxiety. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 151(4), 921–933. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0000884
Delage, V., Trudel, G., Retanal, F., & Maloney, E. A. (2022). Spatial anxiety and spatial ability: Mediators of gender differences in math anxiety. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 151(4), 921–933. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0000884
Delem, M., Turkben, S., Cavalli, E., Cousineau, D., & Plancher, G. (2025). Unsupervised clustering reveals spatial and verbal cognitive profiles in aphantasia and typical imagery. Neuropsychologia, 219, 109279. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2025.109279
Diamond, A., & Ling, D. (2020). Review of the evidence on, and fundamental questions about, efforts to improve executive functions, including working memory. In J. M. Novick, M. F. Bunting, M. R. Dougherty, & R. W. Engle (Eds.), Cognitive and working memory training: perspectives from psychology, neuroscience, and human development (pp. 143–431). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199974467.003.0008
Dutke, S., & Stöber, J. (2001). Test anxiety, working memory, and cognitive performance: Supportive effects of sequential demands. Cognition & Emotion, 15(3), 381–389. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699930125922
Edirisooriya, M., & Lipscomb, T. (2021). Gender influence on statistics anxiety among graduate students. Journal of Research in Science Mathematics and Technology Education, 4(1), 223–234. https://doi.org/10.31756/jrsmte.421
Epstein, R. A., Patai, E. Z., Julian, J. B., & Spiers, H. J. (2017). The cognitive map in humans: Spatial navigation and beyond. Nature Neuroscience, 20(11), 1504–1513. https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.4656
Esnard, T. R., Alladin, F. M., & Samlal, K. C. (2021). Prior mathematics performance, statistics anxiety, self-efficacy and expectations for performance in statistics: A survey of social sciences students in a Caribbean institution of higher education. Statistics Education Research Journal, 20(1), 1–22. https://doi.org/10.52041/serj.v20i1.98
Eysenck, M. W., & Calvo, M. G. (1992). Anxiety and performance: The processing efficiency theory. Cognition & Emotion, 6(6), 409–434. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699939208409696
Ferguson, A. M., Maloney, E. A., Fugelsang, J., & Risko, E. F. (2015). On the relation between math and spatial ability: The case of math anxiety. Learning and Individual Differences, 39, 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2015.02.007
Fullerton, J. A., & Umphrey, D. (2016). Statistics anxiety and math aversion among advertising students. Journal of Advertising Education, 20(1–2), 135–143. https://doi.org/10.1177/10980482160201-216
Garfield, J. B., & Ben-Zvi, D. (2008). Developing students' statistical reasoning: Connecting research and teaching practice. Springer.
Geary, D. C., Hoard, M. K., & Nugent, L. (2023). Boys' advantage in solving algebra word problems is mediated by spatial abilities and mathematics anxiety. Developmental Psychology, 59(3), 413–430. https://doi.org/10.1037/dev0001450
Geary, D. C., Hoard, M. K., Nugent, L., & Scofield, J. E. (2021). In-class attention, spatial ability, and mathematics anxiety predict across-grade gains in adolescents' mathematics achievement. Journal of Educational Psychology, 113(4), 754–769. https://doi.org/10.1037/edu0000487
Gibeau, R.-M. (2021). The Corsi blocks task: Variations and coding with jsPsych. The Quantitative Methods for Psychology, 17(3), 299–311. https://doi.org/10.20982/tqmp.17.3.p299
Gibeau, R.-M., Maloney, E. A., Béland, S., Lalande, D., Cantinotti, M., Williot, A., Chanquoy, L., Simon, J., Boislard-Pépin, M.-A., & Cousineau, D. (2023). The correlates of statistics anxiety: Relationships with spatial anxiety, mathematics anxiety and gender. Journal of Numerical Cognition, 9(1), 16–43. https://doi.org/10.5964/jnc.8199
Giofrè, D., Donolato, E., & Mammarella, I. C. (2018). The differential role of verbal and visuospatial working memory in mathematics and Reading. Trends in Neuroscience and Education, 12, 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tine.2018.07.001
Gunderson, E. A., Ramirez, G., Beilock, S. L., & Levine, S. C. (2013). Teachers' spatial anxiety relates to 1st- and 2nd-graders' spatial learning. Mind, Brain, and Education, 7(3), 196–199. https://doi.org/10.1111/mbe.12027
Harari, R. R., Vukovic, R. K., & Bailey, S. P. (2013). Mathematics anxiety in young children: An exploratory study. Journal of Experimental Education, 81(4), 538–555. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220973.2012.727888
Harth, H. (2018). An analysis of the teaching of introductory statistics at University in “Context”. [Doctoral dissertation, Loughborough University]. 10.26174/thesis.lboro.8246996.v1
He, X., Ren, M., & Ren, Y. (2025). The impact of mathematical anxiety and working memory on children's approximate number system and the n-back training effect. Acta Psychologica, 260, 105330. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2025.105330
Henn, P., Gallagher, A. G., Nugent, E., Seymour, N. E., Haluck, R. S., Hseino, H., Traynor, O., & Neary, P. C. (2018). Visual spatial ability for surgical trainees: Implications for learning endoscopic, laparoscopic surgery and other image-guided procedures. Surgical Endoscopy, 32(8), 3634–3639. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00464-018-6094-3
Hinze, S. R., Williamson, V. M., Shultz, M. J., Williamson, K. C., Deslongchamps, G., & Rapp, D. N. (2013). When do spatial abilities support student comprehension of STEM visualizations? Cognitive Processing, 14(2), 129–142. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10339-013-0539-3
Hoegler, S., & Nelson, M. (2018). The influence of anxiety and self-efficacy on statistics performance: A path analysis. Psi chi Journal of Psychological Research, 23(5), 364–375. https://doi.org/10.24839/2325-7342.JN23.5.364
Hopko, D. R., Mahadevan, R., Bare, R. L., & Hunt, M. K. (2003). The abbreviated math anxiety scale (AMAS): Construction, validity, and reliability. Assessment, 10(2), 178–182. https://doi.org/10.1177/1073191103010002008
Huang, F., Zheng, S., Fu, P., Tian, Q., Chen, Y., Jiang, Q., & Liao, M. (2023). Distinct classes of statistical anxiety: Latent profile and network psychometrics analysis of university students. Psychology Research and Behavior Management, 16, 2787–2802. https://doi.org/10.2147/PRBM.S417887
Husereau, T., Cousineau, D., Zang, S., & Gibeau, R.-M. (2024). A compendium of common heuristics, misconceptions, and biased reasoning used in statistical thinking. The Quantitative Methods for Psychology, 20(1), 57–75. https://doi.org/10.20982/tqmp.20.1.p057
Jaeger, A. J., Taylor, A. R., & Wiley, J. (2016). When, and for whom, analogies help: The role of spatial skills and interleaved presentation. Journal of Educational Psychology, 108(8), 1121–1139. https://doi.org/10.1037/edu0000121
Jordan, J.-A., McGladdery, G., & Dyer, K. (2014). Dyslexia in higher education: Implications for Maths anxiety, statistics anxiety and psychological well-being. Dyslexia, 20(3), 225–240. https://doi.org/10.1002/dys.1478
Kearney-Ramos, T. E., Fausett, J. S., Gess, J. L., Reno, A., Peraza, J., Kilts, C. D., & James, G. A. (2014). Merging clinical neuropsychology and functional neuroimaging to evaluate the construct validity and neural network engagement of the n-Back task. Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society, 20(7), 736–750. https://doi.org/10.1017/S135561771400054X
Kyttälä, M., & Björn, P. M. (2014). The role of literacy skills in adolescents' mathematics word problem performance: Controlling for visuo-spatial ability and mathematics anxiety. Learning and Individual Differences, 29, 59–66. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2013.10.010
Laasonen, M., Lahti-Nuuttila, P., Leppämäki, S., Tani, P., Wikgren, J., Harno, H., Oksanen-Hennah, H., Pothos, E., Cleeremans, A., Dye, M. W. G., Cousineau, D., & Hokkanen, L. (2020). Project DyAdd: Non-linguistic theories of dyslexia predict intelligence. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 14, 1–12. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2020.00316
Lalande, D., Cantinotti, M., Williot, A., Gagnon, J., & Cousineau, D. (2019). Three pathways from achievement goals to academic performance in an undergraduate statistics course. Statistics Education Research Journal, 18(1), 94–105. https://doi.org/10.52041/serj.v18i1.152
Lauer, J. E., Esposito, A. G., & Bauer, P. J. (2018). Domain-specific anxiety relates to Children's math and spatial performance. Developmental Psychology, 54(11), 2126–2138. https://doi.org/10.1037/dev0000605
Laurencelle, L., & Cousineau, D. (2022). Analysis of proportions using arcsine transform with any experimental design. Frontiers in Psychology, 13, 1–12. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1045436
Lee, K.-M., & Kang, S.-Y. (2002). Arithmetic operation and working memory: Differential suppression in dual tasks. Cognition, 83(3), B63–B68. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0010-0277(02)00010-0
Lewin, S., Bosch-Capblanch, X., Oliver, S., Akl, E. A., Vist, G. E., Lavis, J. N., Ghersi, D., Røttingen, J.-A., Steinmann, P., Gulmezoglu, M., Tugwell, P., El-Jardali, F., & Haines, A. (2012). Guidance for evidence-informed policies about health systems: Assessing how much confidence to place in the research evidence. PLoS Medicine, 9(3), 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1001187
Lisica, D., Koso-Drljević, M., Stürmer, B., Džubur, A., & Valt, C. (2022). Working memory impairment in relation to the severity of anxiety symptoms. Cognition and Emotion, 36(6), 1093–1108. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2022.2081535
Lowrie, T., & Logan, T. (2023). Spatial visualization supports students' math: Mechanisms for spatial transfer. Journal of Intelligence, 11(6), 6. https://doi.org/10.3390/jintelligence11060127
Lyons, I. M., Ramirez, G., Maloney, E. A., Rendina, D. N., Levine, S. C., & Beilock, S. L. (2018). Spatial anxiety: A novel questionnaire with subscales for measuring three aspects of spatial anxiety. Journal of Numerical Cognition, 4(3), 3. https://doi.org/10.5964/jnc.v4i3.154
Macher, D., Paechter, M., Papousek, I., Ruggeri, K., Freudenthaler, H. H., & Arendasy, M. (2013). Statistics anxiety, state anxiety during an examination, and academic achievement. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 83(4), 535–549. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-8279.2012.02081.x
Macher, D., Papousek, I., Ruggeri, K., & Paechter, M. (2015). Statistics anxiety and performance: Blessings in disguise. Frontiers in Psychology, 6, 1116. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01116
Mandap, C. M. (2016). Examining gender differences in statistics anxiety among college students. International Journal of Educational Research, 4(6), 357–366.
Marks, D. F. (1973). Visual imagery differences in the recall of pictures. British Journal of Psychology, 64(1), 17–24. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-8295.1973.tb01322.x
McIntee, S.-E., Goulet-Pelletier, J.-C., Williot, A., Deck-Léger, E., Lalande, D., Cantinotti, M., & Cousineau, D. (2022). (mal)Adaptive cognitions as predictors of statistics anxiety. Statistics Education Research Journal, 21(1), 1. https://doi.org/10.52041/serj.v21i1.364
McMahon, P., Zhang, T., & Dwight, R. (2020). Requirements for big data adoption for railway asset management. IEEE Access, 8, 15543–15564. https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2020.2967436
Miller, H. E., Kirkorian, H. L., & Simmering, V. R. (2020). Using eye-tracking to understand relations between visual attention and language in children's spatial skills. Cognitive Psychology, 117, 1–36. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogpsych.2019.101264
Milner, B. (1971). Interhemispheric differences in the localization of psychological processes in man. British Medical Bulletin, 27(3), 272–277. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.bmb.a070866
Nesbit, R. J., & Bourne, V. J. (2018). Statistics anxiety rating scale (STARS) use in psychology students: A review and analysis with an undergraduate sample. Psychology Teaching Review, 24(2), 10.
Núñez-Peña, M. I., Guilera, G., & Suárez-Pellicioni, M. (2014). The single-item math anxiety scale (SIMA): An alternative way of measuring mathematical anxiety. Personality and Individual Differences, 60, S75–S76. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2013.07.339
Onwuegbuzie, A. J. (2004). Academic procrastination and statistics anxiety. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 29(1), 3–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/0260293042000160384
Onwuegbuzie, A. J., Da Ros, D., & Ryan, J. M. (1997). The components of statistics anxiety: A phenomenological study. Focus on Learning Problems in Mathematics, 19(4), 11–35.
Onwuegbuzie, A. J., & Wilson, V. A. (2003). Statistics anxiety: Nature, etiology, antecedents, effects, and treatments—a comprehensive review of the literature. Teaching in Higher Education, 8(2), 195–209. https://doi.org/10.1080/1356251032000052447
Paechter, M., Macher, D., Martskvishvili, K., Wimmer, S., & Papousek, I. (2017). Mathematics anxiety and statistics anxiety. Shared but also unshared components and antagonistic contributions to performance in statistics. Frontiers in Psychology, 8, 1–13. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01196
Peng, P., & Ma, C. (2025). The role of domain-specific working memory and emotion regulation in the mathematics anxiety-performance relation among upper elementary students. Developmental Psychology, 8, 2081. https://doi.org/10.1037/dev0002081
Raghubar, K. P., Barnes, M. A., & Hecht, S. A. (2010). Working memory and mathematics: A review of developmental, individual difference, and cognitive approaches. Learning and Individual Differences, 20(2), 110–122. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2009.10.005
Ramful, A., Lowrie, T., & Logan, T. (2017). Measurement of spatial ability: Construction and validation of the spatial reasoning instrument for middle school students. Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment, 35(7), 709–727. https://doi.org/10.1177/0734282916659207
Ramirez, G., Gunderson, E. A., Levine, S. C., & Beilock, S. L. (2012). Spatial anxiety relates to spatial abilities as a function of working memory in children. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 65(3), 474–487. https://doi.org/10.1080/17470218.2011.616214
Rittle-Johnson, B., Zippert, E. L., & Boice, K. L. (2018). The roles of patterning and spatial skills in early mathematics development. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 46, 166–178. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecresq.2018.03.006
Rodán, A., Montoro, P. R., Martínez-Molina, A., & Contreras, M. J. (2022). Effectiveness of spatial training in elementary and secondary school: Everyone learns. Educación XX1, 25(1), 381–406. https://doi.org/10.5944/educXX1.30100
Rouet, J.-F., Vörös, Z., & Pléh, C. (2012). Incidental learning of links during navigation: The role of visuo-spatial capacity. Behaviour & Information Technology, 31(1), 71–81. https://doi.org/10.1080/0144929X.2011.604103
Ruggeri, K., Dempster, M., & Hanna, D. (2011). The impact of misunderstanding the nature of statistics. Psychology Teaching Review, 17(1), 35–40.
Shi, D., Maydeu-Olivares, A., & Rosseel, Y. (2020). Assessing fit in ordinal factor analysis models: SRMR vs. RMSEA. Structural Equation Modeling: A Multidisciplinary Journal, 27(1), 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1080/10705511.2019.1611434
Sokolowski, H. M., Hawes, Z., & Lyons, I. M. (2019). What explains sex differences in math anxiety? A closer look at the role of spatial processing. Cognition, 182, 193–212. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2018.10.005
Sorby, S., Veurink, N., & Streiner, S. (2018). Does spatial skills instruction improve STEM outcomes? The answer is ‘yes’. Learning and Individual Differences, 67, 209–222. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2018.09.001
Uttal, D. H., Meadow, N. G., Tipton, E., Hand, L. L., Alden, A. R., Warren, C., & Newcombe, N. S. (2013). The malleability of spatial skills: A meta-analysis of training studies. Psychological Bulletin, 139(2), 352–402. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0028446
Valle, N., Antonenko, P., Valle, D., Sommer, M., Huggins-Manley, A. C., Dawson, K., Kim, D., & Baiser, B. (2021). Predict or describe? How learning analytics dashboard design influences motivation and statistics anxiety in an online statistics course. Educational Technology Research and Development, 69(3), 1405–1431. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-021-09998-z
van de Weijer-Bergsma, E., Van Luit, J. E. H., & Moeller, K. (2022). Sex differences in the association of math achievement with visual-spatial and verbal working memory: Does the type of math test matter? British Journal of Psychology, 113(3), 798–819. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjop.12562
Vigil-Colet, A., Lorenzo-Seva, U., & Condon, L. (2008). Development and validation of the statistical anxiety scale. Psicothema, 20(1), 174–180.
Villarejo-Ramos, Á. F., Cabrera-Sánchez, J.-P., Lara-Rubio, J., & Liébana-Cabanillas, F. (2021). Predicting big data adoption in companies with an explanatory and predictive model. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 1–12. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.651398
Vytal, K., Cornwell, B., Arkin, N., Letkiewicz, A., & Grillon, C. (2013). The complex interaction between anxiety and cognition: Insight from spatial and verbal working memory. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 7, 1–11. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2013.00093
Wang, S., Hu, B. Y., & Zhang, X. (2021). Kindergarteners' spatial skills and their reading and math achievement in second grade. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 57, 156–166. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecresq.2021.06.002
Williams, A. S. (2015). Statistics anxiety and worry: The roles of worry beliefs, negative problem orientation, and cognitive avoidance. Statistics Education Research Journal, 14(2), 53–75. https://doi.org/10.52041/serj.v14i2.261
Yang, W., Liu, H., Chen, N., Xu, P., & Lin, X. (2020). Is early spatial skills training effective? A meta-analysis. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 1–15. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01938
Zang, S., & Cousineau, D. (2025). Anchors and ratios to quantify and explain y-axis distortion effects in graphs. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 51(9), 1430–1452. https://doi.org/10.1037/xlm0001454
Zeidner, M. (1991). Statistics and mathematics anxiety in social science students: Some interesting parallels. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 61(3), 319–328. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-8279.1991.tb00989.x
