Early Trajectories of Math Anxiety from Kindergarten to First Grade: Parental Factors and Math Performance

This longitudinal study examined early trajectories of math anxiety and related parental factors in a Chilean sample of 292 children (46.2% girls) followed from kindergarten to the end of first grade. Children were assessed three times on math anxiety, while parents reported home math activities, math anxiety, academic expectations, and arithmetic fluency at baseline. Research Findings: Group-basedtrajectory modeling identified four patterns: Low-Stable (44.1%), Declining (45.5%), Escalating (5.0%), and High-Stable (5.4%). Children whose parents more frequently engaged in advanced home math activities were less likely to belong to higher-anxiety groups, suggesting a protective role of home math support. By contrast, lower family income increased the likelihood of membership in the High-Stable group. Children in the Low-Stable trajectory showed higher math performance at the end of first grade comparing to the High-Stable group, even after controlling for baseline math differences, indicating that sustained math anxiety is associated with lower math performance from an early age. Practice or Policy: These findings provide the first Latin American evidence of heterogeneous early math anxiety trajectories and underscore the importance of family and socioeconomic contexts, as well as the potential of early numeracy interventions to promote positive learning outcomes in socioeconomically vulnerable educational settings.