title: Differentiating anxiety forms and their role in academic performance from primary to secondary school.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Individuals with high levels of mathematics anxiety are more likely to have other forms of anxiety, such as general anxiety and test anxiety, and tend to have some math performance decrement compared to those with low math anxiety. However, it is unclear how the anxiety forms cluster in individuals, or how the presence of other anxiety forms influences the relationship between math anxiety and math performance.
  
  
  METHODS
  We measured math anxiety, test anxiety, general anxiety and mathematics and reading performance in 1720 UK students (year 4, aged 8-9, and years 7 and 8, aged 11-13). We conducted latent profile analysis of students' anxiety scores in order to examine the developmental change in anxiety profiles, the demographics of each anxiety profile and the relationship between profiles and academic performance.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Anxiety profiles appeared to change in specificity between the two age groups studied. Only in the older students did clusters emerge with specifically elevated general anxiety or academic anxiety (test and math anxiety). Our findings suggest that boys are slightly more likely than girls to have elevated academic anxieties relative to their general anxiety. Year 7/8 students with specifically academic anxiety show lower academic performance than those who also have elevated general anxiety.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  There may be a developmental change in the specificity of anxiety and gender seems to play a strong role in determining one's anxiety profile. The anxiety profiles present in our year 7/8 sample, and their relationships with math performance, suggest a bidirectional relationship between math anxiety and math performance.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Neuroscience in Education, Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Emma
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2294-7989
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Carey
authors.affiliation: Centre for Neuroscience in Education, Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Amy
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Devine
authors.affiliation: Centre for Neuroscience in Education, Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Francesca
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Hill
authors.affiliation: Centre for Neuroscience in Education, Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Dénes
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Szűcs
mesh_terms: D000124:Achievement; D000293:Adolescent; D001007:Anxiety / Q000523:psychology*; D001008:Anxiety Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D016014:Linear Models; D008297:Male; D008433:Mathematics; D011932:Reading; D012574:Schools; D013315:Stress, Psychological; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires