The impacts of math anxiety, science anxiety, and gender on arts versus sciences choices in Qatari secondary schools

Abstract

Previous studies showed small-to-moderate associations between students’ performances in math and science and math anxiety and science anxiety, respectively. Accordingly, the high prevalence of these two forms of topic anxiety represent severe obstructions to the worldwide demand calling for improving the quality of math and science achievements and, subsequently, increasing career success in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) domains. Therefore, this study examined math anxiety and science anxiety among female and male students who were enrolled in Sciences vs Arts tracks in Grades 11 and 12 in a Middle Eastern Arabic-speaking country (Qatar), and investigated how gender, math anxiety and science anxiety could predict this enrollment. Results showed that students in the Arts track experienced higher levels of math anxiety and science anxiety than those in the Sciences track, regardless of the students’ gender. However, a binary logistic regression analysis showed that science learning anxiety, but not evaluation science anxiety nor math learning or evaluation anxieties, significantly predicts students’ enrollment in Arts and Sciences tracks. Therefore, STEM career success is associated with good knowledge of STEM domains and positive emotions towards math and science.