Bidirectional Relations Between Spatial and Mathematics Skills in Elementary School Children: The Role of Domain-Specific Anxieties

Research has demonstrated a link between spatial and mathematics skills, although less research has addressed the directionality of this relation and what factors may impact the spatial–mathematics link. Two such factors may be spatial and mathematics anxiety, which are related to performance in their respective domains, but may also play a cross-domain role in the relation between spatial and mathematics skills. Importantly, these relations are prudent to investigate in children when mathematics and spatial skills are early in their development. To bridge the gap, the present study examined the direction of the relation between spatial and mathematics skills across two waves of data and the domain specificity of cognitive anxieties (spatial and mathematics anxiety) as they relate to their respective skill in children. In a sample of 647 U.S. first-graders (Mage = 6 years 8 months), we found bidirectional relations between spatial and mathematics skills across two waves of data collection. We found domain-specific, but not cross-domain, relations between mathematics anxiety and skills, but no evidence of links between spatial anxiety and spatial or mathematics skills at this age. These results provide support for the bidirectional spatial–mathematics link in young children and suggest that mathematics anxiety may be a useful target for interventions to improve mathematics outcomes.