Mindfulness, anxiety, and high-stakes mathematics performance in the laboratory and classroom.
Consciousness and Cognition September 12, 2015 DOI: 10.1016/j.concog.2015.09.001 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Two-study empirical investigation (laboratory experiment and classroom study) Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Population | Study 1: participants in a high-pressure laboratory math setting; Study 2: undergraduate engineering majors enrolled in a calculus course |
| Intervention | Mindfulness |
| Topics | Anxiety Meditation |
| Key findings | Across both studies, mindfulness benefited math and calculus performance indirectly by reducing anxiety (state anxiety in the lab, cognitive test anxiety in the course), with effects selective to working-memory-demanding problems and high-stakes assessments; mindfulness did not affect lower-stakes homework. The authors suggest mindfulness may help attenuate the negative effects of test anxiety. |
Abstract
Mindfulness enhances emotion regulation and cognitive performance. A mindful approach may be especially beneficial in high-stakes academic testing environments, in which anxious thoughts disrupt cognitive control. The current studies examined whether mindfulness improves the emotional response to anxiety-producing testing situations, freeing working memory resources, and improving performance. In Study 1, we examined performance in a high-pressure laboratory setting. Mindfulness indirectly benefited math performance by reducing the experience of state anxiety. This benefit occurred selectively for problems that required greater working memory resources. Study 2 extended these findings to a calculus course taken by undergraduate engineering majors. Mindfulness indirectly benefited students' performance on high-stakes quizzes and exams by reducing their cognitive test anxiety. Mindfulness did not impact performance on lower-stakes homework assignments. These findings reveal an important mechanism by which mindfulness benefits academic performance, and suggest that mindfulness may help attenuate the negative effects of test anxiety.
Comparable studies
Other experimental studies on anxiety, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| A PILOT STUDY OF GROUP MINDFULNESS-BASED COGNITIVE THERAPY (MBCT) FOR COMBAT VETERANS WITH POSTTRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER (PTSD) Veterans with chronic combat posttraumatic stress disorder seeking treatment at a VA... | 2013 | Quasi-experimental with treatment-as-usual comparison group | n = 37 |
| Being present in the face of existential threat: The role of trait mindfulness in reducing defensive responses to mortality salience. | 2010 | Experimental study | |
| Neural correlates of mindfulness meditation-related anxiety relief Healthy adults with no prior meditation experience | 2013 | Within-subjects experimental study | n = 15 |
| Intensive mindfulness training-related changes in cognitive and emotional experience Community adults | 2009 | Quasi-experimental and longitudinal | n = 69 |
| Prospective examination of synthetic 5-methoxy-N,N-dimethyltryptamine inhalation: effects on salivary IL-6, cortisol levels, affect, and non-judgment Volunteers | 2019 | Within-subjects experimental study | n = 11 |
Citations in the library
Cited by 29
- Benefits of mindfulness in academic settings: trait mindfulness has incremental validity over motivational factors in predicting academic affect, cognition, and behavior BMC Psychology March 3, 2022
- Virtual mindfulness interventions to promote well-being in adults: A mixed-methods systematic review. Journal of Affective Disorders January 4, 2022
- Mindfulness Practice with a Brain-Sensing Device Improved Cognitive Functioning of Elementary School Children: An Exploratory Pilot Study Brain Sciences January 12, 2022
- The influences of mindfulness on high-stakes mathematics test achievement of middle school students Frontiers in Psychology April 6, 2023
- No time for that? An investigation of mindfulness and stress in first-year engineering design Design Science 2022
and 24 more in the library
Cites 19
- The benefits of being present: Mindfulness and its role in psychological well-being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 2003
- Mindfulness: A proposed operational definition. Clinical Psychology Science and Practice 2004
- Mindfulness training as a clinical intervention: A conceptual and empirical review. Clinical Psychology Science and Practice 2003
- Short-term meditation training improves attention and self-regulation Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences October 11, 2007
- The toronto mindfulness scale: Development and validation Journal of Clinical Psychology 2006
and 14 more in the library