Reading and math anxiety in children: differential roles of state and trait components in academic performance, and the moderating effects of intelligence and time pressure.

In the last decades, reading anxiety (RA) has received considerably less attention than math anxiety (MA), and its conceptualization remains underdeveloped. Building on the state-trait anxiety framework, the present study examines state and trait components of RA and MA and their relations to academic performance under conditions with and without time pressure. A sample of 311 third- and fourth-grade students (51.4% girls) completed domain-specific state and trait anxiety questionnaires, reading and math achievement tests administered under timed and untimed conditions, and a measure of fluid intelligence. State anxiety was assessed before and after performance tests as well as in a reference condition to capture situational changes. Results indicated that RA, like MA, represents a hierarchical construct with distinct but related state and trait components and clear evidence for domain specificity. Time pressure increased state anxiety in both reading and math, where children with higher baseline state anxiety showed reduced situational adjustment. Anxiety-performance relations differed across domains. Reading performance was negatively associated with trait RA, baseline state RA, and anticipatory state RA under time pressure, whereas no such relations emerged in the untimed condition. In contrast, math performance was consistently negatively related to trait and baseline state MA across both testing conditions. Fluid intelligence emerged as the strongest predictor of performance, with only limited evidence for moderation by anxiety. Overall, these findings highlight the importance of distinguishing between state and trait components of domain-specific anxiety and demonstrate that situational demands, such as time pressure, play a critical role in shaping anxiety-performance relations in children.