Math anxiety: a bibliometric approach to 70 years of research

Math anxiety is an emotion that negatively affects mathematics teaching and learning processes and that has acquired renewed relevance because of the PISA 2022 report. However, concern and interest in this emotion are not recent and date back to the mid-twentieth century. Therefore, with the aim of providing a comprehensive view of the state of the art on this topic, we performed a bibliometric analysis on the WoS database that included documentation published from the appearance of the term until March 2024, resulting in the generation of graphs and visual maps using SPSS and VosViewer. Results show an exponential growth of the scientific literature regarding math anxiety and reveal that the USA and its universities are the main producers, with the contribution of Spain and the University of Barcelona, among others, also being notable. In addition, we identified the journals that publish the most on this matter, most of them being linked to research in the field of psychology. Finally, we also observed that the most important publications and topics are those that focus on the understanding of the construct, its conceptualization and diagnosis, with much less attention being paid to treatment and educational intervention.