{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,9]],"date-time":"2026-09-09T16:12:36Z","timestamp":1788970356884,"version":"build-2803163510"},"reference-count":58,"publisher":"Frontiers Media SA","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,9]],"date-time":"2026-09-09T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1788912000000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["frontiersin.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Front. Psychol."],"abstract":"<jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Introduction<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>Mathematics anxiety is among the most consequential affective barriers to mathematics learning, yet large-scale evidence from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) remains scarce. Existing research on the region rarely moves beyond linear models, and no study has applied interpretable machine learning (ML) to identify which psychological, instructional, and contextual factors jointly predict mathematics anxiety among Arab adolescents.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Methods<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>Drawing on the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2022, we analysed 47,652 fifteen-year-old students from the six participating Arab education systems: the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Morocco, Palestine, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia. Six algorithms (linear regression, elastic net, random forest, AdaBoost, XGBoost, and LightGBM) were tuned with randomized search under 5-fold cross-validation to predict the PISA mathematics anxiety index (ANXMAT) from 50 predictors spanning competence beliefs, engagement, instructional climate, social relationships, achievement, and demographics. SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP) values, computed exactly for the selected gradient-boosting model, quantified the magnitude, direction, and heterogeneity of each predictor\u2019s contribution, complemented by gender- and country-stratified decompositions and five robustness analyses.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Results<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>\n                      XGBoost achieved the best cross-validated performance (CV\n                      <jats:italic>R<\/jats:italic>\n                      <jats:sup>2<\/jats:sup>\n                      \u202f= 0.275; test\n                      <jats:italic>R<\/jats:italic>\n                      <jats:sup>2<\/jats:sup>\n                      \u202f= 0.266, RMSE = 0.978), outperforming linear benchmarks by approximately 10% in explained variance. Mathematics self-efficacy was the dominant predictor, followed by effort and persistence in mathematics, self-efficacy for mathematical reasoning, and mathematics achievement. Growth mindset ranked fifth despite a near-zero bivariate correlation, indicating a conditional predictive association that marginal analyses conceal. Girls reported systematically higher predicted anxiety, and while the protective core (self-efficacy, persistence) operated near-identically across genders, the anxiety penalty associated with bullying victimization was almost twice as steep for girls. The predictor hierarchy replicated across all six systems (mean pairwise rank correlation = 0.88).\n                    <\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Discussion<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>The findings are consistent with control-value theory (CVT): perceived competence, not socioeconomic status or resources, is the primary correlate of adolescents\u2019 mathematics anxiety in MENA. These cross-sectional findings are predictive, not causal; within the fitted model, the gender-asymmetric social stressors and the region-wide consistency of the predictive architecture identify efficacy-building instruction, anxiety-sensitive homework design, and anti-bullying policy as priority candidates for intervention research across Arab education systems.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>","DOI":"10.3389\/fpsyg.2026.1929157","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,9]],"date-time":"2026-09-09T15:30:44Z","timestamp":1788967844000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3389\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["What predicts adolescents\u2019 mathematics anxiety in the Middle East and North Africa? An interpretable machine learning analysis of six Arab education systems in PISA 2022"],"prefix":"10.3389","volume":"17","author":[{"given":"Omar","family":"Allohibi","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Educational Policies and Economics, College of Education, Taibah University","place":["Madinah, Saudi Arabia"]},{"name":"Energy, Industry, and Advanced Technologies Research Center, Taibah University","place":["Madinah, Saudi Arabia"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1965","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,9]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"2609386","DOI":"10.1080\/2331186X.2025.2609386","article-title":"Understanding mathematics anxiety: the role of social-emotional skills and school support","volume":"13","author":"Aaviste","year":"2025","journal-title":"Cogent Educ."},{"key":"ref2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"385","DOI":"10.1016\/j.lindif.2011.12.004","article-title":"Reciprocal relationships between math self-concept and math anxiety","volume":"22","author":"Ahmed","year":"2012","journal-title":"Learn. Individ. Differ."},{"key":"ref3","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"65","DOI":"10.2466\/pr0.2001.89.1.65","article-title":"Mathematics anxiety among eighth-grade students of the United Arab Emirates","volume":"89","author":"Alkhateeb","year":"2001","journal-title":"Psychol. Rep."},{"key":"ref4","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"1","DOI":"10.1007\/s10648-016-9389-8","article-title":"What schools need to know about fostering school belonging: a meta-analysis","volume":"30","author":"Allen","year":"2018","journal-title":"Educ. Psychol. Rev."},{"key":"ref5","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"17","DOI":"10.1016\/j.adolescence.2015.07.002","article-title":"International note: are Emirati parents' attitudes toward mathematics linked to their adolescent children's attitudes toward mathematics and mathematics achievement?","volume":"44","author":"Areepattamannil","year":"2015","journal-title":"J. Adolesc."},{"key":"ref6","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"224","DOI":"10.1037\/0096-3445.130.2.224","article-title":"The relationships among working memory, math anxiety, and performance","volume":"130","author":"Ashcraft","year":"2001","journal-title":"J. Exp. Psychol. Gen."},{"key":"ref7","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"243","DOI":"10.3758\/BF03194059","article-title":"Working memory, math performance, and math anxiety","volume":"14","author":"Ashcraft","year":"2007","journal-title":"Psychon. Bull. Rev."},{"key":"ref8","volume-title":"Self-Efficacy: The Exercise of Control","author":"Bandura","year":"1997"},{"key":"ref9","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"134","DOI":"10.1037\/bul0000307","article-title":"A meta-analysis of the relation between math anxiety and math achievement","volume":"147","author":"Barroso","year":"2021","journal-title":"Psychol. Bull."},{"key":"ref10","first-page":"281","article-title":"Random search for hyper-parameter optimization","volume":"13","author":"Bergstra","year":"2012","journal-title":"J. Mach. Learn. Res."},{"key":"ref11","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"5","DOI":"10.1023\/A:1010933404324","article-title":"Random forests","volume":"45","author":"Breiman","year":"2001","journal-title":"Mach. Learn."},{"key":"ref12","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"1987","DOI":"10.3389\/fpsyg.2015.01987","article-title":"The chicken or the egg? The direction of the relationship between mathematics anxiety and mathematics performance","volume":"6","author":"Carey","year":"2016","journal-title":"Front. Psychol."},{"key":"ref13","first-page":"785","volume-title":"XGBoost: a Scalable tree Boosting system Proceedings of the 22nd ACM SIGKDD International Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining","author":"Chen","year":"2016"},{"key":"ref14","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"1224","DOI":"10.1111\/bjep.12715","article-title":"A machine-learning model of academic resilience in the times of the COVID-19 pandemic: evidence drawn from 79 countries\/economies in the PISA 2022 mathematics study","volume":"94","author":"Cheung","year":"2024","journal-title":"Br. J. Educ. Psychol."},{"key":"ref15","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"871","DOI":"10.1037\/edu0000881","article-title":"The social class test gap: a worldwide investigation of the role of academic anxiety and income inequality in standardized test score disparities","volume":"116","author":"Claes","year":"2024","journal-title":"J. Educ. Psychol."},{"key":"ref16","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"8664","DOI":"10.1073\/pnas.1608207113","article-title":"Growth mindset tempers the effects of poverty on academic achievement","volume":"113","author":"Claro","year":"2016","journal-title":"Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA"},{"key":"ref17","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"33","DOI":"10.1186\/1744-9081-8-33","article-title":"Gender differences in mathematics anxiety and the relation to mathematics performance while controlling for test anxiety","volume":"8","author":"Devine","year":"2012","journal-title":"Behav. Brain Funct."},{"key":"ref18","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"1840049","DOI":"10.3389\/fpsyg.2026.1840049","article-title":"Using machine learning to predict student mathematics performance in six east Asian countries: evidence from PISA 2022","volume":"17","author":"Djekourmane","year":"2026","journal-title":"Front. Psychol."},{"key":"ref19","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"508","DOI":"10.3389\/fpsyg.2016.00508","article-title":"Mathematics anxiety: what have we learned in 60 years?","volume":"7","author":"Dowker","year":"2016","journal-title":"Front. Psychol."},{"key":"ref20","volume-title":"Expectations and Aspirations: A New Framework for Education in the Middle East and North Africa","author":"El-Kogali","year":"2019"},{"key":"ref21","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"103","DOI":"10.1037\/a0018053","article-title":"Cross-national patterns of gender differences in mathematics: a meta-analysis","volume":"136","author":"Else-Quest","year":"2010","journal-title":"Psychol. Bull."},{"key":"ref22","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"336","DOI":"10.1037\/1528-3542.7.2.336","article-title":"Anxiety and cognitive performance: attentional control theory","volume":"7","author":"Eysenck","year":"2007","journal-title":"Emotion"},{"key":"ref23","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"52","DOI":"10.1177\/0963721416672463","article-title":"The math anxiety-performance link: a global phenomenon","volume":"26","author":"Foley","year":"2017","journal-title":"Curr. Dir. Psychol. Sci."},{"key":"ref24","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"497","DOI":"10.1007\/BF03173468","article-title":"Girls and mathematics\u2014a \"hopeless\" issue? A control-value approach to gender differences in emotions towards mathematics","volume":"22","author":"Frenzel","year":"2007","journal-title":"Eur. J. Psychol. Educ."},{"key":"ref25","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"119","DOI":"10.1006\/jcss.1997.1504","article-title":"A decision-theoretic generalization of on-line learning and an application to boosting","volume":"55","author":"Freund","year":"1997","journal-title":"J. Comput. Syst. Sci."},{"key":"ref26","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"2079","DOI":"10.1177\/0956797613486989","article-title":"Do girls really experience more anxiety in mathematics?","volume":"24","author":"Goetz","year":"2013","journal-title":"Psychol. Sci."},{"key":"ref27","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"21","DOI":"10.1080\/15248372.2017.1421538","article-title":"Reciprocal relations among motivational frameworks, math anxiety, and math achievement in early elementary school","volume":"19","author":"Gunderson","year":"2018","journal-title":"J. Cogn. Dev."},{"key":"ref28","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.1007\/978-0-387-84858-7","volume-title":"The Elements of Statistical Learning: Data Mining, Inference, and Prediction","author":"Hastie","year":"2009"},{"key":"ref29","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"33","DOI":"10.2307\/749455","article-title":"The nature, effects, and relief of mathematics anxiety","volume":"21","author":"Hembree","year":"1990","journal-title":"J. Res. Math. Educ."},{"key":"ref30","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"30","DOI":"10.1186\/s40536-022-00150-8","article-title":"Machine learning procedures for predictor variable selection for schoolwork-related anxiety: evidence from PISA 2015 mathematics, reading, and science assessments","volume":"10","author":"Immekus","year":"2022","journal-title":"Large-Scale Assess. Educ."},{"key":"ref31","first-page":"3146","volume-title":"LightGBM: a Highly Efficient Gradient Boosting Decision tree Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 30","author":"Ke","year":"2017"},{"key":"ref32","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"e2115855119","DOI":"10.1073\/pnas.2115855119","article-title":"Disentangling the individual and contextual effects of math anxiety: a global perspective","volume":"119","author":"Lau","year":"2022","journal-title":"Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA"},{"key":"ref33","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"355","DOI":"10.1016\/j.lindif.2008.10.009","article-title":"Universals and specifics of math self-concept, math self-efficacy, and math anxiety across 41 PISA 2003 participating countries","volume":"19","author":"Lee","year":"2009","journal-title":"Learn. Individ. Differ."},{"key":"ref34","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"56","DOI":"10.1038\/s42256-019-0138-9","article-title":"From local explanations to global understanding with explainable AI for trees","volume":"2","author":"Lundberg","year":"2020","journal-title":"Nat. Mach. Intell."},{"key":"ref35","first-page":"4765","volume-title":"A Unified Approach to Interpreting model Predictions Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 30","author":"Lundberg","year":"2017"},{"key":"ref36","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"311","DOI":"10.2147\/PRBM.S141421","article-title":"Spotlight on math anxiety","volume":"11","author":"Luttenberger","year":"2018","journal-title":"Psychol. Res. Behav. Manag."},{"key":"ref37","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"520","DOI":"10.2307\/749772","article-title":"A meta-analysis of the relationship between anxiety toward mathematics and achievement in mathematics","volume":"30","author":"Ma","year":"1999","journal-title":"J. Res. Math. Educ."},{"key":"ref38","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"165","DOI":"10.1016\/j.adolescence.2003.11.003","article-title":"The causal ordering of mathematics anxiety and mathematics achievement: a longitudinal panel analysis","volume":"27","author":"Ma","year":"2004","journal-title":"J. Adolesc."},{"key":"ref39","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"1480","DOI":"10.1177\/0956797615592630","article-title":"Intergenerational effects of parents' math anxiety on children's math achievement and anxiety","volume":"26","author":"Maloney","year":"2015","journal-title":"Psychol. Sci."},{"key":"ref40","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"60","DOI":"10.1037\/0022-0663.82.1.60","article-title":"Predictors of math anxiety and its influence on young adolescents' course enrollment intentions and performance in mathematics","volume":"82","author":"Meece","year":"1990","journal-title":"J. Educ. Psychol."},{"key":"ref41","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"e14510","DOI":"10.7717\/peerj.14510","article-title":"The impacts of math anxiety, science anxiety, and gender on arts versus sciences choices in Qatari secondary schools","volume":"11","author":"Megreya","year":"2023","journal-title":"PeerJ"},{"key":"ref42","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"60","DOI":"10.5498\/wjp.v7.i1.60","article-title":"Consequences of bullying victimization in childhood and adolescence: a systematic review and meta-analysis","volume":"7","author":"Moore","year":"2017","journal-title":"World J. Psychiatry"},{"key":"ref43","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"459","DOI":"10.3102\/0034654319843494","article-title":"The relation between mathematics anxiety and mathematics performance among school-aged students: a meta-analysis","volume":"89","author":"Namkung","year":"2019","journal-title":"Rev. Educ. Res."},{"key":"ref44","volume-title":"PISA 2012 Results: Ready to Learn (Volume III): Students' Engagement, Drive and Self-Beliefs","year":"2013"},{"key":"ref45","volume-title":"Sky's the Limit: Growth Mindset, Students, and Schools in PISA","year":"2021"},{"key":"ref46","volume-title":"PISA 2022 Results (Volume I): The State of Learning and Equity in Education","year":"2023"},{"key":"ref47","volume-title":"PISA 2022 Technical Report","year":"2024"},{"key":"ref48","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"315","DOI":"10.1007\/s10648-006-9029-9","article-title":"The control-value theory of achievement emotions: assumptions, corollaries, and implications for educational research and practice","volume":"18","author":"Pekrun","year":"2006","journal-title":"Educ. Psychol. Rev."},{"key":"ref49","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"1653","DOI":"10.1111\/cdev.12704","article-title":"Achievement emotions and academic performance: longitudinal models of reciprocal effects","volume":"88","author":"Pekrun","year":"2017","journal-title":"Child Dev."},{"key":"ref50","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"551","DOI":"10.1037\/h0033456","article-title":"The mathematics anxiety rating scale: psychometric data","volume":"19","author":"Richardson","year":"1972","journal-title":"J. Couns. Psychol."},{"key":"ref51","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"142","DOI":"10.3102\/0013189X10363170","article-title":"International large-scale assessment data: issues in secondary analysis and reporting","volume":"39","author":"Rutkowski","year":"2010","journal-title":"Educ. Res."},{"key":"ref52","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"e0153857","DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pone.0153857","article-title":"Countries with higher levels of gender equality show larger national sex differences in mathematics anxiety and relatively lower parental mathematics valuation for girls","volume":"11","author":"Stoet","year":"2016","journal-title":"PLoS One"},{"key":"ref53","first-page":"9","article-title":"What are plausible values and why are they useful?","volume":"2","author":"von Davier","year":"2009","journal-title":"IERI Monogr. Ser."},{"key":"ref54","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"1056","DOI":"10.1111\/jcpp.12224","article-title":"Who is afraid of math? Two sources of genetic variance for mathematical anxiety","volume":"55","author":"Wang","year":"2014","journal-title":"J. Child Psychol. Psychiatry"},{"key":"ref55","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"93","DOI":"10.3390\/jintelligence12100093","article-title":"Applying machine learning and SHAP method to identify key influences on middle-school students' mathematics literacy performance","volume":"12","author":"Wu","year":"2024","journal-title":"J. Intelligence"},{"key":"ref56","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"1100","DOI":"10.1177\/1745691617693393","article-title":"Choosing prediction over explanation in psychology: lessons from machine learning","volume":"12","author":"Yarkoni","year":"2017","journal-title":"Perspect. Psychol. Sci."},{"key":"ref57","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"1269","DOI":"10.1037\/amp0000794","article-title":"What can be learned from growth mindset controversies?","volume":"75","author":"Yeager","year":"2020","journal-title":"Am. Psychol."},{"key":"ref58","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"301","DOI":"10.1111\/j.1467-9868.2005.00503.x","article-title":"Regularization and variable selection via the elastic net","volume":"67","author":"Zou","year":"2005","journal-title":"J. R. Stat. Soc. B Stat. Methodol."}],"container-title":["Frontiers in Psychology"],"original-title":[],"link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/www.frontiersin.org\/articles\/10.3389\/fpsyg.2026.1929157\/full","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,9]],"date-time":"2026-09-09T15:30:47Z","timestamp":1788967847000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/www.frontiersin.org\/articles\/10.3389\/fpsyg.2026.1929157\/full"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,9]]},"references-count":58,"alternative-id":["10.3389\/fpsyg.2026.1929157"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3389\/fpsyg.2026.1929157","relation":{},"ISSN":["1664-1078"],"issn-type":[{"value":"1664-1078","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,9]]},"article-number":"1929157"}}