Associations among schemas emotional complaints cognitive difficulties and perceived mathematics understanding in undergraduates from selected universities in Mogadishu Somalia

Associations among schema-related vulnerability, emotional experiences, subjective cognitive complaints, and perceived mathematics understanding remain insufficiently understood among university students in Mogadishu, Somalia. This cross-sectional study examined early maladaptive schemas (EMS), mathematics anxiety (MA), psychological distress (PD), perceived cognitive processing difficulties (P-CPD), and perceived conceptual understanding in mathematics (P-CUM) among 467 undergraduates from five universities. Concurrent self-report data were analysed using PLS-SEM with 5,000 bootstrap resamples.

A reduced 27-item specification excluding EMS2 and PD8 served as the primary model, supplemented by demographic adjustment and a 29-item sensitivity specification. EMS was positively associated with MA (β = 0.698), MA with PD (β = 0.726) and P-CPD (β = 0.264), and PD with P-CPD (β = 0.548); P-CPD was negatively associated with P-CUM (β = − 0.371; all p