High Levels Of Mathematics Anxiety Research Articles

Investigating Rural Pre-Service Teachers' Mathematics Anxiety Using the Revised Mathematics Anxiety Scale (RMARS)

Engaging successfully in the modern technological society requires a command of mathematics. Hence, successfully engaging with mathematics has social, economic and political implications. There has been a history over a long period of time of significant numbers of people not forming productive relationships with learning mathematics. Failure in mathematics can have an impact that may extend far beyond the classroom. Mathematics anxiety leads to avoidance of mathematics, limiting opportunities for people to reach their full potential. Mathematics anxiety is an important research topic in the mathematics education community. Significant numbers of students come to their tertiary teacher education with limited mathematics understandings, and a pattern of avoidance and anxiety. International researchers of primary pre-service teachers report high levels of mathematics anxiety, low confidence levels to teach mathematics and low mathematics teacher efficacy. Pre-service primary teachers‘ mathematics anxiety affects their engagement with and future teaching of mathematics, as high levels of teacher mathematics anxiety can be perpetuated in classrooms (Martinez, 1987, Furner & Berman, 2005). The project investigated the range of mathematics anxiety in a sample of pre-service teachers (PST) starting a teacher education course in an Australian university. 219 first year primary PST enrolled in the Bachelor of Education (Primary) degree course from two campuses completed the survey in the first few weeks of the first semester of their university course. PST responded to the Revised Mathematics Anxiety Scale (RMARS) (Alexander & Martray, 1989) and a set of demographic questions. Sample 1 was from a campus in a regional city and Sample 2 from a metropolitan campus. Age differences in anxiety were found to be significant, and relationships were found between the RMARS scores and students‘ self-perceptions of their current mathematics anxiety levels. Pre-service teachers who had attended rural high schools demonstrated a range of levels of mathematics anxiety. This research showed that these anxieties may present differently when taking a mathematics test, doing mathematical computations, or undertaking a mathematics course. Teacher educators should be aware of the extent of range of anxiety that PST may present with at the beginning of their teacher education course, and hence that the needs of students coming to their teacher education mathematics units may vary considerably.

The role of literacy skills in adolescents' mathematics word problem performance: Controlling for visuo-spatial ability and mathematics anxiety

The aim of the present study is to examine the relationship between eighth-grade adolescents' literacy skills and mathematics word problem performance. Moreover, visuo-spatial ability and mathematics anxiety were considered as covariates. According to the analyses of (co)variance, literacy skills were significantly associated with mathematics word problem skills among the 99 8th grade participants of the study. It is primarily for boys that reading comprehension skill predicts success in solving math word problems, while technical reading predicts both calculation skill and word problem solving skill across genders. Visuo-spatial ability was not a significant covariate in either of the models, whereas mathematics anxiety was a significant covariate in the girls' model. The results of the present study thus suggest that learning mathematics is particularly intertwined with good technical reading skills, even in adolescence. Additionally, emphasizing an encouraging atmosphere in math classes could help girls with high levels of mathematics anxiety.

When Math Hurts: Math Anxiety Predicts Pain Network Activation in Anticipation of Doing Math

Math can be difficult, and for those with high levels of mathematics-anxiety (HMAs), math is associated with tension, apprehension, and fear. But what underlies the feelings of dread effected by math anxiety? Are HMAs’ feelings about math merely psychological epiphenomena, or is their anxiety grounded in simulation of a concrete, visceral sensation – such as pain – about which they have every right to feel anxious? We show that, when anticipating an upcoming math-task, the higher one’s math anxiety, the more one increases activity in regions associated with visceral threat detection, and often the experience of pain itself (bilateral dorso-posterior insula). Interestingly, this relation was not seen during math performance, suggesting that it is not that math itself hurts; rather, the anticipation of math is painful. Our data suggest that pain network activation underlies the intuition that simply anticipating a dreaded event can feel painful. These results may also provide a potential neural mechanism to explain why HMAs tend to avoid math and math-related situations, which in turn can bias HMAs away from taking math classes or even entire math-related career paths.

Mathematics anxiety in young children: Concurrent and longitudinal associations with mathematical performance

This study explored mathematics anxiety in a longitudinal sample of 113 children followed from second to third grade. We examined how mathematics anxiety related to different types of mathematical performance concurrently and longitudinally and whether the relations between mathematics anxiety and mathematical performance differed as a function of working memory. Concurrent analyses indicated that mathematics anxiety represents a unique source of individual differences in children’s calculation skills and mathematical applications, but not in children’s geometric reasoning. Furthermore, we found that higher levels of mathematics anxiety in second grade predicted lower gains in children’s mathematical applications between second and third grade, but only for children with higher levels of working memory. Overall, our results indicate that mathematics anxiety is an important construct to consider when examining sources of individual differences in young children’s mathematical performance. Furthermore, our findings suggest that mathematics anxiety may affect how some children use working memory resources to learn mathematical applications.

The Impact of Mathematics Anxiety on Primary School Children’s Working Memory

While there is little doubt that there is a connection between mathematics anxiety and poor mathematical performance, the direction and nature of this connection is less clear. Some researchers (e.g. Ma and Xu, 2004) have contended that poor mathematical performance directly causes mathematics anxiety. Others see a more complex relationship in which mathematics anxiety may, in part at least, cause poor mathematical performance. One possible explanation for the latter view is that mathematics anxiety leads directly to a disruption of cognitive processes such as working memory, which leads directly to poorer mathematical performance (Hopko, Ashcraft, Gute, Ruggiero & Lewis, 1998). The working memory component most consistently associated with mathematics anxiety is the central executive (Ashcraft & Kreuse, 2007), although there is evidence (Miller & Bichsel, 2004) that visual-spatial working memory is impaired by mathematics anxiety. This study sought to explore the suggestion (Ashcraft & Kirk, 2001) that the mere presence of digits might trigger an anxious reaction among children reporting high levels of mathematics anxiety, leading to a decrement in working memory performance. Children of 9 and 10 years of age reported levels of mathematics anxiety and undertook two working memory tasks, one measuring central executive functioning and the other measuring visual-spatial working memory. Each working memory task was completed twice, once using letters as the to-be-remembered stimuli and again using digits. The differences in performance between the two versions of the tasks were compared with the reported levels of mathematics anxiety. The findings suggest that the presence of digits as the stimuli caused a decrement in working memory performance commensurate with the reported levels of mathematical anxiety.

Investigating the Relationship between Elementary Teacher Mathematics Anxiety, Mathematics Instructional Practices, and Student Mathematics Achievement

Many elementary teachers have been found to have high levels of Many elementary teachers have been found to have high levels of mathematics anxiety but the impact on student achievement was unknown. Elementary teachers ( N = 692) completed the modified Mathematics Anxiety Rating Scale-Revised (Hopko, 2003) along with a questionnaire probing anxiety about teaching mathematics and current mathematics instructional practices. Student mathematics achievement data were collected for the classrooms taught by the teachers. A positive relationship was found between anxiety about mathematics and anxiety about teaching mathematics. Increased student mathematics achievement was related to lower levels of anxiety about teaching mathematics, but was not related to general anxiety about mathematics. Anxiety about mathematics was positively related to more National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) Standards-based instructional practices.

Mathematics related anxiety: Mathematics bogeyman or not?

Data of the PISA 2003 survey indicate high levels of mathematics anxiety of students in Serbia. More than half of our students worry whether they will have difficulties in mathematics class or whether they will earn poor marks. Aims of this study therefore are: examining relationship between math anxiety and achievement at mathematics literacy scale; establishing possible predictors of math anxiety and identification of students' groups in relations to their relationship towards mathematics as a subject. Mathematics anxiety is statistically negatively correlated with school achievement and achievement at mathematics literacy scale. Socio-demographic factors, motivational and cognitive aspects related to learning mathematics, perception of school and classroom climate explain 40% variance of mathematics anxiety. Based on students' relationship towards mathematics they cam be divided into three groups; while dimensions that apart them are uninterested-interested in mathematics and presence-absence of anxiety. The group displaying anxiety scores lowest among the three. Applying qualitative analysis students' and teachers' attitudes on specific issues related to teaching and learning mathematics was examined.

Mathematics Anxiety and Learning Styles: What Is the Relationship in Elementary Preservice Teachers?

The study investigated the relationship between elementary preservice teachers' mathematics anxiety levels and learning style preferences. Subjects included 72 preservice teachers at a midsized southeastern U.S. university who were at the end of their third year of study. The subjects completed the Mathematics Anxiety Rating Scale and the Style Analysis Survey (SAS). Scores obtained on the two instruments were analyzed using Pearson product‐moment correlations. Eleven of the SAS subscales were examined. The global subscale was the only one related to mathematics anxiety at the p < .05 level of significance. Findings revealed a low (r= .28) but significant (p < .05) positive correlation between mathematics anxiety and a global (right‐brain dominant) learning style. As global orientation scores increased, mathematics anxiety scores increased as well. This study indicated that there is tendency for global learners to possess higher levels of mathematics anxiety.