Mathematics Anxiety: 2012

Schools really need to shift toward assessing students' full mathematical power by giving students multiple opportunities to demonstrate their full mathematical understanding, aligning assessment with curriculum and instruction, and regarding assessment as continual and recursive (NCTM, 1995). Teachers need to employ alternative forms of assessment in math classes, such as: observations, questioning, interviews, performance tasks, self-assessments of students, work samples, portfolios, writing samples, paper and pencil tests, and standardized tests. By carrying out the authentic assessment, students will be more likely to be problem solvers for the real life situations. Teachers also need to emphasize more communication in the classroom through discussion, problem solving, discourse, and writing.

Students are very crucible of math anxiety because the math exams represent a do-or-die challenge that can inflame all one’s doubts and frustrations. Here are some techniques and strategies that the teachers must teach to improve students’ test-taking experience, such as note-taking skills, test-taking skills, relaxation techniques, tell the importance of homework or studying, the way to read and use the textbook, address the positive “I” messages and also guiden students on visualization of success in math.

Collaborative Learning

Students who collaborate can develop a synergy among themselves which supports their learning, helping them to learn more, more quickly, and more lastingly. Another practical idea for teacher is having the cooperative group work so that able to provide students a chance to exchange ideas. Cooperative groups provide students a chance to exchange ideas, to ask questions freely, to explain to one another, to clarify ideas in meaningful ways and to express feelings about their learning (Furner & Berman, 2002). These skills acquired at an early age will be greatly beneficial throughout their adult working life.

Different Teaching Approaches

According to Spikell (1993), students learn best when they are active rather than passive learners. Hence, teachers must employ best practices for teaching mathematics in their classrooms by addressing different learning style. We should accept the truth that everyone is capable of learning, but may learn in different ways. The theory of multiple intelligences addresses the different learning styles which the lesson can be presented for visual/spatial, logical/mathematics, musical, body/kinesthetic, interpersonal and intrapersonal and verbal/linguistic.

Use the computer, scientific or graphing calculators, internet and all technology! There are vast resources out there to help students learn math as well as conquer their math anxiety. Many teachers and professors around the world have developed web-sites dedicated to helping students succeed at all levels of math.

Young children enjoy jokes and cartoons. With all the tension and anxiety, math humor is greatly needed. The cartoons may be used to introduce a concept or for class discussion whereas the jokes are typical case of real life problems. Apart from that, some games that are beneficial to learners and are enjoyed are cards playing, Life, Yahtzee, Battleship and Tangrams.

This video below show a fantastic idea that imply the math formulae in a song! I guess that your students might interest your lesson when you play this video.

Relation of Math

Teachers have the responsible to help students to see the important of math. Pupils should learn to value and see application for learning math inside and outside the classroom since math surrounds us, everything in life is a problem (many involve math). This will able to help students realize that it is not something from which they can escape, but a tool they need to learn how to use and apply in real-life situations. It is important for students to become confident in their ability to do math.

Math need relevant to students’ everyday life. Thus, students today need for practical math too. Students enjoy experimenting and engaging in exploring, conjecturing, and thinking rather than, engaged only in rote learning of rules and procedures. So, the use of manipulative will able to make learning math concrete. Some of the abstract ideas can be model or represent by the pictures and symbols. This also provides a chance of hand-on activity for students to enjoy their learning in math.

Math anxiety happens in the classroom due to the lack of consideration of different learning styles of students. Math must be looked upon in a positive light to reduce math anxiety. Teachers must change their teaching approaches from traditional teaching methods which often do not match students’ learning styles. Once young children see math as fun, they will enjoy it, and, the joy of mathematics could remain with them throughout the rest of their lives. The teachers begin a cycle that will produce less math-anxious students for generations come.

Assess Students' Attitude

How can math anxiety prevent? Schools can help prevent math anxiety from occurring in students because teachers play a critical role in helping to develop positive attitudes toward math. According to Tobias (1987), one way for students to reduce math anxiety is to recognize when panic starts, to identify the inactiveness in their analytic and retrieval systems, and to clear up the static without ceasing to work on the problem. “Mathitude Survey” is a practical idea for teachers and students to assess their attitudes toward math at the beginning of a school. Hackworth (1992) suggested that discussing and writing about math feelings will assist in reducing math anxiety.

Intellectual

As mentioned before, teachers normally are being trained on the pedagogy of teaching and learning rather than to understanding the concept itself. Therefore, we are sure that every teacher knows how to perform the calculation and pass it in the same way the application to the students without knowing the actual concept of the formulas and where or how it is coming from.

When some of the high curiosity students expecting to learn more than simply the application itself, teacher find that it is hard to analyse and elaborate the concept, and letting students to be more easily relating the understanding they are performing, into the real world of application. This is because mathematics does not come by itself without any reason. By looking through how those mathematicians creating those formulas, we can see that most of them are stranded into a real world situation, which inspire them to design and manipulate suitable formula to be use by everyone else.

The intelligence in overcoming difference learning background also is a big challenges to a teacher especially in local, there are three main different learning background and each of them are conducting their own creativity so help students improving their understanding. When all of them are gathered into one same teacher, the teacher will found that one same question will lead to many difference applications which come to the same answer. So it is depending on ones intellectual to judge the marking scheme. Any inappropriate action will undermines confidence students’ confidence in performing the same calculation in future.

Cultural Misconception

Issues relating with the cultural matter happened all around the world. The misconceptions are usually deeply implanted in the basic understanding and affecting ones perception, even in the mind of the teacher which also coming from the same background.

“If interaction always has a purpose, it also has meaning for those involved. At its broadest, the teacher-student interaction is probably interpreted as having some form of educational meaning (as opposed to other forms of meaning that could exist between adults and young people). However, when we dig down to specific individual meanings for the interaction that takes place “in the school” there can, once again, be a wide variety of meanings for those involved. For the teacher, for example, these can range from “education” being a vocation – their mission is to influence and change lives for the better – to the idea that education is “just a job”; something that is to be endured because it pays the bills”

(Chris & Tony, n.d)

From what have quoted from Chris and Tony, it is the matter of what the teacher is thinking about the teaching and that will be the matter of how he or she performs the teaching process.

Another misconception is where, from the research of Sian Beilock, teachers who are anxious about their own math abilities are translating some of that to their kids (Karen Kaplan, 2010). The research are saying that the anxiety that pass through from the teacher to the students may lead to a misunderstanding that male can do better mathematics than female.

Environment

The issues related to the environment, we are pointing towards the facilities and school management abilities which are not in the hand of control by teachers; where we may call it as the spontaneous event or dilemmas.

Sometimes teachers have prepared well on thing that he or she is going to teach but suddenly things does not going well as expected. It could be the events arise in the middle of teaching such as announcement of gathering teachers of science and mathematics for the meetings, or announcement of the clubs meeting that student’s representative will ask for the permissions to give their announcement in meeting of few students in the class. These all are quite interrupting the process of teaching.

Now talk about the facilities, accidents could happen most of the time without expected. The faultiness of facilities such as computer, projectors, clashes schedule of laboratory arrangement and so on. All of these accidents was not able to be predicted, and the lesson might not going well even though teacher has planned and organize everything well.

Another issue that happened in most of the school in town area, which is one class, hold large number of students and some even reaching in the number of fifty or more. The class is too large until not every student will get the fully attention from the teacher. There are research proving that smaller classes can shrink the achievement gap and lead to reduced grade retention, fewer disciplinary actions, less dropping out, and more students taking college entrance exams (Jeremy & Charles, 2003).

Personality

Roseman and Smith believe that emotions are caused by the interpretations of events, rather than events themselves. (Mei-Lin Chang, 2009) Emotional can be affected by any of the following, it just the matter of how a person manage the emotion with tactful and not involving third party, which are the students in school. Emotion regulation refers to “the processes by which we influence which emotions we have, when we have them, and how we environment and express them”, said Gross (Mei-Lin Chang, 2009)

Mostly emotion was distracted by surrounding such as family matter, financial difficulty, and physiological imbalance, which a person, without oneself awareness being brought forward into the life, and then to the works in school. Lastly, this imbalance emotion will be carry on into classes especially when facing students which we mostly know of their active behaviour. This normally will end up with either punishment and/or low performance of teaching and learning process.

The failure to monitoring classes will also affecting ones emotion and having the feeling of did not wanted to get in to particular classes. From Nixon understanding, Emotional valences can extend to other aspects of the communication environment. For instance, negative experiences with emotion work can result in an overall negative emotional valence (Scott, Margaret & Joseph, 2010).They are sometime give up on trying to manage the class or only choose a few of the talent students to be concern more so that at least this particular students will have a better chance in scoring the paper. This action will lead to the misunderstanding on how the students think on the teacher by what the teacher may look on them. Students actually are a very simple in sensation of someone’s reaction. What the teacher done will let them having thought of that teacher did not likes them, and therefore as to rebel that action, they tend to dislike the teacher, following by hating the subject that teacher taught.

We all know that learning mathematics is an on-going process, where mathematics is related in every single topic. Distributing mathematics into few topics is to let teaching to be convenient. But now days, teachers have been given so much of works until themselves having the difficulty in managing time. Mostly the classes will be taking over by temporary teachers or new teacher to continue the lessons. When they return to the class, they will find they it is hard to follow back what have been planned and the interruption of new scheduling will only make things getting worse.

Personal experiences are also the main reason on influencing teaching anxiety. Normally this happened to those who are new in teaching field. Mostly, Pre-service teachers learn majority about the pedagogy of teaching and learning, rather than to be tested the understanding on mathematics concepts and how pedagogy took place in understanding those concept ideas. Therefore, when they approaching the real teaching situation, they are merely wanted students to score high in examination and increasing their own reputation in teaching field. So they tend to teach in the form of memorising formulas and application. This was because they still lack of experience and suitable creativity in creating interesting lessons which fit to the students and the situation.

Furthermore, new and normally young teacher will be assigned to teach those who are less talented students which usually, the class align at the back of the rank. The reason of this kind of arrangement was because these classes normally need more attention and afford to guide compare to the others which aligned at the front rank. This has cause the new teachers, who are usually being blamed to be no experience and less professionals, facing the tough challenges at the mean while they might also being assigned to the others new activities of school rather than simply teaching in class.

Teaching Anxiety

As every issues were pointed to teachers, we are here to claim a little more justice for the teachers where even at the end, teachers still cannot avoid to be the party who should be the most responsible for the entire anxiety issues in math, but at least, to be given a little bit forgiveness.

Here we are looking into three main factors that arise in approaching the teachers’ anxiety, which more suitable, the teaching anxiety. Therefore, we categorize it into three main categories, which are view from the personality, environment and intellectual.

The Effects Of Mathematics Anxiety On Matriculation Students As Related To Motivation And Achievement

Based on the review of literature by Effandi Zakaria & Norazah Mohd Nordin (2008), the results of their study provide evidence that mathematical anxiety has an important effect in mathematics education. When the mathematics anxiety is high, students’ achievement is low, when the anxiety is low, students’ achievements is high. Therefore, teacher should be thinking on how to reduce students’ anxieties by finding a better way to teach mathematics. Implication on this, Woodard (2004) suggested techniques to reduce students’ anxiety towards mathematics. Firstly, create an environment in which students do not feel threatened and allowing them to relax. Secondly, teachers can use cooperative grouping to encourage teamwork in problem solving. Thirdly, teachers must teach at a slower pace as to let the students comprehend better of what the learning is all about. Last but not least, teachers can provide extra tuition session to build up the students’ understanding towards learning mathematics.

How Negative Expectancies And Attitudes Undermaine Females’ Math Confidence And Performance

Societies as a whole believe females are less mathematically capable than males. This belief is communicated to parents and teachers, who pass it along to students. Girls come to view their failures in mathematics as evidence that they are indeed inferior and to view their successes as flukes. This belief reinforces the belief that females are not capable of doing well in mathematics. Females stop taking advanced mathematics courses in high school or college, believing them too difficult. In the end, the expectancies of their parents and teachers are fulfilled and society was further “proof” of females’ inferior mathematical ability. Refer Diagram 1 as Cycle of Low Expectancy on Female Students by Parents and Teachers

The findings by researchers further found that the differences between males’ and females’ performance is quite small. There is no significant difference between boys and girls mathematical achievement in elementary school and few differences at any age (Feingold, 1988, NAEP, 1983; Shipman, Krantz & Silver, 1992). These differences are getting smaller over time (Hyde & Linn, 1988).

In future, as differences decrease, parents and teachers will see more of that female are capable of performing well in mathematics. This will lead to more parental and academic support, further enhancing females’ ability. In this way, the cycle may be broken

Math Anxiety In Elementary And Secondary School Students

Studies have documented the negative effects of mathematics anxiety on mathematics performance and achievement. Students’ mathematics anxiety may impact on their ability to learn Mathematics more effectively. According to Liebert and Morris (1967), they had distinguished two components of test anxiety. Worry is the cognitive component of anxiety, consisting of self-deprecatory thoughts about one’s performance. Emotionality is the affective component of anxiety, including feelings of nervousness, tension, and unpleasant physiological reactions to testing situations.

The purpose of this study is to examine the age and gender difference in mathematics anxiety. In regards to gender differences, there were no differences in the structure of boys’ and girls’ responses to the Math Anxiety Questionnaires which indicates that they were answering the items in similar ways. Boys and girls also did not differ in their reports of math worry, which indicates that they were equally concerned about doing well in mathematics. However girl reported experiencing more negative affective reactions to mathematics than boys. These implicate that that as math courses get harder, girls will be more likely to stop taking math when they have that option. The suggestion by researchers is that intervention programs to alleviate the affective and cognitive aspects of math anxiety must deal with both affective and cognitive aspects. These programs should be implemented during the elementary school years, before children’s anxiety about math becomes too strongly established.

Parental And Peer Group Influences Towards Mathematics

According to Poffeenberger and Norton (1959), parents affect on child’s attitude and performance can be in 3 ways; Parental encouragement will have a positive impact towards students’ mathematics interest thus relieving their anxieties towards that subject. Parent’s own attitudes and trust in encouraging and motivating their child towards mathematics does significantly improve their attitude towards the subject generally. Parental expectations of child’s achievement may put a lot of pressure on them to do well in mathematics. High expectations towards mathematics from parents will develop the students’ interest and confidence in the subject. However, too high of an expectation will create anxiety and avoidance toward the subject. Peer group can play an important role in either reinforcing or removing their negative attitude and behaviour towards mathematics. These two factors have great impact on students’ performance and also math anxiety that should not be taken lightly.

Kenschaft (1991) reported that parent’s support or lack of support is an important in students’ attitude and participation in mathematics instruction. Dossey (1992) considered teachers important role in shaping attitudes towards mathematics. While Harris (1995), concluded that peer affiliations become increasingly more influential on shaping attitudes than parents and teachers.

The Mathematics Anxiety Pattern

Under ‘The Mathematical Anxiety Pattern’ by (Puteh, 2002) shown in Chart 2, students through negative experiences will expect failure, and through this pattern each time they avoid or unable to perform they will again confirm their expectation of failure. Hence, by restructuring the attitude, this process can be avoided (Mitchell and Collin, 1991, p.45). Contribution to the formation of negative attitudes towards mathematics anxiety (Puteh, 2002) are listed below; fear of asking for help, teachers blaming students for not understanding, teacher ridiculing students. Teacher’s strictness and fierceness, use of threats and force by teachers, teachers not showing interest in their students, teaching style which emphasis the transfer of information and not attention to the learning of the individual.

Relevance - The Usage Of Mathematics In Everyday Life

The most prominent issue raised by the trainees was that their teachers were using old fashioned way of teaching (Puteh, 2002). The way of the subject was being taught led the trainees to perceive the subject as having no links to everyday life. Thus the process creates a dislike for the subject and an anxiety by itself.

They cannot relate the theories they have learnt in mathematics lesson to the real life situation.

Peer Group Influences

Peer network interactions might operate in a number of ways to develop and encourage attitudes, values, and behaviours related to learning. Pattison (1994) argues that social influence can be classified into three categories. Firstly, a social relationship may determine the type of information a person is exposed to. Secondly, typical patterns of social interaction may lead to social influence, i.e., when students develop a shared level of mathematics anxiety to show affinity to their peer group. And thirdly, social influence may occur when people perceive that their social position (e.g. as an active or not-active member of the peer network) has implications for cognition and behaviour.

Students with low performance (slow learner) try to move the same phase as those with higher achievements in mathematics, and if they failed to do so, they give up. Students with low performance’s belief that they will not do better, they then influence friends in their circle.

Parental Expectations - Their Aspirations And Standards

The students think too much to meet the expectations and standards of their parents. The pressure from family occurs especially if any of the family members do better in mathematics. Students could see their parents as having a job and doing well without a great love for mathematics and think that they will be successful without an appreciation of mathematics as well.

Feelings, Worries, Difficulties (Memory, Innate Disability)

Burton, 1979 says that signs on people that have mathematics anxiety are like sweating palms, queasy stomach, panic, fear, clenched fists, cold sweat, helplessness, tension, distress, dry mouth, shame and inability to cope and many more just like other phobia. Students confronted with a difficult mathematical task on which they are to be assessed may feel nervous and show signs such as tremor in the limbs and sweating of hands.

A student may, for a variety of reasons, develop an emotional and intellectual block towards the learning of mathematics in the course of his school years. Lazarus (1974) describe that a student who has developed an emotional and intellectual block against mathematics finds that making progress in mathematics and closely related fields is very difficult. If student became over-anxious when he or she did not fully understand some part of the mathematics lesson, they would make greater effort to comprehend. Such a student actively turns away from mathematics and rapidly develops a fatalistic attitude about mathematics, fully expecting to do badly. Therefore, constant failure in solving mathematical problem hence triggers the dislike for the subject.

Affective Domain - The Self Factor, Such As Personality, Perception

From the affective perspective, Bush (1991) commented that mathematics anxiety arises from a climate in which negative attitudes and anxiety are transmitted from adults to children. McMillan (1976) found that teachers’ attitude and enthusiasm toward a subject had greater impact on student attitudes than instructional variables.

Lazarus (1974) and Wilhelm and Brooks (1980) added that negative parental attitudes may be transmitted to their children and that parents often reinforce their children’s mathematics anxiety. It could be very difficult for students to like mathematics when their parents did not do well in mathematics themselves, and thus do not understand it or do not think it is important.

Students could see their parents as having a job and doing well without a great love for mathematics and think that they will be successful without an appreciation of mathematics as well.

Students with low achievement in mathematics usually those with low self esteem and slow learner, easily giving-up, dislike of being challenged, low confidence and self blaming for poor mathematics performance.

Public Examinations And Their Effect

In Malaysia, the Education System is highly examination-oriented. Many students perceive that getting good grades will indicate their achievements. There is a perception that getting an A for mathematics in public examination reflect that the person has better IQ. Good achievement in Mathematics has also been the basic requirement for the student to further their studies. In this way, students felt threatened by mathematics examination.

Morris (1981) stated that mathematics tends to lend itself to being taught with procedures that unnecessarily build tension and pressure in some students. She further argue that for example, in a timed test, many especially the anxious, tend to freeze up under time pressure.

A study by Betz (1978) revealed that the level of mathematics anxiety reported was related to scores on a standardized mathematics achievement test. In other words people with high achievement scores tended to report low mathematics anxiety and vice versa. The trainees here seemed to confirm that high anxiety about mathematics was predictably liked with poor results in public examinations.

Teacher Personality And Their Style Of Teaching

Math anxiety is caused by the negative predispositions of mathematics teacher. Teachers and parents that are afraid of mathematics pass that on to their students and children (Furner & Duffy, 2002). Teachers with mathematics anxiety transmit their anxiety to their students (Kelly and Tomhave, 1985; Bulman and Young, 1982 and Lazarus, 1974).

If the teacher does not value mathematics, his students certainly cannot be expected to value mathematics either. There are many things the mathematics teacher can do that will provoke his students to dislike mathematics. The teacher may be perceived as not caring about students because he is unwilling to give extra help to students who need it. The students need to know that their teacher is able and willing to help them.

Most students fear of asking for help and they feel shy because they do not know how to solve the mathematics problems. Besides that, the fear of being blamed by their teachers seemed to be a recurring theme in the students’ response. This situation created a barrier between the teacher and the student relationship.

According to (Jackson & Leffingwell, 1999), the teacher needs to be aware of his words, sighs, and overall body language. This is because the teacher may become angry or frustrated and use non-proper words when his class does not understand the problems.

Moreover, covering the textbook problem by problem can turn students off from learning mathematics. Also, giving written work every day, insisting there is only one correct way to complete a problem, and assigning mathematics problems as punishment for misbehaviour can cause students to dislike mathematics (Furner & Duffy, 2002).

No one enjoys discipline. Making students do mathematics as a form of discipline could very likely cause students to dislike mathematics.

What Causes Mathematics Anxiety

From the research conducted by (Marzita Puteh, 1998), there are several causes of mathematics anxiety. The major cause of mathematics anxiety was related to teacher personality and their style of teaching. Besides that, public examination and their effects also lead to mathematics anxiety. Other than that, it is also related to affective domain or the self factor such as student’s personality and his perception to mathematics. Feelings and worries also lead to mathematics anxiety since students will have difficulties with their memory and innate disability.

Moreover, students were also burden by parent’s expectation and standards where they must excel in mathematics if they want to success. Furthermore, it was found that peer group influences and the relevance of studying mathematics also caused mathematics anxiety.

Myths And Misconception

1. Aptitude for mathematics is inborn.

2. To be good at mathematics you have to be good at calculating.

3. Maths requires logic, not creativity.

4. In mathematics, what’s important is getting the right answer.

5. Men are naturally better than women at mathematical thinking.

The Math Anxiety Process

Unpleasant encounters with math in formative years can be ruinous to subsequent learning. Students who were made to feel bad about math become wary and prejudiced against it. They mistrust their own abilities. New experiences in math, seen in light of the old, are tarnished by their troubled past, which only accentuates and reinforces long-entrenched negativity.

Bad feelings persist. This impairs prospects for learning new material and generates anxiety and self-doubt. They say negative things to themselves, such as “I’m stupid”, “I’ll never be able to do math”, “I’ll fail” and “Why do I need to know math anyway?” Soon a continuous flood of negative talk about math ensues; before long, anxiety, overwhelming fears of failing or looking stupid and panic set in.

Physically, these people may experience nausea, perspire profusely, develop a headache or tight muscles, or exhibit a number of other physical symptoms. Mentally, they become confused or disorganized, make lots of careless errors, and forget formulas they knew, can’t think clearly, or blank out entirely.

The end result: poor math performance, avoidance of math, “choking under pressure”, and failure. All these negative results lead back to more negative thinking, and the cycle continues.

Understanding Math Anxiety

There appear to be three major domains which are involved with the development of mathematics anxiety. There is naturally some overlap between and among them and their boundaries are not well defined. In order to facilitate the development of this model of mathematics anxiety, the domains will be treated as though they are distinct and well defined.

Associated with each domain is a continuum on which it is assumed that any student at any particular time may be found. The extremes of the continua are given and discussed below. The colour codes associate each continuum with its appropriate domain.

The Social / Motivational Domain include those forces that act upon a person through the agencies of family, friends, and society as a whole. The continuum associated with this domain is Behaviour because although choices are influenced by others, they are ultimately made by the individual. The Behaviour Continuum has Pursuit and Avoidance as its opposites. These behaviours are logical consequences of the value place on mathematics, which is influenced by the attitudes of significant others and by society in general.

The Intellectual / Educational Domain are comprised of those influences that are cognitive in nature. Specifically, they include but are not limited to, the knowledge and skills an individual has and or is expected to acquire and his or her perception of success or failure in them. Although others may “grade” an individual’s performance in this domain, people form their own evaluations of their performance in this area. The continuum associated with this domain is Achievement, where individual perception is paramount. Success and Failure are the extremes of the Achievement Continuum, and are the subjective evaluations regarding one’s acquisition or use of mathematics skill and concepts.

The Psychological / Emotional Domain are formed by the faculties that are affective in nature. It is largely comprised of the individual’s emotional history, reactions to stimuli and arousal states. Hence, the continuum associated with this domain is Feelings. At either end of the Feelings Continuum lie Anxiety and Confidence, although it could be argued that enjoyment in even further removed from anxiety that confidence. The assumption is that most students would find it puzzling to think of mathematics as enjoyable. Confidence can be equated with comfortableness, rather than pleasure.

Research indicates that the more confidence a person has in mathematics, the more likely he or she is to be successful in such tasks (Betz, 1977, p22) and the more confidence the individual has toward learning and using mathematics, the more likely he or she is to pursue its study.

Anxiety reactions to mathematical situations may contribute to failure in mathematics (Tobias & Weissbrod, 1980, p63). In fact, a person who has high mathematics anxiety may actually be unable to perform well on test, and may be unable to learn in a mathematics classroom. Mathematics anxiety also directly contributes to avoiding mathematics (Tobias & Weissbrod, 1980, p63).

Definition Of Mathematics Anxiety

Webster’s New Word Dictionary explains anxiety as worry or uneasiness about what may happen. Freud (1924) defined anxiety as “something felt,” a specific unpleasant emotional state or condition that included feeling of apprehension, tension, worry and physiological arousal, and equated with fear with objective anxiety, which he considered to be an emotional in its intensity to a real danger in the external world.

Tobias & Weissbrod (1980) defined mathematics anxiety as “the panic, helplessness, paralysis and mental disorganization that arises among some people when they are required to solve a mathematical problem. Meanwhile, Ashcraft & Faust (1994) also defined mathematics anxiety as feelings of tension, apprehension, or even dread that interferes with the ordinary manipulation of number and the solving of mathematical problems. Like stage fright, mathematics anxiety can be disabling condition, causing humiliation, resentment, and even panic. Mathematics anxiety can cause one to forget and lose one’s self confidence (Tobias, S., 1993).

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