Research into the topic that led to the coining of the term “math anxiety” began with researchers Dreger and Aiken who introduced the concept of “number anxiety” in 1957. In 1972 Richardson and Suinn defined Mathematics anxiety to be “A feeling of tension and anxiety the interferes with the manipulation of numbers and the solving of mathematical problems in ordinary life and academic situations.” In 1980 Hsi associated math anxiety with student’s poor performance in academic courses and described how math anxiety leads to math avoidance which prevents one from pursuing activities or careers that require mathematical performance. In 1988 Wigfield and Meece , inspired by the work of Liebert and Morris who made discoveries in the field of test anxiety, defined two distinct categories of Math anxiety: cognitive and affective. While it is acknowledged in current research that some have significant impairments to their ability to learn and perform mathematics due to existing cognitive difficulties, data has strongly suggested that math anxiety prevents performance and learning in mathematics due to avoidance and disruption of memory transfer. Researchers Ma and Kishor suggest that attitudes towards mathematics begins to decline as one grows into adolescence, and other factors such as gender, socio economic status and even genetic factors can contribute to one’s math anxiety.
The MARS scale, Mathematics Anxiety Rating Scale, has been the primary tool used for research and clinical study since 1972. The original scale was a 98 item inventory and has seen many iterations, mostly ranging from 20-30 items, by modern researchers who desired a more efficient way to collect data. In 1999, Suinn conducted a study using “The 30-item MARS Scale” which represented the core factors measured by the original MARS and was found to be just as reliable in identifying a presence of math anxiety in a subject. Most modern research into math anxiety tends to look at the physiological responses the body has to math in subjects who are found to have math anxiety. In 2009, Hellhammer conducted a study that found higher levels of cortisol, a hormone secreted as a response to stress, in subjects with math anxiety when they were exposed to situations requiring mathematical performance. In 2010, Pletzer assessed students in a statistics course with a version of the MARS and monitored changes in their cortisol levels during examination and found an increase but was not able to find significant correlation between rise or decline of cortisol levels and ones performance on the exam. In 2011, Matarella-Micke conducted a similar study where they assessed working memory and cortisol levels before and after subjects were presented with a difficult math related task. They found that for subjects with a high working memory scores: high levels of math anxiety indicated a rise in cortisol while performance suffered and low levels of math anxiety indicated a rise in cortisol while performance ability increased. There is still much research to be conducted into the topic of math anxiety. For this class, I will be researching the correlation between math anxiety and performance on specific assessments. I believe that I will see a negative correlation between the presence of math anxiety and performance on summative assessment; meaning that as students experience increased levels of math anxiety their ability to perform effectively will decrease.
3 Comments
Catalina J Goldstein
10/13/2018 10:53:37 am
Us people are nothing but a bundled ball of nerves. Hopefully you can lower test anxiety and then pass down those strategies to primary grades.
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Caitlin Mitchell
10/13/2018 10:05:39 pm
I found it interesting that the research started so long ago! Its a shame we haven't given it more validity...I think this research could really help young people!
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Julie
10/14/2018 06:07:19 pm
I am wondering if you are researching how to help reduce math anxiety? What are you trying with your students to lower their math anxiety? I agree they have it and the more they fail the more anxiety they have I think, have you found research about that ?
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