Math Anxiety and its Effects on Students Overall Achievement and Learning

Denise Silva

The University of Texas at Rio Grande Valley

Abstract:

The purpose of this study is to identify math anxiety in students, its causes and how much it

affects in their overall performance and learning. The study consists on interviewing students

from the third grade to see how much anxiety they suffer and compare their responses to their

scores on some mathematics pre-tests and post-tests. The goal is to try and understand what are

the causes of the anxiety and its effects on students in this particular subject.

Math Anxiety and its Effects on Students Overall Achievement and Learning

Rationale: Mathematics can be challenging and intimidating to many students, this seems to

affect their overall performance, achievement and learning on the subject. Math anxiety is a

problem that can greatly affect how students perceive mathematics and it is caused by different

factors. With the upcoming administration of the STAAR exams in the 3rd grade, students begin

to feel anxiety towards skills in mathematics. 3rd grade students seem to start developing math

anxiety and it reflects upon their math grades during assessments throughout the year. As the

year goes by, their anxiety levels on mathematics seem to increase and by the middle of the

school year, it is reflected in their overall performance on the subject. They seem to be stressed

when learning mathematics, and nervous during assignments and examinations.

Purpose of the study: I will conduct a research to see how does math anxiety, affect 3rd grade

students and their overall performance, achievement, and learning on the subject from the

beginning of the school year to the end of the school year.

Research Question: What factors contribute the presence of math anxiety in students and how

does it affect their academic achievement and performance?

Literature Review

Mathematics, a subject used since ancient times, a world-wide used subject for

everything, is also a great enemy for many people. Mathematics greatly intimidates people

beyond reason. It is a subject full of complexity and difficult skills to master. Great scientists,

astronomers, chemists, philosophers etc., rely or have related on mathematics since the beginning

of time to achieve great historic achievements. Therefore, many people feel greatly intimidated

by mathematics, specially youngsters who are barely entering the world of such a majestic

subject. Such fear towards mathematics converts into mathematics anxiety. What is exactly

mathematics anxiety? Math anxiety is a feeling of tension, worry, and fear in situations involving

math-related activities (Suinn & Winston, 2003). Such anxiety seems to increase with the years

and as it becomes more complex.

A question that has sparked for researchers to find the answer is when does math anxiety

exactly begin? Researchers have conducted many studies to figure out the answer to this

question. Their target is almost always college students, but math anxiety begins way earlier than

that. Math anxiety can begin as early as when students are in elementary grades. Students seem

to begin to fear mathematics at a very young age. Various factors are taken into consideration

when trying to figure out what produces math anxiety. Working memory is often associated with

the presence of mathematics anxiety. In a study conducted on first and second graders, these

students were given a measure of math achievement and working memory (WM) . The results

found a negative relation between math anxiety and math achievement for children who were

higher but not lower in WM. (Ramirez, Gunderson, Levine, Beilock, 2013) In simple words, the

presence of math anxiety in children from as early as first grade, greatly affects them in their

achievement within their working memory. Math anxiety is related to a host of negative

outcomes, including poor math performance, poor math attitudes, and avoidance of math and

STEM careers. (Beilock & Maloney, 2015)

What causes it and how much does it affect?

Many people experience a genuine fear of math. Not only do they become nervous when

engaging in math tasks, they also avoid math and math related professions, severely limiting

their future career and earning opportunities. (Hembree, 1990: Chipman, Krantz, &Silver, 1992)

Due to this math anxiety may exert considerable negative effects on the academic and social life

of affected children. (Krinzinger, Kauffman, Willmes, 2009). In other words, kids begin

developing a phobia towards mathematics and anything related to the field. The manifestation of

math anxiety can be identified in many ways. When someone suffers from having math anxiety,

this anxiety can manifest in physical ways, such as sweating and shaking. It can also manifest in

a person mentally, by blocking their thoughts. The fear of mathematics and anything related to

mathematics can also be present, of course in their overall performance and achievement in

academics. Due to this fact, it not only affects the individual, but it also affects the community

and even the entire country. How can it even affect our country? Well, the United States is not

currently producing enough graduates to work in STEM fields (Beilock & Maloney, 2015).

There has been a shortage of people wanting to work in the STEM (Science, Technology,

Engineering, and Math) fields. Students are allowing their fear towards mathematics to avoid

them from entering these fields. With the technology-based world we are living on, our country

needs people to work in these fields and due to mathematics anxiety, there are not enough

willing to enter them.

For people who suffer from math anxiety, the sole thought of performing even the easiest

problem of mathematics triggers them. Their health can be affected as well. By experience, I can

say that many kids in the third grade suffer from math anxiety, which aggravates as the STAAR

test approaches. I have a bilingual class composed of recent immigrants and their lack of

understanding of how mathematics is taught here in The United States triggers their anxiety.

They tend to perform below average and their overall achievement is affected because they feel

incompetent in the subject. Mathematics can be intimidating to anyone and even on the simplest

task. Higher-math-anxious individuals not only have difficulties counting, they also perform

worse than their less anxious counterparts when they simply have to compare the magnitude or

size of two numbers. (Beilock & Maloney, 2015)

In Maths Anxiety, Steve Dossel explains: Factors to which success or failure may be

attributed may be categorized along three dimensions:

(a) Internal-external

Success or failure may be attributed to factors inherent in the individual such as

ability or to factors external to the individual such as insufficient time or overly

difficult work

(b) Stable-unstable

The factor to which success or failure is attributed in this instance may always have

the same effect or it may be unstable in that different effects sometimes occur.

(c) Global-specific. Success or failure may be attributed to a factor which occurs in many

situations, or to a factor which is specific to this situation. (Dossel, 1993)

Many are the factors that contribute to the presence of math anxiety in a person, and how

it affects the person and others takes a big toll on society as a whole.

Gender Roles and Stereotypes in Mathematics

One thing that has been on the lookout when it comes to math anxiety is gender roles and

stereotypes. If we go back to the beginning of time up to present days and recall on famous and

known mathematicians, philosophers, scientists, etc., it wouldn’t be a surprise that all those were

males. Why is it no surprise? Well, because the idea that mathematics is stereotyped as being

particularly of male interest exists. Researchers have conducted studies to see how much of this

is true. The presence of math anxiety in small children (elementary grades) has been attributed to

the fact that many of grade school teachers are females. There is the thought that women are not

as good as men in the field of mathematics, so female teachers are thought to transmit their math

anxiety to their students. Some of the studies that have been conducted to find out if this is true

has brought up interesting results. The studies show the following: as expected at the beginning

of the school year, there was no significant relation between teachers’ math anxiety and students’

math achievement…however by the end of the school year, the higher a teachers’ math anxiety,

the lower was the girls’ but no the boys math achievement (Beilock, Gunderson, Ramirez,

Levine, Smith, 2010). So, in fact, according to these studies, math anxiety was transmitted by the

female teacher, but only to female students. Here we can see how this stereotype has a lot to do

with how people see mathematics. People still believe that mathematics is a field solely for men

and that men will over achieve in it while women tend to avoid anything related to it based on

the anxiety it produces.

Another study also aides with the assumption of stereotypes when it comes to math

anxiety. Despite the fact that both, men and women can suffer from it and might be affected by

it, it is still surprising that anxiety is attributed more to females than to men. This study was

conducted now to see if math anxiety was transmitted by the parents. The results showed that

math-gender stereotypes were positively correlated with math devaluing for both girls and boys.

Math anxiety was negatively correlated with math self-efficacy, math GPA, math intentions, and

math attitudes, and positively correlated with math devaluing for both girls and boys (Casad,

Hale, & Wachs, 2015).

Can something be done about it?

Now, taking into consideration that math anxiety greatly affects not only kids, but people

in general, it is important to figure out if something can be done about it in order to prevent or at

least stop math anxiety. Since teachers have a lot to do with math anxiety, there have been

suggestions of, creating professional development courses aimed at educating these already

established teachers about the research on math anxiety-what it is, how to spot it in students, and

what to do to combat its negative effects (Beilock & Maloney, 2015). Another thing that might

work to stop math anxiety could be the use of constructive criticism. It is more effective to attend

to partial successes and to look at ways in which they can be made into complete successes than

to draw attention to failure (Dossel, 1993). I am sure it will be no walk in the park to try and

reduce math anxiety in students, but if as teachers we become better informed and try to help as

much as we can, then something might be done to reduce it.

Methodology

Introduction

This study examined up to which extent math anxiety affects students in an elementary

school in Hidalgo, Texas. Math anxiety from third grade students at Valley View South

Elementary were studied based on their experiences with mathematics exams and their

preparations towards those exams.

Background

During their third grade year, the education system introduces these students into

standardize testing. Due to the states’ expectations, students are prepared since day one in order

to master the STAAR test. Students are exposed to rigorous mathematics preparation and “drill

and kill” practices and testing throughout the year to measure their performance in the subject.

This study was conducted a few weeks before the end of the school year and during the STAAR

examinations.

Purpose:

The aim of this study is to represent how much math anxiety affected students’ overall

performance throughout the year and if it had an impact in their learning. Both quantitative and

qualitative research were used as evidence to support the findings of the study.

Limitations:

Due to the short amount of time to conduct the research and due to the many events that

were going on, as the end of the school year approaches (one of them being the STAAR

examinations dates) some of the data was difficult to obtain. In addition, because the STAAR

exams were taking place at the time the study was conducted, it might have some bias on the

qualitative data report.

Samples:

The participants for this study consisted of third grade students at Valley View South

Elementary in Hidalgo, Texas. There are 58 third graders divided amongst three classes. Two of

those classes have their Mathematics instruction in English (20 students in each class) while the

other class has mathematics instruction in Spanish (18 students). From those 58 students 21 are

girls and 37 are boys. Four teachers (three third grade teachers and 1 Math Intervention teacher)

and an administrator (Principal) also participated in the study. For the study, the administrator,

the students, and the teachers were interviewed with some questions. I also took into

consideration some of the data reports from DMAC testing scores of Mathematics assessments

given throughout the school year.

Instruments:

Interview. In order to conduct this qualitative study, informal interviews with participants

were conducted. The interview was to have an in-depth understanding of the emotional impact

and the perspective of each student who might suffer of math anxiety. A questionnaire (created

by me) was implemented to guide me through this research.

Data of Passing Scores. For quantitative purposes, I went ahead and used DMAC reports

to analyize scores of pre and post mathematics exams to see any relationship or differences in

scores from the beginning of the year towards the end of the year. The pre-test was taken in

august while the post test was taken in May one week before the STAAR test.

Methods:

The study was based on interviews with students, teachers and the principal of Valley

View South Elementary. A consent letter was sent to five students from each classroom to obtain

permission to interview their children to learn more about the anxiety math caused on them and

their opinion on the subject. Even though the total number of students in third grade is of fifty-

eight, only five from each classroom (a total of fifteen) were selected to participate in the study

due to the lack of time. These five students were randomly selected. Ten of those students

receive mathematics instruction in English, while the other five receive mathematics instruction

in Spanish. The students were interviewed by me and the interview consisted on them answering

a total of seven questions that relate to mathematics. The questionnaire was open-ended, with the

sole purpose to obtain a better understanding of their feelings towards mathematics and to grasp

an idea of the extent of their anxiousness. From the ten students interviewed in English, six were

females and four were males. The ones interviewed in Spanish, four were males and one was a

female. (The open-ended questionnaire can be found in the appendix section.) From the four

teachers only three were interviewed since I am one of the teachers. The teachers who

participated in the interview were the two English-instruction teachers and the math intervention

teacher, as well as the principal (all-females). The questionnaire they answered consisted on five

open-ended questions which gave a better in-depth understanding and viewpoint on mathematics

and on how they see students while performing mathematics. (See open-ended questions in

appendix)

An actual DMAC report of students’ grades in a pre-test taken during the first month of

school and a post-test taken during the last month of school was also taken into consideration for

this study. This report does reflect the grades of the total number of third graders who tested, and

it shows the percentage of passing scores and non-passing scores. The following graphs shows

both the pre-test and post-test results of English test-takers as well as the pre-test and post-test

results of Spanish test-takers taken directly from DMAC.

Results and discussion:

Results from the quantitative data show how scores considerably decreased from the

beginning of the year towards the end of the year in both languages on the math exams studied.

All of the Spanish test-takers failed the post-test and only 10% of the English test-takers passed

the post-test. As I mentioned before, the students took the post-exam one week before the

STAAR exam, and they have been under a rigorous 20-day plan of “drill-and-kill” practice

problems prior taking the exam. It is notorious that the decrease of their scores might have been

affected by the anxiety the test provokes in them.

To better understand the results of the scores above, the qualitative data of the interviews

was used to come up with an explanation as to how much influence did their math anxiety had on

those scores. After interviewing the students, there was considerably a great amount of anxiety

on the participants. Most of the answers from the interviewees were negative towards

mathematics and other factors such as stress and exhaustion seemed to flourish that anxiety that

math causes on them. For example, one of the interviewees responded, “I feel dumb in math, it is

too hard, I know I am not smart enough because I always get confused even when the teacher

explains it to me.” Another student (Spanish) responded to one of the questions as follows: “las

matemáticas me ponen muy nerviosa, siento que no voy a saber que contestar y se me olvida

todo, no se si es suma o resta y ya se me olvida lo que tengo que hacer. No creo que voy a pasar

el STAAR!” Most of the students’ responses were negative only a few seemed positive. When

interviewing the principal and the teachers, they seemed to have differences in opinions. The

principal answered positively to all the questions, while the teachers seemed nervous, doubtful

and expressed their fear of kids being too tired and antsy towards the exam. Specially after the

post-exam results.

Conclusions

Students and teachers seemed skeptical and anxious towards mathematics and their

probable results on the STAAR exam. Results of the post-exam showed that their overall

performance was affected by their anxiety and probably exhaustion, as well as the interview

questions, showed the real picture of how they felt towards mathematics. By analyzing their

responses, they show great fear and nervousness towards mathematics and they know it affects

them on their overall performance and achievement.

References:

Ashcraft, M. H., & Krause, J.A. (2007). Working memory, math performance, and math anxiety. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 14(2), 243-248. doi10.3758/BF03194059

Beilock, S., Gunderson, E., Ramirez, G., Levine, S., & Smith, E. (2010). Female Teachers' Math Anxiety Affects Girls' Math Achievement. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 107(5), 1860-1863. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org.ezhost.utrgv.edu:2048/stable/40536499

Beilock, S.L., & Maloney, E.A. (2015). Math anxiety: A factor in math achievement not to be ignored. Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences , 2(1), 4-12. doi:10.1177/2372732215601438

Casad, B.J., Hale, P., & Wachs, F.L. (2015). Parent-child math anxiety and math-gender stereotypes predict adolescents’ math education outcomes. Frontiers in Psychology, 6, 1597. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01597

Dossel, S. (2016). Maths anxiety. Australian Mathematics Teacher, 72(3), 40-44.

Hembree, R. (1990). The nature, effects, and relief of mathematics anxiety. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 21, 33-46.

Krinzinger, H., Kaufmann, L., & Willmes, K. (2009). Math anxiety and math ability in early primary school years. Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment 27(3), 206-225. doi:10.1177/0734282908330583

Ramirez, G., Gunderson, E. A., Levine, S. C., & Beilock, S.L. (2013). Math Anxiety, Working Memory, and Math Achievement in Early Elementary School. Journal Of Cognition & Development, 14(2), 187-202. Doi:10.1080/15248372.2012.664593

Suinn, R. M., & Winston, E. H. (2003). The Mathematics Anxiety Rating Scale, a brief version: Psychometric data. Psychological Reports, 92, 167-173.

Wang, Z., Lukowski, S. L., Hart, S.A., Lyons, I. M., Thompson, L.A., Kovas, Y., …Petrill, S. A. (2015). Is math anxiety always bad for math learning? The role of math motivation. Psychological Science, 26(12), 1863-1876. Doi:10.1177/0956797615602471

Appendix

STUDENT INTERVIEWSQuestion:

Answer:

1. Is math your favorite subject? Why? Why not?¿Las matemáticas son tu materia favorita? ¿Por qué? ¿Por qué no?2. How much do you enjoy learning math?¿Que tanto disfrutas aprender matemáticas?3. Do You consider yourself smart in Math? Why?¿Te consideras inteligente en matemáticas? ¿Por qué?4. Do you understand your teacher while she teaches and explains math concepts?¿Le entiendes a tu maestra mientras ensena y explica diferentes conceptos de matemáticas?5. How important do you think math is in everyday life?¿Qué tan importante crees que sean las matemáticas en la vida diaria?6. How does taking math exams make you feel?¿Como te hace sentir tener que tomar exámenes de matemáticas?

7. Do you think you passed your STAAR exam, why or why not?¿Crees que pasaste tu examen de matemáticas, ¿por qué sí, o por qué no?TEACHER/PRINCIPAL INTERVIEWQuestions:

Answers:

1 Do you have confidence in the math education students have received?

2 Do you see students mastering the concept? How?3. Do you think students feel confident about math? Why?4. Have you noticed any signs of anxiety towards math on the students? If so, which ones?5. What are your predictions on the results of the Math STAAR test the kids just took?