Introduction

Mathematics is one of the most objective, logical, and

practical academic disciplines. Yet, in addition to cognitive

skills, mathematical problem solving also involves affective

factors. Math anxiety is a real problem facing students and

teachers today. The mathematics teacher especially needs to

understand the causes and effects of math anxiety as well as

ways to help students overcome it. Mathematics anxiety has

been defined as feelings of tension and anxiety that interfere

with the manipulation of numbers and the solving of

mathematical problems in a wide variety of ordinary life and

academic situations Math anxiety can cause one to forget and

lose one’s self-confidence. Math anxiety is the feeling of

nervousness and apprehension toward math problems,

classes, or exams. It generally begins when a child is in

fourth grade and escalates throughout high school. Math

anxiety is not just a psychological problem as it can cause

students to discontinue taking math classes beyond high

school requirements, limiting their choices with regard to

college or career opportunities. Teachers and parents have

been shown to influence math anxiety, and both can assist in

easing the psychological and physical symptoms children

experience.
 Practice with various math problems, having no time

limit for exams, and being encouraged through errors have

been shown to ease math anxiety.

Keywords Math Anxiety; Mathematics; Phobia; Psychology;

Short-Term Memory; Working Memory

These negative feelings toward mathematics greatly

affect the student's ability to perform well, and his even

desire to continue learning mathematics. This makes the

mathematics teacher's job of teaching his students to succeed

in and appreciate mathematics extremely difficult, if not

impossible. Mathematics anxiety has been continually found

to correlate negatively with students’ mathematics

performance If the teacher has a bad attitude about

mathematics, his students most likely will as well. However,

the teacher can take many steps to reduce math anxiety

including reviewing basic mathematics skills, by making sure

students understand the mathematical language, and by

providing a support system for their students (Schwartz,

2000). The more a teacher understands math anxiety the

more he will be able to prevent it and help students overcome

it.

There are many symptoms of math anxiety including an

unwillingness to attempt mathematics problems, a fear of

taking advanced mathematics classes, and being unusually

nervous when in mathematics class. Math anxiety hinders

students' working memory . It occurs at different ages in

different people for different reasons. The main cause of math

anxiety is the teacher himself it has been shown that students

tend to internalize their instructor's interest in and

enthusiasm for teaching math. If the teacher has a bad

attitude about mathematics, his students most likely will as

well. .The more a teacher understands math anxiety the more

he will be able to prevent it and help students overcome it.

Some students would even go so far to say that they panic

about mathematics. Panic can be seen as a turbulence in the

mind, a kind of mental frenzy. The students who have a fear

of mathematics assume that if they do not understand the

homework the first time, they will never understand it. They

set themselves up for failure before they even attempt to

succeed. Math anxiety is caused by poor test grades, inability

(or unwillingness) to complete difficult assignments, negative

predispositions of parents, and even the mathematics

teacher. 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.

Objectives
 The purpose of this study is to know the effects of

mathematical anxiety to a student and to know why they have

this kind of fear. It’s also to know how a student overcomes

their mathematics fear. This study identifies the cause and

effects of having a mathematical anxiety.

This study can address the possible actions with the problem

of having this kind of fear.

Definition of the study

Math anxiety is defined as feeling of anxiety that one cannot

perform efficiently in situations that involve the use of

mathematics. Although it is mostly associated with

academics, it can apply to other aspects of life.

Math anxiety is an emotional problem, and it is characterized

by intense nervousness before or during math tests. This

interferes with a person's ability to optimally do math

problems, thus morphing into an intellectual problem.

A questionnaire was designed to measure how anxious the

students were and to gather reasons for their worrisome

thoughts. The three measurement scales used as reference

were the Mathematics Anxiety Rating Scale (MARS), the

Mathematics Anxiety Scale (MAS), and the Math Anxiety

Questionnaire (MAQ), where MARS and MAS are

acknowledged to be the most widely-used instruments

(Preston, 2008). MARS, a 98-item instrument created by

Richardson and Suinn in 1972, was the first designed to

measure mathematics anxiety. It was however not intended

for use with school students and its lengthiness made it

impractical too. Hence, researchers preferred the 10- item

MAS (Godbey, 1997). More recently, Wigfield and Meece

(1988) constructed the MAQ that had seven items to measure

the emotionality component and four for the cognitive part,

which relates to the worrisome nature about having to do

well. As advocated by Alexander and Cobb (1984),

mathematics anxiety includes the uneasiness felt when sitting

for tests or when receiving test scores. As such items were

included in MAQ and it was designed for children from grade

6 to grade 12, making it a suitable reference the researchers

identified several teacher behaviors that cause math anxiety

in students:

• Being hostile

• Exhibiting gender bias

• Having an uncaring attitude

• Expressing anger

• Having unrealistic expectations and

• Embarrassing students in front of their peers (as cited in

Furner & Duffy, 2002).

In addition, Oberlin (1982) found that teaching techniques

also cause math anxiety. "Assigning the same work for

everyone, teaching the textbook problem by problem, and

insisting on only one correct way to complete a problem"

increase a student's anxiousness (as cited in Furner & Duffy,

2002, p. 69). Furthermore, Woolfolk (1998) notes that

some elementary-school teachers spend more academic time

with boys in math and with girls in reading. In one study, high

school geometry teachers directed most of their questions to

boys, even though the girls asked questions and volunteered

answers more often A current theory of anxiety effects in

cognition claims that anxiety disrupts normal processing

within the working memory system. We examined this theory

in the context of a reading task, for participants who were

high or low in assessed mathematics anxiety. The task was

designed to measure the ability to inhibit attention to

distracting information and the effects of this ability on

explicit memory performance. The results suggested that

math-anxious individuals have a deficient inhibition

mechanism whereby working memory resources are

consumed by task-irrelevant distracters. Although math

anxiety is associated with poor mathematical knowledge and

low course grades (Ashcraft & Krause, 2007 Ashcraft , M. H. ,

& Krause , J. A. ( 2007 ). Working memory, math performance,

and math anxiety . Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 14 , 243 –

248 .[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®], [Google

Scholar]), research establishing a connection between math

anxiety and math achievement has generally been conducted

with young adults, ignoring the emergence of math anxiety in

young children. In the current study, we explored whether

math anxiety relates to young children's math achievement.

One hundred and fifty-four first- and second-grade children

were given a measure of math achievement and working

memory (WM). Several days later, children's math anxiety

was assessed using a newly developed scale. Paralleling work

with adults. We found a negative relation between math

anxiety and math achievement for children who were higher

but not lower in WM. High-WM individuals tend to rely on

WM-intensive solution strategies, and these strategies are

likely disrupted when WM capacity is co-opted by math

anxiety. We argue that early identification and treatment of

math anxieties is important because these early anxieties

may snowball and eventually lead students with the highest

potential (i.e., those with higher WM) to avoid math courses

and math-related career choices.

Conceptual Framework

The research paradigm that guided this study is shown figure

below.

Independent Variable Dependent Variable

Grades of students in
Mathematical Anxiety
mathematics

Statement of the Problem

1. What are the effects of Mathematical anxiety to a

student?

2. Why they have this kind of fear?

3. How does a student overcome their fear in

mathematics?

Significance of the study

Numbers are everywhere -- in every aspect of society. Thus

math anxiety needs to be conquered in order to thrive

optimally.

Math anxiety is pervasive among students, teachers, and

parents. Given the very real negative impact that it has on

students’ achievement, and the availability of easy-to-

implement and cost-effective evidence-based strategies to

help combat the negative impacts of math anxiety, it is

critical that math anxiety be central to the discussion around

why our students are not excelling in math. Indeed, until we

include math anxiety in this important discussion we will

continue to be ignoring a large part of the equation. When

teachers are high in math anxiety this can translate into their

students learning less math across the school year and being

more likely to endorse negative stereotypes about

mathematics. The study investigated the changes in levels of

mathematics anxiety among pre-service teachers in six

different sections of a mathematics method courses for early

childhood/elementary education pre-service teachers.I t is

important that teachers understand when the introduction to

mathematics takes place in the life of a child. According to

Gardner, introduction to the concept of math begins when

infants first learn "the world of objects" (Gardner, 1983, p.

129).

Hypothesis of the study

We used structural modeling procedures to assess the

influence of past math grades, math ability perceptions,

performance expectancies, and value perceptions on the level

of math anxiety. A second set of analyses examined the

relative influence of these performance, self-perception, and

affect variables on students' subsequent grades and course

enrollment intentions in mathematics. The findings indicated

that math anxiety was most directly related to students' math

ability perceptions, performance expectancies, and value

perceptions. Students' performance expectancies predicted

subsequent math grades, whereas their value perceptions

predicted course enrollment intentions. Math anxiety did not

have significant direct effects on either grades or intentions.

The findings also suggested that the patterns of relations are

similar for boys and girls. In this study we focus on math

anxiety, comparing its dimensions, levels, and relationship

with mathematics achievement The results of confirmatory

factor analyses supported the theoretical distinction between

affective and cognitive dimensions of math anxiety in all 3

national samples. The analyses of structural equation models

provided evidence for the differential predictive validity of

the 2 dimensions of math anxiety. Specifically, across the 3

national samples, the affective factor of math anxiety was

significantly related to mathematics achievement in the

negative direction.

References:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4474805/
http://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?

article=1263&context=honors

https://www.mathgoodies.com/articles/math_anxiety

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S18770428

13011944

https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED573311.pdf