Mathematics Anxiety
Dr Sarah Buckley, Senior Research Fellow, Australian Council for Educational Research
"This research is focused on helping teachers and school leaders gain a better understanding of how mathematics anxiety negatively impacts learning and teaching. "
Download the monograph written by Dr. Sarah Buckley for more information.
"To target any barrier to learning you must first identify where it occurs. Then you can use strategies to reduce any negative effects on learning."
Ted Ed animation: "Have you ever sat down to take a math test and immediately felt your heart beat faster and your palms start to sweat? This is called math anxiety, and if it happens to you, you’re not alone: Researchers think about 20 percent of the population suffers from it. So what’s going on? And can it be fixed? Orly Rubinsten explores the current research and suggests ways to increase math performance. "
This espresso pdf from Cambridge University gives a snapshot of current research around the impact of maths anxiety on mathematics learning.
Evidence strongly suggests that timed tests cause the early onset of math anxiety for students. Prof. Jo Boaler describes an alternative pedagogical routine that teaches number sense and math fluency at the same time as it encourages mathematical understanding and excitement.
Daeun Park (Chicago Uni), Gerardo Ramirez (California Uni) & Sian L. Beilock (Chicago Uni)
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied 2014, Vol. 20, No. 2, 103–111
"Math anxiety is a negative affective reaction to situations involving math. Previous work demonstrates that math anxiety can negatively impact math problem solving by creating performance-related worries that disrupt the working memory needed for the task at hand. By leveraging knowledge about the mechanism underlying the math anxiety–performance relationship, we tested the effectiveness of a short expressive writing intervention that has been shown to reduce intrusive thoughts and improve working memory availability."
