Preservice Elementary School Teachers’ Math Anxiety and Worst Experiences as Students in Math Class

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gurpal K. Gill ◽  
Cass Dykeman
Keyword(s):  
Elementary School ◽  
Elementary School Teachers ◽  
Math Anxiety ◽  
School Teachers ◽  
Math Class

scholarly journals Mathematics Anxiety and Math Instructional Time in Preservice Elementary School Teachers

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heidi L. Morton ◽  
Cass Dykeman
Keyword(s):  
Elementary School ◽  
Elementary School Teachers ◽  
Expressive Writing ◽  
Mathematics Anxiety ◽  
Math Anxiety ◽  
Instructional Time ◽  
Math Instruction ◽  
School Teachers ◽  
Writing Interventions ◽  
The Impact

Math anxiety is a common problem that has numerous adverse impacts, including the avoidance of math-related tasks, classes, and careers. Past studies have shown that teachers with math anxiety may spend less time engaged in math instruction in their classrooms. Reduced instructional time can result in students lagging behind their peers in math skills acquisition. The present study examines the impact of a brief expressive writing intervention on three preservice elementary school teachers with math anxiety. Expressive writing interventions have been successfully used to reduce a wide variety of negative symptoms and also to improve math performance. Through the use of a multiple-baseline, multiple-probe, single-case research design study, the current researchers examined the impacts of three 10-min expressive writing interventions on two variables: levels of math anxiety (as measured by the FS-ANX subscale of the Fennema-Sherman Mathematics Anxiety Scale) and the number of minutes engaged in math instruction. Though results for math anxiety were somewhat encouraging, results for teacher instructional time were mixed. Implications and recommendations for future research are discussed.

scholarly journals Female teachers’ math anxiety affects girls’ math achievement

2010 ◽  
Vol 107 (5) ◽  
pp. 1860-1863 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sian L. Beilock ◽  
Elizabeth A. Gunderson ◽  
Gerardo Ramirez ◽  
Susan C. Levine
Keyword(s):  
Elementary School ◽  
Elementary School Teachers ◽  
Math Achievement ◽  
Math Anxiety ◽  
The United States ◽  
Early Elementary ◽  
School Teachers ◽  
Female Teachers ◽  
School Year ◽  
Early Elementary School

People’s fear and anxiety about doing math—over and above actual math ability—can be an impediment to their math achievement. We show that when the math-anxious individuals are female elementary school teachers, their math anxiety carries negative consequences for the math achievement of their female students. Early elementary school teachers in the United States are almost exclusively female (>90%), and we provide evidence that these female teachers’ anxieties relate to girls’ math achievement via girls’ beliefs about who is good at math. First- and second-grade female teachers completed measures of math anxiety. The math achievement of the students in these teachers’ classrooms was also assessed. There was no relation between a teacher’s math anxiety and her students’ math achievement at the beginning of the school year. By the school year’s end, however, the more anxious teachers were about math, the more likely girls (but not boys) were to endorse the commonly held stereotype that “boys are good at math, and girls are good at reading” and the lower these girls’ math achievement. Indeed, by the end of the school year, girls who endorsed this stereotype had significantly worse math achievement than girls who did not and than boys overall. In early elementary school, where the teachers are almost all female, teachers’ math anxiety carries consequences for girls’ math achievement by influencing girls’ beliefs about who is good at math.

scholarly journals Not all elementary school teachers are scared of math

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 275-294 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christina Artemenko ◽  
Nicolas Masson ◽  
Carrie Georges ◽  
Hans-Christoph Nuerk ◽  
Krzysztof Cipora
Keyword(s):  
Elementary School ◽  
Elementary School Teachers ◽  
Role Models ◽  
Math Anxiety ◽  
Reference Group ◽  
Reference Sample ◽  
Female Students ◽  
Mathematical Education ◽  
School Teachers ◽  
Teaching Attitudes

Teachers are strong role models for their pupils, especially at the beginning of education. This also holds true for math: If teachers feel anxious about math, the consequences on the mathematical education of their pupils is detrimental. Previous studies have shown that (future) elementary school teachers have higher levels of math anxiety than most people studying other subjects. Here, we set out to conceptually replicate these findings (e.g., meta-analysis by Hembree, 1990, https://doi.org/10.2307/749455) by comparing math anxiety levels of pre-service and in-service German and Belgian elementary school teachers to a reference group of German university students from various fields of study. Moreover, we questioned this finding by asking which elementary school teachers experience math anxiety, considering gender, specialization, and experience, and investigated how math anxiety relates to teaching attitudes towards math. We replicated the previous finding by showing that female elementary school teachers have a higher level of math anxiety as compared to other female students. Importantly, female elementary school teachers without math specialization indeed had higher levels of math anxiety than female students from other fields and almost a quarter of them experience critical math anxiety. In contrast, female elementary school teachers with math specialization did not show an increased level of math anxiety as compared to the reference sample. Considering that not only these but all teachers, regardless of specialization, teach math in elementary school in the investigated educational systems, the math anxiety of elementary school teachers is a potential problem for their pupils’ math attitudes and learning.

scholarly journals Mathematics Anxiety and Math Instructional Time in First-Year Elementary School Teachers

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heidi L. Morton ◽  
Cass Dykeman
Keyword(s):  
Elementary School ◽  
Elementary School Teachers ◽  
Expressive Writing ◽  
Mathematics Anxiety ◽  
Math Anxiety ◽  
First Year ◽  
Math Instruction ◽  
School Teachers ◽  
Writing Interventions ◽  
The Impact

Math anxiety is a pervasive problem that negatively impacts both children and adults. Teachers with math anxiety can unintentionally pass this anxiety on to their students; in addition, past studies have shown that these teachers may also end up spending less time engaged in math instruction. Both of these results can negatively impact their students for years to come. The present study examines the impact of a brief expressive writing intervention on three first-year elementary school teachers with math anxiety. Expressive writing interventions have been shown to have positive impacts on variables ranging from test anxiety to math performance. This multiple-baseline, multiple-probe, single-case research design examined the impacts of three 10-min expressive writing interventions on two variables: levels of math anxiety (as measured by the FS-ANX subscale of the Fennema-Sherman Mathematics Anxiety Scale) and the number of minutes engaged in math instruction. Results for both variables were mixed. Implications and recommendations for future research are discussed.

scholarly journals Not all elementary school teachers are scared of math

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christina Artemenko ◽  
Nicolas Masson ◽  
Carrie Georges ◽  
Hans-Christoph Nuerk ◽  
Krzysztof Cipora
Keyword(s):  
Elementary School ◽  
Elementary School Teachers ◽  
Role Models ◽  
Math Anxiety ◽  
Reference Group ◽  
Reference Sample ◽  
Female Students ◽  
Mathematical Education ◽  
School Teachers ◽  
Teaching Attitudes

Teachers are strong role models for their pupils, especially at the beginning of education. This also holds true for math: If teachers feel anxious about math, the consequences on the mathematical education of their pupils is detrimental.Previous studies have shown that (future) elementary school teachers have higher levels of math anxiety than most people studying other subjects. Here, we set out to conceptually replicate these findings (e.g., meta-analysis by Hembree, 1990) by comparing math anxiety levels of pre-service and in-service German and Belgian elementary school teachers to a reference group of German university students from various fields of study. Moreover, we questioned this finding by asking which elementary school teachers experience math anxiety, considering gender, specialization, and experience, and investigated how math anxiety relates to teaching attitudes towards math.We replicated the previous finding by showing that female elementary school teachers have a higher level of math anxiety as compared to other female students. Importantly, female elementary school teachers without math specialization indeed had higher levels of math anxiety than female students from other fields and almost a quarter of them experience critical math anxiety. In contrast, female elementary school teachers with math specialization did not show an increased level of math anxiety as compared to the reference sample. Considering that not only these but all teachers, regardless of specialization, teach math in elementary school in the investigated educational systems, the math anxiety of elementary school teachers is a potential problem for their pupils’ math attitudes and learning.

Elementary School Teachers’ Math Anxiety and Students’ Math Learning: A Large‐Scale Replication

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marjorie W. Schaeffer ◽  
Christopher S. Rozek ◽  
Erin A. Maloney ◽  
Talia Berkowitz ◽  
Susan C. Levine ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Elementary School ◽  
Elementary School Teachers ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Math Anxiety ◽  
Math Learning ◽  
School Teachers
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