The academic study of math anxiety originates as early as the 1950s, when Mary Fides Gough introduced the term mathemaphobia to describe the phobia-like feelings of many towards mathematics.
Ashcraft[2] (2002) suggests that highly anxious math students will avoid situations in which they have to perform mathematical tasks.
[10] Math anxiety manifests itself in a variety of ways, including physical, psychological, and behavioral symptoms, that can all disrupt a student's mathematical performance.
[12] In addition, a frequent reliance in schools on high-stakes and timed testing, where students tend to feel the most anxiety, can lead to lower achievement for math-anxious individuals.
The authors presented the normative data, including a mean score of 215.38 with a standard deviation of 65.29, collected from 397 students that replied to an advertisement for behavior therapy treatment for math anxiety.
[22] Other tests are often given to measure different dimensionalities of math anxiety, such as Elizabeth Fennema and Julia Sherman's Fennema-Sherman Mathematics Attitudes Scales (FSMAS).
[24][25] While there are overarching similarities concerning the acquisition of math skills, researchers have shown that children's mathematical abilities differ across countries.
have conducted thorough comparisons between countries and determined that in some areas, such as Taiwan and Japan, parents place more emphasis on effort rather than one's innate intellectual ability in school success.
By placing a higher emphasis on effort rather than one's innate intellectual ability, they are helping their child develop a growth mindset.
Beller and Gafni's have shown that children at approximately nine years of age do not show consistent gender differences in relation to math skills.
While kindergarteners tend to use their fingers to count, this habit is soon abandoned and replaced with a more refined and efficient strategy; children begin to perform addition and subtraction mentally at approximately six years of age.
Goulding, Rowland, and Barber[33] suggest that there are linkages between a teacher's lack of subject knowledge and the ability to plan teaching material effectively.
These findings suggest that teachers who do not have a sufficient background in mathematics may struggle with the development of comprehensive lesson plans for their students.
Johns, Schmader, and Martens[36] conducted a study in which they examined the effect of teaching stereotype threat as a means of improving women's math performance.
The researchers concluded that women tended to perform worse than men when problems were described as math equations.
However, women did not differ from men when the test sequence was described as problem-solving or in a condition in which they learned about stereotype threats.
The results suggested that teaching students about stereotype threat could offer a practical means of reducing its detrimental effects and lead to an improvement in a girl's performance and mathematical ability, leading the researchers to conclude that educating female teachers about stereotype threat can reduce its negative effects in the classroom.
Since 1995, studies have shown that the gender gap favored males in most mathematical standardized testing as boys outperformed girls in 15 out of 28 countries.
This is being caused by women's steadily increasing performance on math and science testing and enrollment, but also by males' losing ground at the same time.
According to John Taylor Gatto, as expounded in several lengthy books,[39][page needed] modern Western schools were deliberately[dubious – discuss] designed during the late 19th century to create an environment which is ideal for fostering fear and anxiety, and for preventing or delaying learning.
[40] Diane Ravitch, former assistant secretary of education during the George H. W. Bush administration, agrees with Gatto up to a point, conceding that there is an element of social engineering (i.e. the manufacture of the compliant citizenry) in the construction of the American education system,[40] which prioritizes conformance over learning.
"Teachers benefit children most when they encourage them to share their thinking process and justify their answers out loud or in writing as they perform math operations.
[43] As a result, one of the easiest ways to reduce math anxiety is for the parent to be more involved in their child's education.
[44] Furthermore, studies by Herbert P. Ginsburg, Columbia University, show the influence of parents' and teachers' attitudes on "'the child's expectations in that area of learning.'...
This is further supported by a survey of Montgomery County, Maryland students who "pointed to their parents as the primary force behind the interest in mathematics".
B R Alimin and D B Widjajanti[48] recommend teachers:Several studies have shown that relaxation techniques, including controlled breathing, can be used to help alleviate anxiety related to mathematics.
[49] Dr. Edmundo Jacobson's Progressive Muscle Relaxation taken from the book Mental Toughness Training for Sports, Loehr (1986) can be used in a modified form to reduce anxiety as posted on the website HypnoGenesis.
[50] According to Mina Bazargan and Mehdi Amiri, Modular Cognitive Behavior Therapy (MCBT) can reduce the level of mathematical anxiety and increase students' self-esteem.
Studies show no evidence to support tailoring lessons to an individual students learning style to be beneficial.
[54] New concepts can be taught through play acting, cooperative groups, visual aids, hands on activities or information technology.