Sabrina Colon, a first-year student at the University of California, Merced, remembers the first time math was a problem.
Although she says she’s not good at math, she was able to pass her high school math class without much difficulty, earning a C. But in college, where she majors in business, calculus proves insurmountable.
It gave her serious anxiety.
She doesn’t want to go to class at all. She will pretend to be sick or find another excuse. She feels pointless. She says her teachers just expect her to understand math quickly. When she sees other students who seem to be doing well enough, she feels alone.
She had a classmate who was struggling just like her, but he dropped out of the class.
She hoped the feeling would go away. But things got worse. Her chest tightens when she thinks about mathematics. Sometimes it makes her sleepless.
At the beginning of this year, she was supposed to take the exam. But when she arrived at class, it was too much. “My body wouldn’t allow me to open the door and come in, so I just walked away,” she says. She never took the test.
Fear and nervousness that arise when performing or learning mathematics are said to be the most common form of education-related anxiety. Recently, it has also been used in some explanations. Differences in math scores by country The Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) showed that U.S. math scores are declining. These feelings can influence how far students pursue mathematics. At a time when America is struggling to produce more critical thinkers, this may hold some students back. So what does that mean for students with this anxiety?
under pressure
Colleen Ganley, an associate professor of developmental psychology at Florida State University, said there are various theories about how math anxiety is related to academic performance. The most widely accepted model is called the “reciprocity theory,” which suggests that students can get caught in a loop where debilitating anxiety and poor math performance work together to hinder learning, Ganley said. On the other hand, worrying about math can lead students to avoid math altogether, hindering their progress. On the other hand, Ganley says that performing poorly in math can cause anxiety because it is a salient negative experience. She added that there is a little more evidence that poor grades often fuel math anxiety rather than the other way around, but there is evidence pointing in both directions.
For students like Colon, stress can mean that worrying about being able to do a calculation keeps their mind busy, depleting their brain’s working memory and hindering their ability to actually do the math. , says university professor Susan Levin. Department of Psychology, University of Chicago.
Levine said this phenomenon is more common among students who aren’t very good at math. However, for students with great potential in mathematics, the consequences can be even more devastating: their mathematics performance suffers greatly. That’s because such students tend to solve math problems using strategies that require more working memory, she added. When stressed, students revert to less sophisticated strategies. For example, students with math anxiety were found to be more likely to rely on counting with their fingers when solving math problems, she added.
There’s also evidence that women experience this anxiety more often than men, Levine said.
looking for the answer
When you have anxiety, it can be difficult to generalize solutions.
Ganley said researchers don’t know much about what works for anxiety in the classroom. That’s why she focuses much of her work on her students themselves. What happens in the classroom is important for math anxiety, but how important those things are depends on the particular student.
Ganley said habits that contribute to students’ math anxiety include a lack of teacher support, poor student-teacher relationships, an overly competitive environment, and an unsupportive classroom environment. Part of that, she says, has to do with students being nervous about making mistakes in math.
Some researchers have suggested that having students reframe their feelings as excitement rather than anxiety, or having them record their anxiety in a diary before taking a test, may help.However, there is mixed evidence, and one study suggests that this approach may even be harmful For students aged 10 to 12.
Some argue that instructional methods, such as timed tests, worsen anxiety. But Ganley suggested the study does not support a blanket view. Although the evidence on whether timed tests are helpful or harmful is still inconclusive, Ganley believes that using them judiciously may be beneficial. says. For example, in his own teaching, Mr. Ganley had his students complete timed tests and grade them themselves without showing them to anyone else. Mr. Ganley then took the time to enter the students’ data and create a plot showing the students’ progress in math. This can be helpful when students have setbacks, she says. On the other hand, thoughtless use can worsen anxiety, she says, especially if it encourages students to compare publicly.
But some researchers say there’s also something instructors can do.
Yasemin Kopur Genkturk, associate professor of teacher education at the University of Southern California, says teaching practices really matter. For many people, being good at math means being able to come up with the right answer quickly. But math proficiency goes beyond focusing too much on answers, she says, and requires students to develop complex thinking. That means students should be given more opportunities to develop their reasoning and problem-solving skills, she says. So instead of just focusing on whether students’ answers are correct, she encourages other teachers to help students understand the process and thinking involved in arriving at an answer.
In many classrooms, when the teacher presents a problem, it is quickly solved. Rather, she argues that when teachers give students the opportunity to work on these problems first, they are better able to understand the mathematics that students are learning. She also helps teachers develop the critical knowledge and skills needed to teach mathematics. Therefore, teachers should give students a few minutes to understand the problem, observe them and listen to them, she says. This can reveal common struggles.
Levine, who lives in Chicago, agrees. She argues that there needs to be more collaboration in math classes and more discussion about different ways to solve math problems. Even when you get a wrong answer, there’s a lot of potential for a good idea, she says. Even if a student makes a stupid mistake, the approach he or she takes can be very creative.
Kopur Genkturk said teacher preparation programs provide enough time to ensure that future teachers have sufficient confidence and knowledge in mathematics and pedagogy and are able to foster an understanding and enjoyment of mathematics in their students. It is claimed that the amount has not been allocated.
Ideally, teachers will be deeply familiar with mathematics and how to teach it. However, alternative credentials are becoming more common. Teachers who entered the profession through other routes lack the content-specific expertise needed to teach, Kopur Genkturk said.
“So we’re just letting the students experiment. I mean, to me, this is unfair to the students,” she says.
Colon, a Merced native, attributes her anxiety to a desire to avoid math and a need to constantly compare herself to other students.
When I asked her if she was planning on taking any more math classes once she completed her major requirements, she nervously laughed. “No,” she said.
She goes to a private tutor, but it doesn’t help. “She honestly thinks she has a problem when it comes to math,” Colon says.
But she still has hope that she can learn its contents. She also found that meditation helped her deal with anxiety.
