Aspects of Children's Mathematics Anxiety

Abstract

This study focuses on mathematics anxiety in nine- to eleven-year-old children and compares the mathematics anxiety of pupils taught in a traditional manner with that of pupils whose teachers adopted an alternative teaching approach emphasising problem-solving and discussion of pupils' own informal strategies. One finding is that pupils who were exposed to a traditional approach reported more mathematics anxiety than those who were exposed to the alternative approach, particularly with regard to the social, public aspects of doing mathematics. The question is raised whether it is these public aspects of doing mathematics in the presence of teachers and peers which actually evoke mathematics anxiety in many pupils, and not working with numbers or doing sums. However, the majority of pupils in this study reacted with either high or low anxiety to both aspects of doing mathematics.