Math Anxiety Report

By Mykala Wilt

An article shares, “Anxiety disorders are some of the most widespread mental health

issues worldwide, individuals may suffer from specific forms of test and performance anxiety

that are connected to a knowledge domain.” (Luttenberger) It wasn’t until I began doing

research, that I realized math anxiety truly is a type of anxiety, and a somewhat common type of

anxiety at that. Math anxiety can be found in many students, although it seems more common

after a student reaches around fourth grade and math begins becoming harder. Math anxiety is

something both children and adults can experience and isn’t simply a dislike of math; but having

negative feelings regarding math.

Personally, I have feelings of dislike for math, that only occasionally lead to me feeling

negative emotions as I participate in math related things. I asked ten people if they have math

anxiety, the ages ranging from 20 to 40, and out of them, six have said they dislike math, but

only 1 said they actually feel negatively about math tests. Out of these ten, only 3 say they don’t

mind math, none said they actually enjoy doing math. Math anxiety often comes about from the

affects of others. Let’s say you have a teacher who is constantly talking about how hard math is,

will this make you like math more? What about if all of your friends hate math, will you also

hate math? Or let’s say people are constantly telling you that you have to do good in math, will

this make you have a fear towards doing math tests? It’s hard to say what will influence your

love or hatred of math, everyone is different when it comes to this, but the affect of others on

your love or hatred can’t be taken out of the equation.

 Another article shares, “In one forthcoming study, simply suggesting to college students

that they would be asked to take a math test triggered a stress response in the hypothalamus of

students with high math anxiety.” (Sparks) I don’t feel an overwhelming stress when it comes to

math related things, in fact I only seem to feel truly stressed minutes before the test, and then a

bit before reading what score I got. More of, if there’s such a thing as Score Anxiety, I have that,

I have a deep fear of getting bad grades, but then again, a lot of people do.

Now, going to the matter of math anxiety’s affect on children, it is indeed something that

affects children. The reason for focusing mainly on the older ages, is because of the affect

they’re having on the future generation. If a child has a parent that has math anxiety, what is the

chance that the parent will produce a positive outlook on math? An adult’s attitude towards math

plays a large role in a child’s attitude towards math. Stereotypes also have an affect on children,

such as girls are better at math then boys, which isn’t actually true, or that if your slow at

processing, you won’t be good at math. Children are affected by a wide slew of things when it

comes to math, building a positive outlook on math to fight off math anxiety is a struggle going

on everywhere, although a struggle that isn’t often discussed or even sometimes consciously

noticed.

Math anxiety is a troublesome thing, as a teacher, having students that fear the very idea

of math will be something hard to deal with. Still, it will be a very exciting experience to work

with students with math anxiety, helping them to overcome their fear of math. I feel that the best

way to help young children not develop math anxiety, is to simply be very positive when it

comes to math, and not to teach kids that math is stressful and troublesome.
 Works Cited

Luttenberger, Silke, “Spotlight on math anxiety”, NCBI, Aug 8, 2018 Spotlight on math anxiety

(nih.gov)

Sparks, Sarah D., “Researchers say math anxiety starts young”, washingtonpost, May 30, 2011

Researchers say math anxiety starts young - The Washington Post