From numbers to narratives: Preservice teachers experiences’ with mathematics anxiety and mathematics teaching anxiety

Abstract

This paper presents qualitative and quantitative approaches to exploring teachers’ experiences of mathematics anxiety (for learning and doing mathematics) and mathematics teaching anxiety (for instructing others in mathematics), the relationship between these types of anxiety and test/evaluation anxiety, and the impacts of anxiety on experiences in teacher education. Findings indicate that mathematics anxiety and mathematics teaching anxiety may be similar (i.e., that preservice teachers perceive a logical continuity and cumulative effect of their experiences of mathematics anxiety as learners in K–12 classrooms that impacts their work as teachers in future K–12 classrooms). Further, anxiety is not limited to occurring in evaluative settings, but when anxiety is triggered by thoughts of evaluation, preservice teachers may be affected by worrying about their own as well as their students' performances. The implications for preservice experiences within a teacher education program and for impacting future students are discussed.

Analysis of Student Mathematical Anxiety Based on Gender and Educational Infrastructure

“…Many researchers link MA with mathematical performance (Namkung et al, 2019;Wang et al, 2020;Zakaria et al, 2012).Some research links it with gender (Akbayır, 2019;Aydin & Keskin, 2017;Goetz et al, 2013) while others think that MA is a significant risk factor that hinders the development of student self-confidence and abilities in mathematics, science, technology, engineering, and math-related work (Wang et al, 2020). If MA is not taken seriously, it will result in students hating mathematics and eventually dropping out of school (Carey et al, 2019;Carvalho, 2016;Gresham & Burleigh, 2019;Olson & Stoehr, 2019).…”

“…MA is a feeling of discomfort such as tension or worry that interferes with math performance both in daily life and learning at school (Carey et al, 2019;Delgado & Kassim, 2019;Namkung et al, 2019;Vukovic et al, 2013). This feeling causes students to avoid and refuse to study mathematics and even hate it (Carey et al, 2019;Carvalho, 2016;Gresham & Burleigh, 2019;Olson & Stoehr, 2019). Studying mathematics is considered necessary because students learn about numbers to solve calculations from simple to complex in everyday life (Akbayır, 2019;Carey et al, 2019;Olson & Stoehr, 2019;Wang et al, 2020).…”

“…negative classroom experience due to student's low basic math skills (Carey et al, 2019;Gresham & Burleigh, 2019;Maloney et al, 2011); teacher characteristics, e.g. women tend to have MA if the teacher is female (Beilock et al, 2010;Delgado & Kassim, 2019;Maloney et al, 2011;Newstead, 2018); parent expectations that are too high on their children's math performance (Namkung et al, 2019;Olson & Stoehr, 2019;Tomasetto et al, 2011).…”

“…Other researchers A. M. Olson & Stoehr (2019) suggest that mathematical anxiety (MA) is described as a stress response that is supported by adverse physiological reactions (such as nausea, fast heartbeat, and cold sweat) when engaging or thinking about math tasks. As a result, students are afraid of taking math subjects and even hate math (Akbayır, 2019;Alkan, 2011;Aydin & Keskin, 2017).…”

Teachers as Ethnographers: Narrative Study of Inquiry of Indonesian Teachers Assigned to Teach in Remote Areas

“…Previous research on narrative teaching contexts appears in categories: curriculum (Connelly, 2011;Milner, 2007), teacher identity (Beijaard, 2019;Johnson & Dabney, 2018;Nguyen, 2019;Yazan, 2019), learning (Olson & Stoehr, 2019;Chiong et al, 2017), language learning (Rafzar, 2012;Chen, 2019), literary learning (Fishbane, 2020), counseling learning (Kerl, 2002), and assessment (Xu & Liu, 2012). Among the studies on narrative inquiry, no one has discussed the teacher aspects as an ethnographer.…”