Mathematics Anxiety and Mathematics beliefs as Correlates of Early Childhood pre-Service Teachers' Numeracy Skills

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate mathematics anxiety and mathematics beliefs as correlates of early childhood pre-service teachers' numeracy skills in Nigeria. A crosssectional survey research design within quantitative methodology was adopted for the study involving 320 early childhood pre-service teachers from the University of Lagos. Three valid and reliable instruments were used for data collection and the collected data were analysed using mean, standard deviation, Pearson moment correlation and multiple regression analysis at 5% level of significance. Results showed that the majority of the early childhood pre-service teachers had high mathematics anxiety and high mathematical beliefs. While mathematical beliefs had significant positive correlations with early childhood pre-service teachers' numeracy skills, mathematics anxiety had a negative correlation with numeracy skills. Mathematical beliefs were a good predictor of early childhood pre-service teachers' numeracy skills. Based on these findings it was concluded that early childhood teacher education programme should include strategies to eliminate mathematics anxiety and foster constructivist mathematical beliefs capable of promoting early childhood pre-service teachers' numeracy skills.