Postpone math homework until the last minute. Panic when doing homework or math tests. Have you ever felt stressed and anxious when your math teacher asks you a question? Or when you do your math homework? If so, you may have experienced what's called math anxiety. If you've experienced math anxiety, you're not alone.
Many people feel extremely nervous when faced with a situation that requires them to do basic math. Math anxiety goes beyond simply being nervous about doing math. Nervousness is a sensible reaction to a situation that is actually scary. Conversely, anxiety may not make sense.
This means that a person can feel anxious even though they know that there really is no reason to feel anxious. In addition, anxiety can cause physical symptoms, such as a fast heartbeat or sweating. Usually, people who have math anxiety think they're bad at math and because of that, they don't like math. These feelings lead them to avoid situations in which they have to do mathematical calculations.
Children with math anxiety often have poor math skills. Adults with math anxiety often have problems with math in their careers and in everyday life. Adults with math anxiety are less likely to show interest, enter, and succeed in careers related to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. One of the main goals in understanding the causes of math anxiety and how it affects the brain is to find ways to help people with math anxiety and ultimately prevent this condition from happening.
Teachers play one of the most important roles in helping students manage math anxiety, especially since much of that anxiety occurs in school. Children worry that they will do poorly on a math test, even if they understand the material and have studied. Children do poorly on math tests, even after preparing for them, because they don't understand the material. Another adaptation of the AMA, called the Abbreviated Mathematics Anxiety Scale for Early Elementary School (EES-AMAS), was also developed to specifically measure math anxiety in younger elementary school students.
Researchers have also started testing possible interventions that appear to help people with math anxiety. Doing math with math anxiety is like being a physically capable hiker who worries about what might happen if you try to climb to the top, self-doubt standing in the way of your path to success. But dyscalculia is a learning problem, while anxiety about mathematics is related to the psychology of a person who opposes mathematics. It can be easy to think that dyscalculia and math anxiety are the same thing, especially since the signs can be similar.
While the study results focused more on how dyscalculia might affect certain types of math tasks, the researchers also found a possible relationship between math anxiety and dyscalculia. Special accommodations can be provided to students with math anxiety on a temporary basis to increase their confidence in the subject. This research tells us that math anxiety and the relationship between math anxiety and math ability develop when children are very young. Keeping track of any observable physical signs of math anxiety can be difficult, as many students become nervous during exam hours.
