Peers + performance pressure = math anxiety?

Math anxiety interferes with many students' ability to learn math (Richardson & Suinn, 1972). Our research indicates that students' peak math anxiety years are those immediately following puberty. Research by Costanzo and Shaw (1966) suggests that children are most powerfully influenced by their peers during the months immediately following pubescence. In this light, we theorized that the amount of time students spend working math problems in front of peers (exposure to peer performance pressure) during the months proximal to puberty will be positively correlated with measures of math anxiety. Fourth through eighth grade public and private school students completed measures of math anxiety in October, 1992 and again in April, 1993. The hypothesis was supported for females only. Results suggest that peer performance pressure actually facilitated the development of math confidence except for females during puberty. Mathematics anxiety obstructs the learning of mathematics (Richardson & Suinn, 1972). Math anxiety has been defined as tense and nervous feelings that "interfere with the manipulation of numbers and the solving of math problems" in the classroom as well as in various situations of everyday life (Richardson & Suinn, 1972, p. 532). Factors involved in math anxiety include a student's "negative affective reactions to math" and "worries about doing well in mathematics" (Wigfield & Meece, 1988, p. 214). Several variables have been cited as being correlated with math anxiety (or its converse, math confidence, depending upon the researcher). Math confidence is a good predictor of high mathematics achievement for students in grades 6 through 12 as shown by Fennema & Sherman (1977, 1978). This confidence in one's ability to learn mathematics also predicts future course selections for both males and females (Reyes, 1984), and even career choices (Chipman, Krantz & Silver, 1992). As expected, there is also a negative correlation between math anxiety and math achievement from the early school years, throughout school, and into adulthood; however, a cause-effect relationship has not yet been determined (Reyes, 1984). In related research, students' current performance expectancies and perceptions of outcomes in math were found to be good predictors of math anxiety (Eccles, Meece, & Wigfield, 1990). Parents' perceptions of the importance of mathematics (especially those of the mother) seem to also be an excellent predictor of math anxiety (Eccles, Meece, & Wigfield, 1990; Eccles & Jacobs, 1986). All of these research findings were correlational in nature. Therefore, no cause-effect relationship between the variables studied and math anxiety has yet been demonstrated. This indicates that it is not yet known whether the anxiety causes the low performance or the low performance causes the anxiety. It seems likely that these two variables are mutually causal with anxiety driving performance down and low performance driving anxiety up. The importance of this research is highlighted by other studies which have revealed that women generally suffer more math anxiety than men (Flessati & Jamieson, 1991; Hyde, Fennema, & Lamon, 1990; Tobias, 1978). Still other studies reveal a relationship between math anxiety and academic course and career choices. Females with high levels of math anxiety and average or above average math ability are less likely to choose careers that involve mathematics than those females with lower levels of math anxiety (Eccles, Meece, & Wigfield, 1990; Chipman, Krantz, & Silver, 1992). We begin to see the initial cause of math anxiety in Harper and Quilter's 56 MODERN PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDIES