Math Anxiety: Teaching to Avoid It

Math anxiety: What is it like? For those of us comfortable with mathematics, it is a sensation difficult to imagine. To get an idea, remember a situation in which you were called on to demonstrate an expertise you were convinced you did not have, such as giving a speech to a group of your fellow teachers and supervisors or defending your tax returns during an 1RS audit. What ef fect did that anxiety-producing situation have on you? Physically you might have experienced sweating palms, clenched fists, queasy stomach, dry mouth, and cold sweat. Psychologically you might have felt panic, tension, helplessness, fear, distress, shame, and an inability to cope. Similar feelings are experienced by the "math anxious" whenever they are con fronted with any mathematical situation, such as figuring a 15 percent tip or balanc ing a checkbook. Math anxiety is not nec essarily related to general anxiety; a math anxious person may not be the generally anxious type, or vice versa. Nor is math anxiety related to general intelligence; it of ten afflicts persons who are highly success ful in other areas. Among adults, some highly successful executives are math anx ious and manage only by delegating any computational tasks to subordinates (Ko gelman and Warren 1978; Lazarus 1974; Tobias 1978). Some students who perform well in other courses are convinced that they cannot do mathematics. They have developed a fatalistic attitude, fully ex pecting to fail in any attempts at mathe matics. Such math-anxious students will sit through a required mathematics course, recognizing the consequences of not learn ing the material yet suffering from such an irrational fear of mathematics that they are paralyzed in their thinking, inhibited in performance, and, of course, prevented frorti learning. The fatalistic attitude of these students becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, reinforcing their convictions that they cannot do mathematics. We as mathematics teachers are chal lenged to understand this problem of math anxiety and do what we can to prevent it. Not only does it inhibit students from doing mathematics, it may cause the math anxious to become math avoiders. Al though math avoidance can be caused by other things, a major reason may be the fear experienced from contact with mathe matical activity. By avoiding these threat ening situations, though, the math anxious seriously handicap themselves in both their daily lives and job opportunities. It is not a new phenomenon that a large segment of the population fears mathematics (Gough 1954; Kogelman and Warren 1978). This situation used to be tolerable when there were sufficent jobs requiring little or no mathematics. Today, however, the math anxious, by becoming math avoiders, are cut off from full participation in our in creasingly technological society. Realizing this problem, concerned educators have set up anxiety classes and clinics all across the country to work with math-anxious adults (Stent 1977). While helping adults confront, understand, and overcome their anxiety, these clinics, and the related research they have spurred, are helping mathematics educators become more aware of the causes and results of math anxiety. An alarming fact has been found: all too often math anxiety among adults can be traced to negative experi