Almost half of girls get “very tense” when they have to do mathematics homework, three-quarters of them worry they’re going to get bad marks and they’re more likely than boys to lose interest in a maths lesson.
A new report analysing results of the latest OECD Programme for International Student Assessment results shows heightened rates of maths anxiety are associated with poorer academic outcomes, and the most anxious students are four years behind pupils who experience the least.
Anxious students in mathematics can be three years and four months behind in the subject compared with their least anxious peers.Credit:
Mathematics anxiety is defined by feelings of tension, fear or apprehension when a person is faced with mathematics-related tasks, the Australian Council for Education Research report said, noting anxiety can interfere with working memory, increase cognitive load and make it harder for students to concentrate.
Forty-three per cent of girls get “very nervous” doing maths problems compared with 33 per cent of boys. Disadvantaged students are less likely to ask questions if they don’t understand something.
Mathematical Association of NSW president Dr Katherin Cartwright said wider societal attitudes to maths may affect girls more than boys.
“Girls are much more emotive about how they’re learning and how other people perceive them,” she said.
She said parental attitudes also played a role. For example, when trying to console children, parents should not say they in turn weren’t good at maths at school.
“It’s a big cultural shift because people don’t walk around saying, ‘Oh, I am not good at reading’ or ‘I can’t read or write’, but they’re most happy to say, ‘I’m not good at maths’,” she said.
In 2022, Australian students recorded their worst performance since tests began after a long-term slide in the subject. Almost half of Australian students failed to reach the national proficient standard in maths.
Maths teacher and researcher Greg Ashman said he was not convinced that anxiety experienced in maths differed from other domains.
“Do kids get anxious when confronted with maths assessments or maths problems or being asked to do maths? They probably do, but people get anxious about a lot of things, particularly things that they don’t feel that they’re particularly good at,” he said.
He cautioned against using gimmicks to counter feelings of low confidence, saying the best antidote to the feeling of anxiety was good maths teaching.
“You get a lot of this: ‘Let’s address maths anxiety by creating fun activities, by going on excursions, by having guest speakers, by making models of many-sided shapes out of paper and sticky tape and all this sort of thing,’ ” he said.
“Now that can certainly be fun. And kids will say they enjoy it because kids enjoy doing fun things, but it doesn’t address the fundamental issue, which is their ability to do maths.
“To reduce that … You want to give them the ability to solve the problems, to do the maths, then they won’t feel as anxious about it.”
The report also said that Australian teachers were less likely to teach students to memorise rules and apply them to solve mathematical problems, but more likely to instruct students to “keep trying” when they faced a difficult mathematical problem, compared with teachers in high-performing countries.