Math Anxiety and the three domains and its continuum

The developers of the MARS (Math Anxiety Rating Scale) say it "involves feelings of tension and anxiety that interfere with the manipulation of numbers and the solving of mathematical problems in a wide variety of ordinary and academic situations" Richardson and Suinn, 1972, p.
There appear to be three major domains which are involved with the development of math anxiety. These domains are: the social/motivational domain, the intellectual domain, and the psychological/emotional domain.

The Social / Motivational Domain includes those forces that act upon a person through the family, friends, and society as a whole. The continuum associated with this domain is Behavior because although choices are influenced by others, they are ultimately made by the individual. The Behavior Continuum has Pursuit and Avoidance as its opposites. These behaviors are logical consequences of the value place on mathematics, which is influenced by the attitudes of significant others and by society in general.
The Intellectual / Educational Domain is comprised of those influences that are cognitive in nature. Specifically, they include but are not limited to, the knowledge and skills an individual has and or is expected to acquire and his or her perception of success or failure in them. Although others may "grade" an individual’s performance in this domain, people form their own evaluations of their performance in this area. The continuum associated with this domain is Achievement, where individual perception is paramount. Success and Failure are the extremes of the Achievement Continuum, and are the subjective evaluation regarding one’s acquisition or use of mathematics skill and concepts.
The Psychological / Emotional Domain is formed by the faculties that are affective in nature. It is largely comprised of the individual’s emotional history, reactions to stimuli and arousal states. Hence the continuum associated with this domain is Feelings. At either end of the Feelings Continuum lie in Anxiety and Confidence, although it could be argued that enjoyment is even further removed from anxiety than confidence. The assumption is that most students would find it puzzling to think of mathematics as enjoyable. Confidence can be equated with comfortableness, rather than pleasure

The extremes of the three continua comprise positive and negative cycles.
 
In the Positive Cycle, an individual who is successful in the use and/or study of mathematics will be more confident in situation involving math and more likely to pursue the study or use of mathematics.

A similar relationship is theorized for both confidence and pursuit because a person who pursues the study of mathematics will tend to be more confident in math situations and will also tend to be more successful in its study and use. The latter is a logical assumption, for if one does not continue the study of mathematics, one cannot continue to be successful in learning it.

Research indicates that the more confidence a person has vis-à-vis mathematics, the more likely he or she is to be successful in such tasks (Betz, 1977, p.22), and the more confidence the individual has toward learning and using mathematics, the more likely he or she is to pursue its study.

The Negative Cycle operates in a similar way, with each component reinforcing the others. Failure in mathematics contributes is hypothesized to be an antecedent to math anxiety (Tobias & Weissbrod, 1980, p. 65). Since few people seek opportunities for failure, it is logical that avoiding mathematics would be a result of perceived or actual failure.

Anxiety reactions to mathematical situations may contribute to failure in mathematics (Tobias & Weissbrod, 1980, p.63). In fact, s person who has high math anxiety may actually be unable to 
perform well on test, and may be unable to learn in a mathematics classroom. Math anxiety also 
directly contributes to avoiding mathematics (Tobias & Weissbrod, 1980, p.63). It is logical to avoid 
situations which bring on anxiety reactions.

The ways in which avoidance contributes to failure and anxiety are perhaps a little less clear. Avoidance of mathematics engenders failure because a person who has successfully avoided mathematical situations for some time may lack the skills and knowledge needed when he or she is presented with a situation requiring its use. This is situation in which the individual is very likely to fail. Similarly, the person who has avoided mathematics and is suddenly confronted with a circumstance requiring it, is likely to be painfully aware of his or her lack of preparation and become anxious about it as a result. Thus the avoidance of mathematics can lead to failure and/or anxiety with staggering effect. Of course, if one could only continue to avoid mathematics situations, neither failure nor anxiety would result.

The phenomenon of math anxiety itself is of interest to the education community only because individuals find themselves placed in situation requiring that they either use or learn mathematics, or both. Without conditions necessitating the use of mathematics, math anxiety, however high the individual’s level, would not be of any consequence. An underlying assumption of this model is that

math anxiety is of interest only to those people who have been influenced by it in the past, in career choices, for example, those who are influenced by it presently, as in a mathematics class, or those

who will in influenced by it in the future, as in a required math class or job skill. As long as a perseon has no need for mathematics, math anxiety is unimportant.

National Children's Mental Health Awareness Day

SAMHSA's National Children's Mental Health Awareness Day seeks to raise awareness about the importance of children's mental health and that positive mental health is essential to a child's healthy development from birth.


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School Counselor and Math Anxiety: Math Test Anxiety Reduction Checklist

School Counselor and Math Anxiety: Math Test Anxiety Reduction Checklist: Math Test Anxiety Reduction Checklist By Cynthia Arem in Conquering Math Anxiety 2 nd edition __ I’ve reviewed ...

Math Test Anxiety Reduction Checklist

Math Test Anxiety Reduction Checklist

By Cynthia Arem in Conquering Math Anxiety 2^nd edition

__	I’ve reviewed and worked out lots of problems so I know my material out of context.
__	I know the format and content of my upcoming math exam.
__	I know how many questions will be on my exam and its duration.
__	I’ve given myself several practice exams.
__	On practice exams, I’ve noted areas of difficulty so I can strengthen them.
__	I’ve analyzed my past pattern of typical errors so I can alert to them on my exam.
__	I’ve gotten 7 to 8 hours of sleep in the days prior to the exam.
__	I’ve kept up a regular program of moderate exercise.
__	I’ve practiced relaxation exercise along with positive visualization in the days and the half-hour before the exam.
__	I’ve eaten a small meal of low-fat protein 1 to 2 hours before the exam and avoided too much caffeine.
__	I’ll arrive at the exam on time and avoid talking with others.
__	Throughout the exam, I’ll remain calm, relaxed, and positive, checking my breathing often.
__	I will say positive self-statements to myself and push away all disturbing or distracting thoughts.

How to deal with kid's math anxiety

How to Deal With Kids’ Math Anxiety

March 29, 2012 | 6:00 AM | By Annie Murphy Paul

Flickr: Grisha

By Annie Murphy Paul

In children with math anxiety, seeing numbers on a page stimulates the same part of the brain that would respond if they spotted a slithering snake or a creeping spider—math is that scary. Brain scans of these children also show that when they’re in the grip of math anxiety, activity is reduced in the information-processing and reasoning areas of their brains—exactly the regions that should be working hard to figure out the problems in front of them. These new findings, published this month in the journal Psychological Science, demonstrate that math anxiety is real and can’t simply be wished away. But there are specific exercises that have been shown to reduce students’ nervousness and allow them to focus on their work without the powerful distraction of fear.

In this latest experiment, Christina B. Young, Sarah S. Wu, and Vinod Menon of the Stanford University School of Medicine scanned the brains of 46 second- and third-graders with a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machine as they solved addition and subtraction problems. Before climbing into the scanner, the children had completed tests of intelligence and working memory, and measures of math anxiety and general anxiety.

In the kids who worried a lot about math, the fMRI scans picked up a striking pattern: Regions of a brain structure called the amygdala, responsible for processing negative emotions, were hyperactive. At the same time, activity in the posterior parietal and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex—areas involved in mathematical reasoning—was diminished. The scientists’ analysis of neural networks revealed that the two activity levels were connected: The buzz in the brain’s fear centerwas interfering with the ability of its problem-solving regions to do their job. The pattern the paper’s authors identified was specific to math, unrelated to general intelligence or to other kinds of anxiety.

There are exercises that reduce students’ nervousness and allow them to focus on their work.

Although this study is the first to pinpoint the neural basis of math anxiety in children and demonstrate its impact on brain functioning, other researchers have investigated the phenomenon and devised methods to counter it. Cognitive scientist Sian Beilock of the University of Chicago, for example, has theorized that math anxiety affects students’ performance in the subject by using up mental resources, such as working memory, that could otherwise be deployed in solving math problems. One way to relieve this burden on working memory, Beilock and her colleagues have found, is to spend ten minutes writing about one’s thoughts and feelings about a math exam just before taking it. Students effectively offload their worries onto the page, enabling them to tackle the test with a mind free of rumination and distraction. In the lab, Beilock reports, engaging in this exercise “eliminates poor performance under pressure,” and the method has produced encouraging results in real-life classroom settings as well.

Other approaches that have proven successful at reducing math anxiety and improving performance include having students reaffirm their self-worth by listing important values like relationships with friends and family, and having students think about why they might do well (“I am a student at a high-level university”) rather than poorly (“I am a girl taking a difficult math test”). These interventions are simple but effective: By deliberately shifting their frame of mind, students can make that creepy-crawly feeling of anxiety go away.

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Have you ever have problems with math? Did you thought that you weren't capable of doing math? Did you know someone who has problems or think is impossible for him or her to do math? When you think of math work, assignments did you freak out? Did you choose another career because the one you liked included math?
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Ways parents can help with math

There are some ways for parents to help their child get more interest in math. This can be done in a daily basis and during play time.

1. Parent look for shapes and patterns in real life
2. Have your child measure ingredients for a recipe you are making
3. Ask your child to explain the math skills he or she is learning on school
4. When helping your kid with homework, ask him or her to explain how he or she got an answer
5. Help your child to find some appropriate math games to play on line
6. Play cards or board games that involve counting or patterns
7. Ask your child to help you estimate the total cost when you are shopping or ask him or her to count change at the grocery store
8. Use comparison - Which is the tallest, the smallest, the heavier, the fastest, or the most expensive?
9. Encourage your child to track or graph scores or stats for a favorite sports team or athlete 
10. Use a dice to make a game out of practicing math facts 

All of the above are only some examples for a parent to use with his or her child. Securely, every parent can create some new and good ones based on their family and tastes. Encourage your child to see the importance of math not only at school but, more important, the use of math everyday even when they think they are not using it.