Math Anxiety

I dealt with test anxiety among my honors students when I was teaching. From my perspective, it mostly arose from one of the following situations:

  1. The need to “get an A” all the time so that a student can please demanding parents, get into a prestigious university, and feel worthy of being in a class with other top-tier math students.
  2. The lack of confidence that seems to quickly develop when students who are accustomed to getting A grades suddenly find math difficult and the A grades begin to seem out of reach.
  3. The hitting of the proverbial wall when a subject area that always was easy no longer makes sense. Students who memorize how to do many kinds of problems but do not fully understand why are especially prone to develop test anxiety, in my experience.
  4. Awareness that other students submit tests much earlier, leading a slower working student to feel inept.
  5. Lack of test taking strategy, such as having the fortitude to leave a problem unsolved and move on with the rest of the test, making more efficient use of time. Sometimes problems later in a test can provide a spark of insight needed to return to a problem previously unsolved, but now with renewed confidence.
  6. Test anxiety can keep a student awake the night before the test, and even produce physical illness — headaches and nausea.

I saw many students over the years deal with these sorts of issues. The first strategy I would try would be removing time constraints and changing the test venue for the student, so that there was no opportunity to see how quickly someone else finished the test and there was no worry about not finishing on time. I often found the students who were given this modification not only finished their tests on time but improved their scores. After a couple of these strategies, they tended to regain their confidence and return to taking tests in the classroom with other students.

I think that teachers also should teach their students how to recall or recapture information they previously knew, but somehow forgot during the test — such as the factoring of a sum or difference of cubes. If one has to factor x^3-1, it is clear that x=1 is a zero of the polynomial expression, so that x-1 is a factor. A quick polynomial division can recoup the other factor. My students demonstrated this a few times on tests. If one is anxious, then memory of procedures and general information can be hindered, yet having the confidence and skill to derive what is needed goes a long way in reducing that anxiety.

I am hardly a researcher, but having taught honors pre-calculus for 22 straight years to my town’s best and brightest, I did notice a few things.

This entry was posted in College prep, Curriculum & Instruction, Joye Walker, K-12, math, Mathematics, Testing/Assessment and tagged , . Bookmark the permalink.

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