Math Anxiety Gets Fresh Look, Different Twist in New Research

Education Week:

Considerable research suggests that girls are more anxious about math than boys, but a new study dives deeper to distinguish the general anxiety young people report about the subject from what they may be feeling in math class or at test time. It turns out the latter, “real-time” anxiety is about the same for boys and girls, the study finds.

Math anxiety among females has long been of concern because, as the new research points out, prior studies have shown that it “negatively predicts” course enrollment, career choices, and lifelong learning in math fields. This is also connected to the worrisome underrepresentation of females in STEM fields. And the higher degree of math anxiety stands in contrast to research showing that female students typically reach “similar, or only slightly lower,” levels of math achievement as boys, the study says.

Researchers from several German universities and McGill University in Montreal teamed up for the project.

Read the whole story: Education Week