Monday, March 3, 2008

Math Anxiety - its causes

To have math anxiety is alright. But to harbour it without overcoming its negative impact on math learning is not alright. This article is written with the hope that whoever has this math anxiety has a chance to recover and improve on math if you are willing to change your attitude towards learning of math.

To overcome math anxiety, we need to know what causes it before we can "attack" it. There are many factors contributing to this problematic math anxiety. The list is not exhaustive.

Its causes:
Personality (strong pride)
Past learning experience
Family background
Math teacher perception of math
Math teacher teaching style
complexity of math topics
Standard of classmate math level
Understanding the math relation to real life applications.

In order to minimise or remove the math anxiety, we need to identify the factor(s) contributing most to it. We can slowly change our view towards them and think positively instead of worrying for its impact. Ask and allow math questions to be answered. Knowing more means more confidence in handling math. More confidence means less math anxiety. This spiral upwardly in the correct direction of math learning. Learning through failure is not embarrasing, but to hide embarrassment without resolving questions is detrimental and ultimately results in math anxiety when others progress on.

Attitude towards math has to change first before interest can be aroused. With interest, any math challenges can be overcomed. This creates satisfaction in the learning of math, and will generate a positive impact on confidence dealing with any math questions or tutorials and assessments. Being aware of math anxiety and handling it upfront without fear only serve you good as it is a skill well learned. Embrace math anxiety with love and math will finally be your friend.

To read more about math, you are welcome to visit the math site at the below URL.

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