Mathematical Anxiety amongst Primary QTS Students

This paper investigates mathematical anxiety amongst some primary QTS students. Information for this study has been gathered from students through individual interviews and personal, written, reflections. Analysis of these information sources reveals a number of factors about the seeds of mathematical anxiety, the conditions which foster its growth and, significantly, the depth of emotional responses to mathematics displayed by some students. If people believe firmly enough that they cannot do math, they will usually succeed in preventing themselves from doing whatever they recognize as math. The consequences of such self-sabotage is personal failure, and each failure reinforces the original belief. And such belieft may be most insidious when held not only by individuals, but by our entire culture Papert, 1980, p42. DEFINING MATHEMATICAL ANXIETY Mathematical Anxiety describes states of mind developed through personal experience, and individual emotional responses to these experiences. Negative feeling