I'm personally skeptical that "math anxiety" even exists -- at least as it's generally described.
The usual way that we think about "math anxiety" is that a student basically understands the material, but in the context of an examination suddenly a cloud of fear and tension descends upon them, and they are unable to function. However, in my (admittedly anecdotal) experience, when a student claims that they "really understand the concepts" but they have "math anxiety", it usually becomes very clear after a short discussion that they just can't do the math, and in fact they don't really know how to solve the problems. It's not that the examination somehow caused some form of a mental health episode; instead, the test was the moment when students actually had display their ability, and that's when they found out that they didn't really have a strong grasp of the material.
In the US, there is strong emphasis on "collaboration" and "group work" when studying math, and whatever the merits of this approach, it can enable students who can't actually solve problems to nonetheless get credit. Sure, Taylor and Ted "collaborated" on their math work, but in reality it was Taylor who understood everything and Ted just went along for the ride. For many students, an exam is the first time that they have to solve problems all by themselves, without assistance from their peers, and it's at that point that their weak understanding is finally made clear.
Part of the puzzle of "math anxiety" is that the corresponding phenomenon doesn't exist for other subjects -- there doesn't seem to be any "English anxiety" or "history anxiety" or "Spanish anxiety". Why do students experience this psychological state only with math? One explanation for this is that you can generally fake your way through an English or history exam even if you're somehow fuzzy on some of the details, but if you don't know how to solve a math problem, you just can't do it, and it's hard to cobble together some sort of vague half-answer the way you can in other subjects.
Of course, I understand that it is very unpleasant to take an exam when you simply can't do the problems; I've suffered this myself many times, and everyone who goes through such an ordeal has my sympathy. There's no doubt that the experience is very similar to an anxiety attack, so it's natural to think that that's the problem. But in general I suspect that much of "math anxiety" is simply not being able to perform, and it's not helpful to frame this as some sort of psychiatric disorder.
Thank you! My second go at Linear Algebra (which I aced) was with a male professor. The difference was that he had a nurturing teaching style. I do wonder if the tendency of male teachers to make higher math "competetive" has something to do with young women turning away from it. I'm a big believer in math games as a fun way to practice math skills. However, that's quite different (in my mind) to the competitive atmosphere that arises in many higher maths class as early as high school.
I always teach my students about this "confidence gap" when we study feminism. So interesting.
I'm personally skeptical that "math anxiety" even exists -- at least as it's generally described.
The usual way that we think about "math anxiety" is that a student basically understands the material, but in the context of an examination suddenly a cloud of fear and tension descends upon them, and they are unable to function. However, in my (admittedly anecdotal) experience, when a student claims that they "really understand the concepts" but they have "math anxiety", it usually becomes very clear after a short discussion that they just can't do the math, and in fact they don't really know how to solve the problems. It's not that the examination somehow caused some form of a mental health episode; instead, the test was the moment when students actually had display their ability, and that's when they found out that they didn't really have a strong grasp of the material.
In the US, there is strong emphasis on "collaboration" and "group work" when studying math, and whatever the merits of this approach, it can enable students who can't actually solve problems to nonetheless get credit. Sure, Taylor and Ted "collaborated" on their math work, but in reality it was Taylor who understood everything and Ted just went along for the ride. For many students, an exam is the first time that they have to solve problems all by themselves, without assistance from their peers, and it's at that point that their weak understanding is finally made clear.
Part of the puzzle of "math anxiety" is that the corresponding phenomenon doesn't exist for other subjects -- there doesn't seem to be any "English anxiety" or "history anxiety" or "Spanish anxiety". Why do students experience this psychological state only with math? One explanation for this is that you can generally fake your way through an English or history exam even if you're somehow fuzzy on some of the details, but if you don't know how to solve a math problem, you just can't do it, and it's hard to cobble together some sort of vague half-answer the way you can in other subjects.
Of course, I understand that it is very unpleasant to take an exam when you simply can't do the problems; I've suffered this myself many times, and everyone who goes through such an ordeal has my sympathy. There's no doubt that the experience is very similar to an anxiety attack, so it's natural to think that that's the problem. But in general I suspect that much of "math anxiety" is simply not being able to perform, and it's not helpful to frame this as some sort of psychiatric disorder.
Thank you! My second go at Linear Algebra (which I aced) was with a male professor. The difference was that he had a nurturing teaching style. I do wonder if the tendency of male teachers to make higher math "competetive" has something to do with young women turning away from it. I'm a big believer in math games as a fun way to practice math skills. However, that's quite different (in my mind) to the competitive atmosphere that arises in many higher maths class as early as high school.
I love this! Thank you.