Posted on 04/08/2025 2:38:34 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Mathematics anxiety is a feeling of tension and fear when dealing with numbers or performing calculations. It is a common form of academic anxiety: according to an OECD report, around 40% of students feel nervous, helpless or anxious in everyday situations involving mathematics, such as solving problems or doing math homework.
We know that mathematics anxiety is present from the first years of primary school, and it interferes with both mathematics performance and mathematics learning. However, the origins of mathematics anxiety are less clear.
Our new research, conducted in collaboration between the universities of Bologna, Trieste and Macerata in Italy and Loughborough University in the UK, addressed the question of whether parents may play a role in the development of children's math anxiety.
We wanted to find out if having a parent who struggled with math anxiety would make it more likely that their child also felt anxious when doing math.
The influence—or not—of anxiety
We followed 126 children from Italy from the age of three until eight, assessing their math skills and level of math anxiety several times along the way. We also measured their parents' mathematics anxiety at the start of the study.
We found that, actually, having a parent with higher levels of math anxiety did not make it more likely that their children would also have math anxiety. This is different to what research has shown about general anxiety: growing up with a parent who suffers from anxiety is linked with a higher chance of developing anxiety.
What we did find was that the children of parents with math anxiety did less well in math.
Throughout the preschool years, children's early numeracy skills were lower if their parents were more anxious about math. And children with lower math skills in their early years still had lower math attainment when they were eight.
These findings are surprising, as one may expect the strong influence of school education on children's math skills to override any parental influence.
We also found that the relationship between parental math anxiety and children's mathematics development was still present when parents' level of education was taken into account. This means that children's lower math achievement couldn't be explained by their parents having a lower level of educational achievement themselves.
These findings add more nuance to the broader question of how beneficial parents taking a role in their children's math development is.
For literacy—learning to read and write—the evidence is unanimous: parents getting involved in shared literacy activities with their children is beneficial. If parents spend more time engaging in reading books together, telling stories or talking with their children, this has a direct positive impact on children's outcomes.
When it comes to math, though, the picture is more mixed. Research does show that the more parents and children engage in shared math activities, such as counting, playing board games or measuring ingredients for cooking, the more children progress in their early numeracy. But the effect is small, and individual studies may show contradictory results.
And sometimes, parents helping their children with math may actually be linked with their children doing worse in math. Previous research, conducted in the United States, found that when parents were anxious about math, their children learned less math, and had higher math anxiety by the end of the school year if parents were helping them with their homework.
Discover the latest in science, tech, and space with over 100,000 subscribers who rely on Phys.org for daily insights. Sign up for our free newsletter and get updates on breakthroughs, innovations, and research that matter—daily or weekly.
Learning to overcome negative feelings
Our new study adds another piece to this puzzle by further showing that parents may sometimes have a negative influence on their child's math development, even before children go to school.
It is important to keep in mind that parental influence is just one of several factors that relate to children's early mathematics development. Even within the same family, siblings may show big differences in their mathematics skills and confidence. Issues with mathematics may also arise due to other factors, such as dyscalculia, a mathematical learning disability.
Nevertheless, our results suggest that, all other things being equal, parents' feelings about mathematics play a role in children's mathematics development.
For parents concerned about their math anxiety, it is never too late to increase your confidence in math and to learn functional numeracy skills. You can explore adult numeracy classes or take advantage of free online resources to help boost your confidence.
You can also embrace—and help your child adopt—a growth mindset, where you recognize that making mistakes in math is not only okay, but an important part of the learning process.
Even just speaking more positively about math is a good start. Parents who show interest, enthusiasm and encouragement when their children engage with math can make a big difference.
My friend edits law books. She still thinks 2+2=5.
Wonder how much grant money this raked in.
replace “parents” with “elementary teachers” in the article and it would be just as valid - that’s why they teach elementary grades - because they suck at math
maf is racis and shold b not loud. maf is whitey an whitey is maf
My parents were very good at arithmetic but couldn’t help much with algebra and beyond. Still, they encouraged me and my brothers to take a math class and a science class every year of high school. Plus, we had a damn good math teacher.
I’ve watched a few videos lately of people going around to “elite” universities and asking students basic questions. Hardly any of them can tell you how much is 3x3x3 and many can’t even tell you how much is 6x7.
Also most of the "teachers" have no idea how to teach.
They have been doing this for three generations so the parents of student can not help their children because the "new" unnecessarily complicated way they were taught is not the same as the "new, new, new" unnecessarily complicated way their kids are being taught.
If you want your kid to be able to do arithmetic and at some point higher mathematics you are going to need to either get them a tutor who knows how to teach or learn how to do it yourself. The internet has a bunch of free resources. Use them.
Or maybe sucking at math causes anxiety and intelligence has a strong genetic component.
Math is hard.
Barbie?
Smart people can do both. Some people can’t.
But people who aren’t good at math are likely to a) have anxiety about it, and b) have kids with similar challenges.
You are right: They have thoroughly screwed up both reading and math with the common core approach. Was implemented by an Oxford Brit and IMO not accidental.
Yes
So the next question is: how many kids live with their father? IIRC, about 1/4th of white kids don't live with their father, and 2/3rds of black kids don't live with their father.
Fix the fatherless problem and you fix most of today's problems in the home. And to fix the fatherless problem we have to pursue the next great awakening so we can undo the harmful effects of the sexual revolution (to me it's more like devolving, than a revolution). Our church predecessors did it before. The First Great Awakening in some ways was a response to the first sexual revolution in Europe. Likewise before that, the apostle Paul's Biblical letters were written to a Greco-Roman that was about as perverted as our western world is today.
Will us Christians today step up to the plate like our predecessors did?
It was kind of funny because she warned the class in advance and she was obviously embarrassed that she just couldn't coordinate the reverse-direction that happens at the point in the middle. Looking back I wish I would have shown her a 'trick' in that instead of a point you make a loop and then just brush away the loop leaving the point. So, no reversal of movement.
To me, Trig, Calculus, Diff-Eq etc was like learning to speak a foreign language. Practice practice practice. Soon you become conversational then eventually fluent. Physics was my all time favorite class. Math in motion...
It has fomething to do with the teaching of “new math” which students are taught since the 1970a. For example, 23 + 14 is not taught as 37 by memorization first like in the past.
Today, it’s taught through “understanding” that 23 is actually 2 parts of tens and 3 single units. Similarly, 14 consist of 1 part of ten and 4 single units.
So, we need to see that 23+14 means 2 parts of ten plus 1 part of ten. Then 3 units plus 4 units of singles We then have 3 parts of ten (30) and 7 single units, which total 37. Bingo!
The whole concept is ridiculous...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.