Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: This article explains the importance and necessity of overcoming students' mathematical anxiety, identifying its main causes, and analyzing its impact on students' mathematical performance. Mathematical anxiety in students is not innate; it can manifest on emotional, cognitive, and physiological levels, leading to decreased motivation to learn, reduced reading speed, lower academic performance, and diminished working memory capacity during mathematical tasks, which can result in forgetting mathematical content and making calculation errors. Additionally, the presence of mathematical anxiety symptoms influences students' career choices, leading them to avoid professions in science, technology, and engineering fields. The aim of this study is to analyze, summarize, and systematize theoretical research on mathematical anxiety and describe experiences in overcoming it. Our research involved surveying 457 students from Kyiv, Vinnytsia, and Ivano-Frankivsk regions, revealing that more than one-third of the students exhibit signs of test anxiety. Based on research from the Ukrainian scientific and pedagogical community, we have developed a practical toolkit for mathematics teachers titled "Successful Lessons Without Stress." When designing their lessons, mathematics teachers can quickly select methods and techniques for each stage of the lesson, depending on the identified tasks, that can help mitigate signs of mathematical anxiety in students. To overcome mathematical anxiety and consequently improve students' mathematical performance, it is important to foster positive attitudes towards mathematics, support students' confidence, practice interactive teaching methods to stimulate interest and reduce anxiety, encourage collaboration and communication, and implement differentiated and student-centered learning by selecting tasks and techniques that meet individual student needs.
Language: English
Subfield: Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W4405813193