Background
The average person on the street may not have heard of the term ‘Maths Anxiety’, but it is likely they or someone they know will have suffered from it. However, maths anxiety is not always obvious, and can go unrecognised. It can manifest itself as anger, frustration, avoidance, poor behaviour, under-attainment and helplessness. It affects children through to the elderly, presenting in homes, classrooms and workplaces.
Research Project
I have been conducting a research project, the aim of which is to develop mathematical resilience in the context of mathematics learning. Maths resilience is about a ‘can-do’ positive attitude. It recognizes that it takes time and patience to understand a new concept and to practice it. Overcoming emotional barriers to learning mathematics is the key element in this approach.
A group of my learners were trained to use a set of strategies (the Toolkit) for emotional self-regulation and self-safeguarding, and by that acquire a greater autonomy and control for protecting themselves against fear and agitation.
The Toolkit
The three tools of the Toolkit are: the Hand Model of the Brain (HMB; Siegel, 2010), the Relaxation Response (RR; Benson, 2000) and the Growth Zone Model (GZM; Johnston-Wilder et al., 2013).
The HMB helps learners to understand why they may feel “stupid” when faced with a perceived threat; the RR enables learners to recover from threat and return to a calmer state; and the GZM enables learners and teachers to develop an easily accessible shared language to raise awareness of and communicate emotions.
Results
The participants were assessed for maths anxiety using questionnaires during their induction week ("Math Anxiety Scale" (Betz, 1978) and "Mathematics Resilience Scale" (Kooken et al, 2013)) and received some maths anxiety coaching before they started maths lessons. After the first phase of six weeks the learners were re-assessed using the same anxiety measuring questionnaires.
The results were really positive and showed that 62% (5 out of 8) reported significantly reduced levels of stress and increased levels of confidence and positivity towards maths.
References
Benson, H. (2000). Relaxation Response. HarperCollins
Betz, N. E. (1978). Prevalence, distribution, and correlates of math anxiety in college students. Journal of Counseling Psychology, Vol 25(5), 441-448. doi: 10.1037/0022-0167.25.5.441
Kooken, J., Welsh, M., McCoach, D., Johnston-Wilder, S., Lee, C. (2013). Measuring Mathematical Resilience: An application of the construct of resilience to the study of mathematics. Paper presented at national conference of the American Educational Research Association, San Francisco, CA.
Johnston-Wilder, S., Lee, C., Garton, E., Goodlad, S., & Brindley, J. (2013). Developing Coaches for Mathematical Resilience. In 6th International Conference of Education, Research and Innovation (pp. 2326-2333). Seville: IATED
Siegel, D. (2010). Mindsight: Transform Your Brain with the New Science of Kindness. Oneworld Publications