According to research (Chinn, 2008) extreme maths
anxiety affects four percent of secondary school
children. This means that more than four percent
experience at least some anxiety when encountering
maths. With a condition this common amongst
children between the ages of eleven and eighteen,
studies into the treatment and prevention of maths
anxiety are vital.
Current research in psychology models phobias
through classical and operant conditioning.
Classical conditioning, also known as Pavlovian
conditioning, is where a conditioned stimulus
that naturally produces a conditioned response, is
paired with an unconditioned stimulus so that the
unconditioned stimulus will start to produce the
conditioned response. In this specific case, maths,
the unconditioned stimulus, would be associated
with negative experiences in the classroom or failure
leading to a fear response.
Operant conditioning is derived of positive and
negative reinforcement. Part of this is punishment,
where encountering the stimulus leads to a negative
response. Therefore, every time an individual with
maths anxiety encounters a situation involving
numbers, the fear causes them to struggle and likely
fail, thereby reinforcing the anxiety.
By understanding the uptake and retention of maths
anxiety we can seek out methods for treatment. From
this understanding, phobias may be treated through
encountering the stimulus in positive conditions; for
example, a fear of dogs can be treated by handling
them in safe, controlled conditions. Maths anxiety is
different to phobias as it happens in a social context,
which means that it may be met daily.
In psychology, operant and classical conditioning
are used in behaviourist psychology, a method
which observes individuals as a series of inputs and
outputs avoiding the difficult to measure internal
processes. This method neglects the personal side of
a condition, which is important as maths anxiety is
an emotional issue to those who have it. To provide
a little understanding into how maths anxiety affects
individuals the quotes, below, highlight specific
difficulties encountered (Curtain-Phillips, 2016)
“When I look at a maths problem, my mind goes
completely blank. I feel stupid, and I can’t remember
how to do the simplest things.”
“I’ve never been successful in any maths class I’ve
ever taken. I never understand what the teacher is
saying, so my mind just wanders.” (Emphasis added.)
The origin of this fear of mathematics can be
attributed to knowledge chasms. Individuals naturally
prefer to learn about a topic of which they have
previous knowledge (Hattie and Yates, 2014),
therefore areas in which knowledge is lacking are
avoided. This leads to a greater gap in knowledge of
the topic.
When an individual to misses a topic in maths, it
will lead to a compounding difficulty understanding
higher mathematics, further leading to an avoidance
of the subject. As mathematics is a linear subject,
where learning the previous skills are necessary for
progression to the next topic, any knowledge chasm
will cause difficulties at a much greater rate than
other subjects. Being in a school environment it is
extremely difficult to physically avoid maths, and
this desire to avoid maths leads to finding a different
approach such as rote memorisation. While this has
a short-term benefit, rote memorisation may be
problematic in the long term.
Rote learning (Skemp, 1971) is the memorisation of
information in place of its understanding. Therefore,
by memorising the facts about core concepts in
place of gaining true understanding (for example
memorising the ten times tables) would not allow
an individual to figure out that eleven multiplied by
seven is seventy-seven. Whereas, an individual who
understood the rules of multiplication would be able
to calculate that seven multiplied by ten is seventy,
and then by adding seven to get seven multiplied by
eleven.
Article #6
43