In the case of maths, rote memorisation is more
common due to the repetition used to reinforce
concepts, such as how teachers provide students
with exercises of twenty or thirty cases of a concept
to do as an activity in a lesson. Unlike the old adage
“practice makes perfect” with our knowledge of
the workings of rote memorisation “practice makes
permanent” is more applicable if the concept was
not taught to a level sufficient enough to allow
understanding, then rote memorisation will be the
method used to solve the exercises.
When dealing with matters of anxiety, it is important
to consider the alternate view of confidence. In a
study involving just short of 600 secondary schools,
pupils’ level of confidence was a better predictor
of their future achievement than general level of
academic ability (Stankov et al, 2014). This indicates
that it is more important to instil self-confidence in
pupils’ mathematical abilities. Despite knowing this,
it is difficult to impart students with self-confidence
with maths, without them achieving some success in
the area.
Confidence has also been shown as a characteristic
of those who are successful in maths. Borovik and
Gardiner (2007) studied the characteristics of those
gifted in maths, which is important to consider when
attempting to improve the mathematical mindset of
those who struggle in the field, noting that those who
were “gifted” had both the ability to understand and
know a fact for certain and were not afraid of getting
lost when dealing with a problem. These observations
both support the need to ensure self-confidence in
young individuals when dealing with mathematics
from as early an age as possible.
The Maths Show (Ufuktepe and Ozel, 2002) was
a performance based around mathematicians in a
historical context, with activities and music designed
to get children interested in mathematics. It was
designed as a method to encourage mathematical
skills in primary school children in large quantities.
After analysing data from five hundred pupils who
watched the performance, they found it to be an
effective method for preventing maths anxiety, as well
as showing teachers new methods to teach children
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with different learning styles.
Other methods include improving the classroom
environment and providing both intrinsic and
extrinsic rewards to maintain students’ motivation
when learning to prevent apathy regarding the
subject of maths (Kyriacou, 2014). While extrinsic
motivation, such as rewarding good results with
sweets, is a much easier method to motivate young
children, intrinsic motivation is noted to be more
effective. Nevertheless, ensuring children appreciate
the value of mathematics is difficult, as higher-level
mathematics tends to not appear to have purpose in
many fields of work. However, by displaying the value
of the foundations of mathematics in everyday life,
such as shopping and banking, an individual may be
interested and motivated to learn higher level maths
for pleasure.
While these treatments are designed as a pre-emptive
measure for preventing the onset of maths anxiety,
it is important to note that it may likely still occur in
a number of individuals, therefore a true treatment
must be designed. Treating phobias, typically using
systematic desensitisation, involves first creating
levels of proximity to the phobic stimulus such as for
arachnophobia first seeing pictures of a spider then
seeing a spider in a cage; working up to holding a
spider. Before these actions are gradually performed
by the individual with the phobia, they are taught
relaxation exercises to control their anxiety. By
completing these stages over time, the participant’s
anxiety is reduced treating their phobia. Whilst this
method could be applied to maths anxiety, it has
the fundamental issue of the time it takes to treat
the condition, which would likely have side effects
negating the technique’s effectiveness. Over the time
period to perform the therapy, the individual would
likely have to be removed from maths lessons to allow
for the gradual increase in proximity to the phobia
stimulus the treatment requires. This would cause the
individual to miss sufficient maths lessons to likely
form a gap in knowledge, leading to the formation of
the previously discussed knowledge chasms. While
the principal ideas of systematic desensitisation may
be found to help develop new methods for treating
existing maths anxiety in young individuals, it cannot