The relationship among working memory, mathematics anxiety, and mathematics achievement in developmental mathematics courses in community college

Students enrolled in community college often are prevented from achieving an associate's degree or transferring to a four-year college because of mathematics requirements. After completing a placement test for entry into mathematics courses, approximately 70% of community college students are placed into developmental courses designed to remediate mathematics. Only 10% of students who begin at the arithmetic level in community college successfully complete college level courses needed to obtain a degree or transfer. There are many student factors that may contribute to this need for remediation including opportunity to learn, age of the student, ethnicity, learning disability status, and second language status that influence working memory and mathematics achievement. The current study was designed to investigate two factors, working memory and its relationship to mathematics achievement, and mathematics anxiety and its relationship to working memory and mathematics achievement. The sample included 63 students (34 female, 27 male, 2 unreported; mean age 24.58) in two levels of developmental mathematics courses at a Northern California community college. The researcher administered a student questionnaire, Mathematics Anxiety Rating Scale-Abbreviated (MARS), the working memory subtests in the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAISIII) to suggest auditory working memory, and the Calculation and Applied Problems subtests of the Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Achievement-Revised (WJ-R) to measure mathematics achievement. A statistically significant relationship was found between auditory working memory and mathematics achievement (r=.46), a moderate correlation. The relationship between auditory working memory and applied problems was statistically significant (r=.64), a strong correlation. The relationship between auditory working memory and calculation was not statistically significant (r=.09). Mathematics anxiety did not have a statistically significant relationship with either working memory (r=-.17) or mathematics achievement (r=-.26). Future research should investigate strategies for working with students to increase mathematics achievement and successful completion of mathematics competencies. Strategies for decreasing cognitive load for students in developmental mathematics courses in order to more effectively access working memory and increase mathematics achievement are discussed.