Mathematics anxiety in fourth, fifth, and sixth grade students: Origins and correlates

The purpose of this study was to extend current knowledge of elementary and middle school students' anxiety in learning mathematics. Its goal was to explore more fully than in earlier research such factors as the age at which children become anxious about mathematics, the level of severity of mathematics anxiety, and reasons for the development of mathematics anxiety in grade school students.;Part I of this study involved the administration of the Mathematics Anxiety Rating Scale, Elementary Form (MARS-E) to 600 fourth, fifth, and sixth grade mathematics students enrolled in three schools of a school district in suburban Philadelphia. Females exhibited greater levels of mathematics anxiety than males; while statistically significant, the difference was not large. Mathematics anxiety was significantly correlated to both the student's liking for mathematics, as measured from 1 (I love it.) to 5 (I hate it.) (r =.43), and the student's self-perception of how good he or she was at mathematics, as measured from 1 (extremely good at it) to 5 (extremely bad at it) (r =.52). Thus, the better a student liked and considered himself or herself good at mathematics, the lower his or her level of mathematics anxiety.;Part II, a series of case studies, consisted of 24 individual interviews with students who had high scores on the MARS-E, four males and four females from each of the three grades. Students reported that their mathematics anxiety began early. A third of the students interviewed began to feel anxiety in the first three grades of school, with 25% indicating that they knew even in the first grade that mathematics was going to be difficult. For another 25%, anxiety developed in the fifth or sixth grades. Students listed as major causes for mathematics anxiety (a) taking tests, (b) lack of time, for testing, for explanation, or for assimilating new material, (c) fear of embarrassment or exposure, and (d) parents or teachers' comments and actions.