| This study examined attitudes of preservice elementary teachers toward mathematics and its teaching and compared attitudes of high and low mathematics-anxious subjects. The literature suggests that many preservice elementary teachers possess high levels of mathematics anxiety, hold negative attitudes toward mathematics and teaching mathematics, and possess poor mathematics ability. Concern has been expressed that these factors will inhibit their students' learning of mathematics and that their mathematics anxiety will be transferred to their students.;Three high mathematics-anxious subjects were redesignated as "neutral" in their mathematics anxiety based on their second MARS scores. The MARS readministration reinforced the other subjects' original designations. The designation of twelve subjects as low and nine as high mathematics-anxious agreed with their own appraisals, supporting the validity of the MARS. The low mathematics-anxious subjects expressed positive attitudes toward mathematics and its teaching and had strong mathematics backgrounds. Most high mathematics-anxious subjects disliked mathematics and preferred not to teach it. Only a few subjects claimed that mathematics influenced their choice of elementary education as a major, and for none of them was it "very much" a factor. None of the subjects claimed to have conveyed to students a negative attitude toward mathematics, and only one subject suggested that she passed on any dislike of mathematics to students.;The Mathematics Anxiety Rating Scale (MARS) was administered to 115 preservice elementary teachers at the University of Pittsburgh in September, 1987. Twelve high and twelve low mathematics-anxious subjects, as measured by the MARS, again completed the MARS in April, 1988, during their last week of student teaching. They also completed questionnaires regarding their attitudes toward mathematics and its teaching. |
