An assessment of inservice elementary teachers' math anxiety and its relationship to teachers' attitudes, both sex-related and not, toward the study and teaching of mathematic

Purpose. The purpose of this study was to determine if inservice public school elementary teachers did indeed suffer from math anxiety and to determine if that math anxiety level was related to (1) teachers' demographics, (2) teachers' mathematics background and attitude toward the subject, (3) teachers' opinions concerning the importance of mathematics for their students, (4) teachers' feelings of enjoyment and confidence in teaching mathematics, and (5) teachers' possible sex bias regarding their expectations for boys' and girls' performance in mathematics and their opinions regarding the sex-related importance of mathematics.;Procedure. Data were obtained from 283 of the 479 elementary teachers in a large midwestern suburban public school district via a mailed questionnaire. The MARS was used to measure the teachers' math anxiety level. Statistical tests used to analyze the data included chi-square tests, two-independent-sample t-tests, one-way analysis of variance, and stepwise multiple regression.;Results. The teachers' math anxiety level was lower and most times significantly lower than the math anxiety level of preservice elementary school teachers studied in the literature. Teachers exhibiting higher math anxiety levels were (1) more apt to be female, (2) more apt to have a lower attitude toward mathematics, (3) less apt to have performed well in mathematics courses, (4) more apt to have completed fewer mathematics courses, (5) more apt to have chosen to teach in the lower grades, (6) less apt to have felt competent in teaching mathematics, and (7) less apt to have been actually engaged in the teaching of mathematics. Math anxiety was not related to the teachers' opinions concerning the importance of mathematics to their students as a field of study; nor was it related to the sex bias exhibited by the teachers regarding performance expectations or the subject's relative sex-related importance.