Math Anxiety Differences in Gender and Majors - Research Paper Example

Math Anxiety Differences in Gender and Majors California Fullerton Math Anxiety Differences in Gender and Majors Currently, Mathematics is an essential subject. An achievement in mathematics, gives an individual an upper hand in acquiring a job than those who may have failed in this subject. However, many individuals have poor performance in mathematics because they are anxious when tackling mathematic problems. Many scholars have tried to explain what math anxiety is. According to Ashcraft and Moore (2009), mathematics anxiety is a negative attitude acquired when someone reacts to math situations such as math calculations or any number involving matters. Another study conducted by Baloglu and Kocak (2005) found Math anxiety as a condition in which individuals experience negative effect when engaging in tasks that demand numerical and mathematical skills. Therefore, math anxiety can be described as a negative attitude towards mathematics and calculations of any kind. A larger number of studies have supported that different gender, experience different levels of math anxiety. Two studies found that women tend to experience more anxiety than men (Bowd & Brady, 2003; Maloney et al., 2012). One study further says that math anxiety is negatively related to spatial processing ability, therefore, women on average have poorer spatial skills than men and are more likely to develop math anxiety (Maloney et al., 2012). On the other hand, a research found that men tend to be more anxious when dealing with basic mathematics such as division and multiplication than women (Balogu & Kocak, 2006). The difference can be examined in methodology of studies. While Balogu and Kocak (2006) used MARS-R and demographic information sheet to collect data, the other two studies used a different material to measure math anxiety. Researchers have conducted several studies to find out the relationship between age and math anxiety; as the results, math anxiety in general score tends to be at a higher level in older students group compared to younger students group (Jameson & Fusco, 2014; Balogu & Kocak, 2006). A study supported that the older students get the lower self-efficacy associated with higher math anxiety (Jameson & Fusco, 2014). However, when it comes to analyzing the factors of math anxiety such as numerical task anxiety, the oldest student group tends to have lower anxiety than the youngest student group (Balogu & Kocak, 2006). The difference between two studies’ results may come from the method of measurement, such that Balogu and Kocak (2006) conducted their study with three different age groups while Jameson and Fusco (2014) classified their participants into two age groups only. Mathematic anxiety also associates with majors and GPA. Some previous study found that people who have higher math anxiety are more likely to end up in non-math-related majors, and their GPAs are also lower than the one who have lower math anxiety (Ashcraft & Moore, 2009; Balogu & Kocak, 2006). Individuals who experience anxiety in mathematics usually try to avoid college majors that require mathematics. They also avoid elective math coursework and even go further to avoiding career paths that involve math (Ashcraft & Moore, 2009). Both studies agreed that students of elementary education majors have highest level of math anxiety compared to students in other majors, especially to Math and Science majors (Ashcraft & Moore, 2009; Balogu & Kocak, 2006). To reconfirm all the previous predictions about relationship between gender, age, majors and GPA with mathematic anxiety, the purpose of the present study was to explore the new finding whether it will support the past research’s finding. Based on previous studies (Bowd & Brady, 2003; Maloney et al., 2012), this study expects that women will be more likely to experience math anxiety at higher level than men will. It is also hypothesized that older people will have more anxious than younger people when confronting with mathematic situation (Jameson & Fusco, 2014; Balogu & Kocak, 2006). In addition, past research suggested that students in Math and Science majors or with higher GPAs tended to have lower math anxiety than those students in social majors or with lower GPAs; this study will investigate whether a relationship between these majors or GPA variables with math anxiety exists. The current study will test the hypothesis by using MARS-R and demographic information sheet to collect data from a new sample that cover for all necessary variables within the study. Method Participants The study was conducted by analyzing data from a total of 217 college students enrolled in community colleges or universities in Southern California. Participants’ ages ranged from 17 to 55 years with a mean of 21.5 years. From this population, 70 were male, while 147 were female. In terms of ethnicity, Hispanic were 41.9 %, Euro-American were 28.1%, Asian-American were 17.1%, Mixed were 8.3%, African American were 1.4%, Pacific Islander were 1.4%, while others were 1.8%. The participants were recruited from different courses offered in the college including Math and Science majors (32.7%), Child and Adolescent Development majors (29.5%), and Humanities & social sciences majors (37.8%). The GPA of the students ranged from 1.75 to 4.00 with a mean of 3.15. Type of sampling in this study was haphazard – a nonprobability sampling - due to researchers used convenient sampling methods to select participants. Materials Informed consent statement included name and signature of participants who acknowledged that they could take part in the survey of this research or withdraw at any time. In the content, they were informed the purpose of the assignment, the anonymous confidential status of data, and procedure of answering the survey questions. The Math Anxiety Rating Scale – Revised (MARS-R, Alexander & Martray, 1989) and a demographic information sheet were used to collect data in the present study. This (MARS-R) assesses math anxiety of students in academic situations. It is a 25-item Likert-type scale (0 = not at all, 4 = very much) that requires participants to rate the different specific item in terms of how anxious they would be during mathematical events. The MARS-R (Alexander & Martray, 1989) has been found that past studies typically report reliabilities greater than .80. Procedures Researchers contacted their friends enrolled in a college or a university in Southern California for helping them participate in the survey research. Participants were described the purpose and method of the study. After providing informed consents, the survey packets were given to participants to complete in approximately 10 min. Then, the answers of survey questions and informed consents were sealed in envelope for confidentiality. After completing the survey, participants were debriefed at that time. Researchers provided additional resources that participants could give their feedbacks about the study, interview conducted, and the surrounding survey process. Results Several analyses were used to investigate the effect of participant variables such as age, gender, GPA, and major on math anxiety. First, intercorrelations among age, GPA, and two math anxiety measures were calculated to explore relationships (see Table 1). Correlation results indicate three significant results. There was a small and significant negative relationship between GPA and MARS-R Total, r = -.22, p = < .01. Higher GPA was associated with lower math anxiety score. Moreover, GPA also had a small and significant negative relationship with math anxious rating, r = -.23, p = < .01. Participants who had higher GPAs had lower math anxious rating. In addition, there was a large and significant positive relationship between MARS-R Total and math anxious rating, r = .77, p = < .01. However, there was no significant correlation between age and any of the variables. To explore differences in math anxiety between males and females, a t-test was conducted. In terms of the MARS-R total scores, female students (M = 46.97, SD = 20.3) were found to have significantly higher math anxiety than male students (M = 37.59, SD = 21.9), t(215)= -3.10, p < .01. Finally, differences in the total MARS-R scores based on the students’ majors were investigated. One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) indicated a significant difference, F(2,213) = 10.27, p < .01. Tukey’s HSD post hoc analyses showed that the only significant difference was between the Math and Science majors and the other two major classifications. Math and Science majors (M = 35.70) had significantly lower math anxiety compared to the Child and Adolescent Studies (M = 44.89) and Humanities and Social Science (M = 50.67) majors. There was no significant difference between the Child and Adolescent majors and Humanities and Social Science majors. Discussion The study to identify the correlation between math anxiety in male and female was significantly established. Women showed a higher math anxiety than men. This study is in line with other previous studies such as the study of Bowd and Brady (2003), and Maloney et al. (2012). Although this study did not examine the reasons of math anxiety’s differences between males and females, many past research offered the explanation. A significant gender difference was understood when perception of experience with math in school was taken into account. Men indicated that they enjoyed studying math in high school while women scored low in this section. In terms of belief and perceptions, men perceived math useful and practical while women think that math has little use in their life (Bowd & Brady, 2003). Moreover, the significant relationship between gender and math anxiety could explain by the previous study undertaken by Maloney et al. (2012) who had established that women on average had poorer spatial skills than men and were more likely to develop math anxiety. On the other hand, this study could not confirm the relationship between gender and some particular factors of math anxiety like numerical task anxiety, or math test while Baloglu and Kocak (2006) suggested that men expressed a high numerical task anxiety than their female counterpart, and females scored a higher math test anxiety than males. The reason of different findings between current study and Baloglu and Kocak (2006) research might be due to the reason that this study did not collect data about math anxiety as multivariate as the past research did. Age was the only one variable in this study that researchers were not able to identify any significant relationship with math anxiety. In contrast, the studies conducted by Jameson and Fusco (2014), and Baloglu and Kocak (2005) both have the same conclusion that ages significant related to math anxiety. They found that the older student have higher math anxiety than their younger counterparts. The difference in findings between the current study and past research may be due to the reason that this study did not make different age groups while previous studies grouped their sample into different ages. This study was also able to establish that student with high math anxiety tend to major in courses that involve less mathematics and calculations. This study, therefore, agrees with past studies findings (Baloglu & Kocak, 2006; Ashcraft & Moore, 2009) that students with less math anxiety were associated with more involvement in math courses. On the other hand, current study found that there was no significant difference between the Child Adolescent Studies majors and Humanities and Social Science majors in math anxiety, but past research reported that elementary education is the college major with the highest level of math anxiety (Ashcraft & Moore, 2009). The difference in findings between the current study and the past research may be due to the difference in dimension of collecting data. This study conducted research on whole Child and Adolescent Development majors instead of Elementary Education majors particularly as the past research. In addition, the relationship between GPA and math anxiety found that students with higher GPA appeared to be less math anxiety than who with lower GPA did. This finding was not supported by past research because not any previous study focused on students’ GPA in relationship with math anxiety. Except Ashcraft and Moore (2009), somehow their finding might slightly relate to GPA when they provided that student with higher score on mathematic achievement test was associated with lower score on math anxiety. However, the association between math achievement score and GPA was not clear, so it was not able to say that the past research finding back up the current study’s results. Overall, this study found evidence for gender and major differences in math anxiety. Females had significantly higher math anxiety than did males, and math majors indicated significantly less math anxiety than child adolescent development and humanity majors. Additionally, GPA appeared to be significantly related to math anxiety, such that lower GPAs correlated with higher math anxiety. The findings of this study imply that mathematic teachers should pay more attention to female students to the fact that they might experience higher math anxiety than male students. Many appropriate teaching approach and anxiety reduction techniques might work for female students to deal with math anxiety accordingly. Furthermore, the results of this study also warning that the long-term effect of math anxiety may affect the balance of society’s reliance. Due to individuals who experience anxiety in mathematics usually try to avoid college majors that require mathematics, avoid elective math coursework and even go further to avoiding career paths that involve math; society may have to rely on math-related science training like STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) (Ashcraft and Moore, 2009). Therefore, it is necessary to prevent math anxiety, especially for students with non-math-related majors by any effective way. During the course of this study, certain limitations are encountered. One potential problem is that many researchers were involved in collecting the data. The problem can arise from researchers who directly conducted the interviews, called interviewer bias which the fact that interviewer is a unique human being interacting with another human. For instance, an interviewer may have expectation that a male participant will have low math anxiety, so when interviewing men, that expectation could lead the interviewer to probe further for an answer from not-at-all level of math anxiety but not from much or very-much level for men. That might influence the way respondents answer. Another limitation of this study may due to the type of sampling - haphazard - a nonprobability sampling. Collected data from this type of sampling may limit in external validity of the study because some samples may be more or less generalizable. For example, a researcher may approach a participant who has psychological depress. He or she may always have anxiety not only in mathematic matter but also in other his or her personal problems. Therefore, the conclusion that this participant got math anxiety depending on other variable such as gender may not be accurate to apply to the population. Mathematic anxiety is not constructed by a single factor, but it is a multivariate experience. Further study should be done to establish the trend of math anxiety on people based on multidimensionality of the math construct. It is believed that there are more complex in differences of math anxiety when many other factors of math were taken into account (Baloglu & Kocak, 2006). To create a whole picture of math anxiety with multidimensionality, further research would help to reduce the higher chances of the math anxiety recurrence from multi direction. Additionally, further study should explore the compounded effects of many variables on math anxiety (Jameson & Fusco, 2014); for example, gender and majors may interact to affect to math anxiety. Therefore, female students of Child and Adolescent Development majors may experience the double effects of two variables to have higher math anxiety; in fact, elementary school teacher globally are women. The interaction of gender and majors on math anxiety is unclear, and future research will be helpful to verify this relationship. References Ashcraft M. H., & Moore A.M. (2009). Mathematics anxiety and the affective drop in performance. Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment, 27(3), 197-205. doi: 10.1177/0734282908330580 Baloglu M., & Kocak R. (2005). A multivariate investigation of the differences in mathematics anxiety. Personality and Individual Differences, 40, 1325-1335. doi: 10.1016/j.paid.2005.10.009 Bowd A. D., & Brady P. H. (2003). Gender differences in mathematic anxiety among preservice teachers and perceptions of their elementary and secondary school experience with mathematics. The Alberta Journal of Educational Research, 49(1), 24-36. Jameson, M. M., & Fusco, B. R. (2014). Math anxiety, math self-concept, and math self-efficacy in adult learners compared to traditional undergraduate students. Adult Education Quarterly, 64(4) 306-322. Maloney, E. A., Waechter, S., Risko, E. F., & Fugelsang, J. A. (2012). Reducing the sex difference in math anxiety: The role of spatial processing ability, Learning and Individual Difference, 22, 380-384. doi: 10.1016/j.lindif.2012.01.001 Appendix Table 1 Intercorrelations among Variables Variable 1 2 3 4 1. MARS-R Total 1 2. GPA -.22* 1 3. Math Anxious Rating .77* -.23* 1 4. Age .01 -.00 .09 1 *p < .01 Read More