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Math anxiety and contemplative practices in post-secondary contexts

University of British Columbia

Over fifty years ago, it was recognized that certain individuals became anxious when engaging in the practice of mathematics. Known as ‘math anxiety’, research indicates that: 1. Math anxiety affects math performance. The greater the anxiety, the lower the score in the math-related course. 2. Math anxiety leads to math avoidance. Students with math anxiety deny themselves a future in math-related careers, simply by avoiding subjects and jobs which use or include mathematics. This study examined the impact of introducing contemplative practices to post-secondary students taking mandatory first year math courses. Using a case study, the goal was to investigate whether contemplative practices decreased math anxiety. The evidence-based contemplative practices were practiced over one semester, during math courses and as part of the participants’ personal practice. The triangulation of field notes, observations, a focus group discussion, and the semi-structured interviews identified the sources of self-perceived math anxiety and investigated the use of contemplative practices as viable interventions to reduce math anxiety. Results indicated that, within this local and place-based context, contemplative practices can be used by first-year math students to alleviate math anxiety and to support future coursework in mathematics or STEM-related fields to attain greater satisfaction and success in their lives.

Text

2020-04-21

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/74080

Education

University of British Columbia

UBCO

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/