Loading…

Not all elementary school teachers are scared of math

Teachers are strong role models for their pupils, especially at the beginning of education. This also holds true for math: If teachers feel anxious about math, the consequences on the mathematical education of their pupils is detrimental. Previous studies have shown that (future) elementary school t...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Christina Artemenko, Nicolas Masson, Carrie Georges, Hans-Christoph Nuerk, Krzysztof Cipora
Format: Default Article
Published: 2021
Subjects:
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/2134/13050089.v1
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1818166220353961984
author Christina Artemenko
Nicolas Masson
Carrie Georges
Hans-Christoph Nuerk
Krzysztof Cipora
author_facet Christina Artemenko
Nicolas Masson
Carrie Georges
Hans-Christoph Nuerk
Krzysztof Cipora
author_sort Christina Artemenko (4949404)
collection Figshare
description Teachers are strong role models for their pupils, especially at the beginning of education. This also holds true for math: If teachers feel anxious about math, the consequences on the mathematical education of their pupils is detrimental. Previous studies have shown that (future) elementary school teachers have higher levels of math anxiety than most people studying other subjects. Here, we set out to conceptually replicate these findings (e.g., meta-analysis by Hembree, 1990) by comparing math anxiety levels of pre-service and in-service German and Belgian elementary school teachers to a reference group of German university students from various fields of study. Moreover, we questioned this finding by asking which elementary school teachers experience math anxiety, considering gender, specialization, and experience, and investigated how math anxiety relates to teaching attitudes towards math. We replicated the previous finding by showing that female elementary school teachers have a higher level of math anxiety as compared to other female students. Importantly, female elementary school teachers without math specialization indeed had higher levels of math anxiety than female students from other fields and almost a quarter of them experience critical math anxiety. In contrast, female elementary school teachers with math specialization did not show an increased level of math anxiety as compared to the reference sample. Considering that not only these but all teachers, regardless of specialization, teach math in elementary school in the investigated educational systems, the math anxiety of elementary school teachers is a potential problem for their pupils’ math attitudes and learning.
format Default
Article
id rr-article-13050089
institution Loughborough University
publishDate 2021
record_format Figshare
spelling rr-article-130500892021-11-30T00:00:00Z Not all elementary school teachers are scared of math Christina Artemenko (4949404) Nicolas Masson (8614539) Carrie Georges (9459893) Hans-Christoph Nuerk (288454) Krzysztof Cipora (8518020) replication teacher education elementary school teachers math anxiety Teachers are strong role models for their pupils, especially at the beginning of education. This also holds true for math: If teachers feel anxious about math, the consequences on the mathematical education of their pupils is detrimental. Previous studies have shown that (future) elementary school teachers have higher levels of math anxiety than most people studying other subjects. Here, we set out to conceptually replicate these findings (e.g., meta-analysis by Hembree, 1990) by comparing math anxiety levels of pre-service and in-service German and Belgian elementary school teachers to a reference group of German university students from various fields of study. Moreover, we questioned this finding by asking which elementary school teachers experience math anxiety, considering gender, specialization, and experience, and investigated how math anxiety relates to teaching attitudes towards math. We replicated the previous finding by showing that female elementary school teachers have a higher level of math anxiety as compared to other female students. Importantly, female elementary school teachers without math specialization indeed had higher levels of math anxiety than female students from other fields and almost a quarter of them experience critical math anxiety. In contrast, female elementary school teachers with math specialization did not show an increased level of math anxiety as compared to the reference sample. Considering that not only these but all teachers, regardless of specialization, teach math in elementary school in the investigated educational systems, the math anxiety of elementary school teachers is a potential problem for their pupils’ math attitudes and learning. 2021-11-30T00:00:00Z Text Journal contribution 2134/13050089.v1 https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/Not_all_elementary_school_teachers_are_scared_of_math/13050089 CC BY 4.0
spellingShingle replication
teacher education
elementary school teachers
math anxiety
Christina Artemenko
Nicolas Masson
Carrie Georges
Hans-Christoph Nuerk
Krzysztof Cipora
Not all elementary school teachers are scared of math
title Not all elementary school teachers are scared of math
title_full Not all elementary school teachers are scared of math
title_fullStr Not all elementary school teachers are scared of math
title_full_unstemmed Not all elementary school teachers are scared of math
title_short Not all elementary school teachers are scared of math
title_sort not all elementary school teachers are scared of math
topic replication
teacher education
elementary school teachers
math anxiety
url https://hdl.handle.net/2134/13050089.v1