Not long ago, when teaching children math, someone mentioned the word math anxiety. Do you know what math anxiety is? Let's have a look.

Mathematics anxiety is a kind of nervous and fearful negative emotion when students face situations related to mathematics. At present, the general view is that math anxiety is related to low math scores.

Mathematics anxiety is a multidimensional structure. From the existing research, there are at least two dimensions: mathematics evaluation anxiety and mathematics learning anxiety. Generally speaking, individuals with higher anxiety level in mathematics learning are usually accompanied by higher anxiety level in mathematics evaluation, while individuals with higher anxiety level in mathematics evaluation may not necessarily have higher anxiety level in mathematics learning. The reasons for the relationship between the two dimensions of math anxiety and low math scores may be different.

The relationship between math learning anxiety and low math scores may be due to students' difficulty in learning math knowledge; The relationship between math evaluation anxiety and low math scores may be due to fear of math exams and excessive worry that they can't cope with math-related situations.

Mathematics evaluation anxiety is more likely to have a negative impact on the process or result of mathematics examination, but it has less impact on the learning process of mathematics knowledge; And mathematics learning anxiety not only affects the process or result of mathematics examination, but also has a negative impact on the learning process of mathematics knowledge, resulting in a vicious circle of students' mathematics learning process.

In addition, parents' math anxiety and children's math anxiety have certain intergenerational transmission effect. Parents' high anxiety and high participation in children's math learning may lead to students' math anxiety, which in turn will affect students' math academic investment and math performance. Therefore, educators should consider whether they have negative academic emotions when participating in children's academic guidance.

Excerpts from: Si Jiwei, Guo Kaiyue, Zhao, Li, Huang Bijuan, Xu. (2022). The potential category changes of primary school children's math anxiety and the intervention effect of parents' education: a three-year follow-up study. Journal of Psychology, Vol.54, No.4, pp.355-370.