Math anxiety drives young people away from mathematics

Math anxiety can lead young people to avoid the subject and rule out some university courses, ERR reports, as Estonia’s third nationwide online mathematics exercise begins on Thursday.

The e-rehkendus starts at 10 a.m. and will be open throughout the day. One of this year’s focuses is mathematics anxiety: the tension, fear and discomfort people may feel when learning maths, solving problems or facing situations in everyday life that require it.

Research by Estonian scientists shows that young people with high mathematics anxiety are likely to achieve lower results in the subject. School psychologist and Tallinn University lecturer Triinu Kilp-Kabel said the problem often emerges in the second and third stages of school, and is mainly triggered by negative experiences with mathematics.

Those experiences can include hearing that maths is difficult and not everyone can master it, or struggling with a particular topic, she said. Kilp-Kabel recalled missing several weeks of school in the early grades and returning to find that her class had covered a difficult subject. She received her first poor result, an experience she said could be frightening for a child. Encouragement from teachers can help pupils overcome such setbacks.

Getriin Aaviste, a mathematics teacher at Jaan Poska Gymnasium, said teachers and parents may overlook the possibility that a child can experience negative feelings about the subject even while getting good grades.

Mathematics skills can affect young people’s career and university choices, Aaviste said. Students with maths anxiety may avoid certain university subjects because they fear the mathematics involved.

Cathy-Liis Põlluveer, president of the Estonian Association of Engineers, said mathematics teaching has become somewhat disconnected from problems encountered in real life. Young people may struggle to see how formulas could help them, for example, analyse answers from artificial intelligence, she said. As education systems and teaching methods change slowly while the world develops quickly, mathematics can feel increasingly unfamiliar to pupils.

Põlluveer said some young people choose a narrow mathematics course because they believe they will not need the subject if they do not plan to study science or technology. She called that a mistaken view, saying mathematics is needed in every field, including the humanities and the arts.