The impact of stressful situations on mathematics anxiety and mathematics performance

A majority of college students exhibit feelings of fear and discomfort when put into situations that require the use of mathematics. These students are characterized to be mathematics-anxious and tend to overlook the idea that one can gain many benefits from learning the subject. Researchers have argued that the underlying force driving the learning in mathematics classrooms can be attributed to the many facets of pressure and stress influencing curriculum, which directly affect students' performance and attitudes. Research shows that as mathematics anxiety increases, mathematics performance decreases. The effects of mathematics anxiety and poor performance from high-stress situations extend beyond students' classroom achievement and can place limitations on their future with respect to college course choices and career paths.;The purpose of this study was to examine how stressful situations and feelings of pressure affected the performance of mathematics-anxious students compared to students with little or no mathematics anxiety. The study focused on 28 undergraduate students pursuing non-mathematics-related majors who were selected to participate based on their scores on an abbreviated version of the Mathematics Anxiety Rating Scale (A-MARS). Through the use of questionnaires, problem sets on a novel mathematics task in stressful settings, and interviews with each participant, factors contributing to their mathematics anxiety were studied, their performance on the novel mathematics task was analyzed, and the accounts of each participant's experiences in completing the task were interpreted.;Participants attributed teacher attitude, poor instruction, failure, and school tracking to initiating their mathematics anxieties. The performance results for both non-mathematics-anxious participants and highly mathematics-anxious subjects revealed that the mathematics-anxious participants did worse on the novel mathematics task than those without mathematics anxiety. Their errors indicated that their mistakes were mainly computational, not conceptual. Interviews with each participant revealed common themes in their completion of the activities of the novel mathematics task. Participants mentioned the pressure to provide accurate answers, time constraints, fear of computations, and low self-confidence as some of the main sources that provoked feelings of anxiety while completing the mathematics task.