Is mathematics anxiety a factor?: First-year university students provide answers

Abstract

South Africa finds itself with skills shortages in scientifically oriented professions. A major contributor to this has been students’ failure in mathematics. This study set out to identify students who self-reported mathematics anxiety and determine if this was a factor in their studies. Participants were 204 mathematics first-year students registered for degrees in Engineering, Information Technology, and Natural Science. Included in this group were Foundation Year students. Results indicated that the majority of students admitted to higher levels of anxiety. With respect to the different degree programmes, chemistry students reported higher anxiety. Specifically, a negative association was established between performance and mathematics evaluation anxiety. It is concluded that lecturers through investigations such as this can identify and isolate highly anxious mathematics students. Such students may receive remedial psychological help or at least, lecturers may revise their presentation methods to suit these particular students. The study also concluded that there are underlying problems within the teaching and learning of mathematics among the study sample. As is typical of this type of investigation, a number of questions remain unanswered such as what the sources of students’ mathematics anxiety are and how these relate to the variables investigated here. A follow-up study will focus more closely on these issues.

Keywords:

• Mathematics anxiety
• first-year students
• performance
• remedial help