Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION

Rationale

Mathematical apprehensiveness is an anxiety. Anxiety, on the other hand,

can be an advantage or disadvantage for those who are experiencing it having its

multifaceted nature. Mathematical apprehensiveness is often considered an

extreme anxiety caused by having a negative impression brought by a bad

experience. Studies reveal that fifty percent of all students in a mathematics

class suffer different kinds of forms of this anxiety. A student must learn to

manage the anxiety at the same time improving their mathematical skills in order

to manage this behavior (Alday & Panaligan, 2013).

Math-phobia is a widespread problem faced by South Africa in many

schools and tertiary which is an extreme fear of mathematics. Wherein, anxiety is

one of such components. A solid foundation in basic mathematics have never

been really developed by most of the students as South Africa lags behind in

mathematics education. Because math is an accumulative discipline, a student

who has not developed a solid and basic math foundation will have trouble

learning higher mathematical order. Research shows that most of the students

have difficulties in learning and have low performances in mathematics. The

anxiety that an individual may have towards mathematics is one of the accredited

reasons (Mutodi & Ngirande , 2014).

In the Philippines, many students who suffer from mathematics anxiety

have low self-esteem in their mathematical skills which lead to take the minimum

number of required mathematics courses which has greatly limited their career
choice option. It is a common fact that most of the college students tend to

choose courses on the basis that the particular course has less mathematics

subjects and that the students tend to consider that mathematics is a very hard

subject (Alday & Panaligan, 2013).

Math anxiety is a factor that influence the mathematical learning ability of

the second-year students of Davao City National High School (DCNHS) during

the school year 2007-2008. Findings show poor to below average mathematical

learning ability of the students. Pearson product-moment correlation reveal that

there is no significant relationship between the mathematical learning ability of

the students and the level of attitudes of teachers in teaching math; and that of

attitudes of parents in support of the learning of the students. However, there is a

significant relationship between the mathematical learning ability of students and

students’ attitudes in learning the subject in terms of confidence, interest, anxiety

and motivation (Agcopra, 2009).

The studies above recognize mathematical apprehensiveness as a

significant factor that influences the academic performance and mathematical

learning ability of a person. It was also able to determine mathematical

apprehensiveness as a reason why college students tend to take courses with a

minimum number of mathematics subject. However, the studies have not been

able to determine how come STEM senior high school students have

mathematical apprehensiveness. It had not fully examined the realities of

mathematical apprehensiveness, on what make senior high school students of

STEM strand experience mathematical apprehensiveness even though it is one

of their major subjects. In this study, we investigated mathematical

apprehensiveness phenomenologically and psychologically using the

respondents lived experiences.

Research Questions

The research questions of the study were presented here under to serve

as the formulation of the interview questionnaire:

1. What are your lived experiences of mathematical apprehensiveness as a

STEM senior high school student?

2. What are the coping mechanisms of STEM senior high school students

with their mathematical apprehensiveness?

3. What are your insights about mathematical apprehensiveness?

Theoretical Lens

This study was anchored in the proposition of Freudenthal (1983) which

stated that mathematical concepts, structures and ideas have been invented as

tools to organize the phenomena of the physical, social and mental world. This

statement prompts with optimistic interpretation of the power of mathematical

mindset for solving individual and social problems, while conceiving of the

mathematical tools themselves as culture-free. It gives rise to a conception of

numerical literacy in terms of the ability to analyze reason and communicate

ideas and results by posing and solving mathematical problems.

This comprises a mathematization and modeling perspective.

Mathematical mindset is broad and multidimensional because it requires

reasoning, creativity, connection making, and interpretation of methods; it is a set

of ideas that help illuminates the world; and it is constantly applies different styles

of learning (Boaler, 2013). In the same manner, Numerical literacy has the

capacity to identify, to understand and to engage in mathematics and make well-

founded judgements about the role that mathematics plays, as needed for an

individual’s current and futurelife, occupational, social life with peers and

relatives, and life as a constructive, concerned and reflective citizen (OECD,

1999).

Review of Related Literature

Mathematical apprehensiveness defines an enduring, habitual form of

anxiety and can be understood as a trait that reflects a relatively stable

characteristic of a person and affects how a person feels, perceives, and

evaluates particular situations involving mathematics. Math anxious people

experience enhanced rates of anxiety in math-related circumstances.

Mathematical apprehensiveness is indicated on an emotional, cognitive, and

physiological level and ends up in outcomes such as poor achievements.

Emotionally, people suffer from emotions of tension, fear, nervousness, and

worry. Cognitively, mathematical anxiety compromises the functions of

remembering. Physiologically, the symptoms of mathematical anxiety include

enhanced heart rate, clammy hands, upset stomach, and lightheadedness.

Students with high levels of math anxiety showed higher increases in

cardiovascular reactivity when solving mathematical tasks than students with low

levels of math anxiety, implying a higher level of strain due to mathematical

apprehensiveness (Lutenberger, Wimmer & Paecher, 2018).

 Joseph (2017) defined mathematical apprehensiveness as a feeling of

anxiety that one cannot perform efficiently in situations that involve the use of

mathematics. It can be applied to other aspects of life such as in work or in a

household chore but it is mostly associated with academics. It is characterized by

intense nervousness before or during activities and tests in mathematics. It is a

type of emotional problem. Mathematical apprehensiveness interferes with a

person's ability to optimally do math problems, thus evolving into an intellectual

problem.

Mathematical apprehensiveness is regarded as irrational and

mathematical tension. This word is used to define panic, helplessness, mental

paralysis, and disorganization that arises among some people when they are

required to solve a problem of mathematical nature. The literature further shows

that mathematics anxiety relates to a person's sensation of tension and anxiety

that interferes with manipulating numbers and solving mathematics problem in a

broad variety of normal and academic environments. The sense of discomfort

observed while working on mathematical problems is associated with fear and

apprehension in specific settings and seems entirely natural (Tsanwani, 2019).

Kumari (2015) defined mathematical apprehension as a feeling of intense

frustration or helplessness about one's ability to do mathematics and is an

emotional reaction to mathematics. Mathematical apprehension is more than a

dislike to mathematics. It may be connected with physical symptoms such as

rapid heartbeat, feeling weak and trembling. Math anxiety is an emotional

response to mathematics. There are pupils who are not interested in

mathematics and are scared of it. This generates anxiety amongst the learners.

Math anxiety increases due to wrong teaching methods with less practical work.

The teachers do not try to relate mathematics to real-life situations. Sometimes

schools ' physical environment also affects student concentration and lacks

interest in mathematics. Intellectual variables that influence math anxiety include

learning styles, self-doubt and dyslexia. Incorrect learning styles generate anxiety

among learners. Nervousness at the moment of testing, examination harms their

academic achievement and later on their career.

Legg and Locker (2009) defined math anxiety as a particular fear or

tension associated with anxiety-provoking conditions involving math interaction.

Their research evaluated whether metacognitive competence moderates the

impact of math anxiety on performance, reaction time, and confidence in a math

assignment. They further discussed that math anxiety hindered math

performance for high achievers and revised a Math Anxiety Rating Scale to

assess the level of math anxiety in students.

There has been a lot of misconception by learners about the hard nature

of mathematics that has frightened many learners during their academic life.

Students ' adverse view of these misconceptions has led many students to low

self-conception in mathematics (Ho, 2013; Martha, 2009). The students’

misconception of mathematics seems to extend to the teachers of the subject the

time of day in which the subject is taught, the amount of formula in mathematics,

lack of students’ involvement during lessons as well as the perceptions that only

bright student can perform in Mathematics (Afangideh et. al, 2012; Ampadu,
2012; De Fraine et. al, 2013). The bad perception of students and people who

dislike Mathematics has created quite unfortunate and bad public image of

Mathematics in Ghana and other parts of the glob describing Mathematics as

difficult, cold, abstract, theoretical and uninterested subject (Björklund, 2010;

Ernest, 1995; Sam, 2002; Wang et. al, 2015). This problem of misconception and

bad perception need to be dealt with in order to secure students interest in the

learning of Mathematics all levels of our education curricular.

Beilock (2008) indicated that when students are placed in stressful

settings that induce powerful pressure emotions, they tend to perform badly and

sometimes below their real capacity, thus contributing to anxiety in mathematics.

She stated that anxiety in mathematics combined with stressful circumstances

compromises one's mathematical working memory, "a short-term system

engaged in regulating and controlling data appropriate to the job at hand"

(Maloney & Beilock, 2012, p. 404).To justify how stress can have adverse

impacts on performance, two theories were suggested: the explicit theory of

surveillance and the theory of diversion. In an extremely stressful scenario, when

students are presented with a mathematical assignment, the explicit surveillance

theory suggests that mathematics anxious learners tend to concentrate on their

concerns and self-doubts (Beilock& Carr, 2001).These intrusive ideas may

concern learners with "one's dislike or fear of mathematics or low self-

confidence, thus acting as a secondary assignment and distracting attention

away from mathematics" (Cavanagh, 2007, p. 10).The theory of diversion depicts

extremely stressful circumstances in which the working memory of the learners

required to perform the mathematics in a job is replaced by the pressure to

complete the assignments correctly as well as the implications that may result

from performing below expectations. As a consequence, learners who depend

strongly on their working memory often fail to perform mathematical

assignments.

In relation to, as cited by Chang (2011), “Pygmalion effect” also called as

“Rosenthal Effect” usually refers to the fact that people, often children, students

or employees, live up to their expectations and tend to do better when they are

treated as if they can succeed. The first experiment by Rosenthal and Jacobson

(1968) and the experiment by Schrank (1968) only studied the positive

expectations. Thus, Brophy further looked into the Pygmalion effect's negative

expectations. In his experiment (1985:180), Brophy discovered that adverse

expectations, expectation-based discrimination and false assessments could be

detrimental to student motivation. After his 1985 experiment, Brophy identified 8

concrete forms of adverse expectations that made teaching circumstances

disadvantageous. They are as follows: giving up easily on low-expectation

students; criticizing them more often for failure; praising them less often following

success; praising inappropriately; neglecting to give them any feedback following

their responses; seating them in the back of the room; generally paying less

attention to them or inter acting with them less frequently; expressing less

warmth towards them or less interest in them as individuals.(Summarized by

Zoltan Dornyei,2001)
 On the other hand, Bilbase and Shashidar (2010) proposed three domains

to study mathematics anxiety: social/ motivational domain, intellectual/

educational domain, and psychological/ emotional domain. Bilbase and

Shashidar (2010) clarified that the social/ motivational domain includes those

forces that act upon a person through the agencies of family, friends, and society

as a whole. The authors described that the intellectual/ educational domain is

comprised of those influences that are cognitive in nature. According to them,

these cognitive influences include but are not limited to the knowledge and skills

an individual has and or is expected to acquire and his or her perception of

success or failure in them. The writers clarified that the faculties that are

influenced in nature form the psychological / emotional domain. They contend

that it consists mainly of the individual's emotional history, reactions to stimuli,

and exciting states. Hence, the researchers said that the continuum associated

with this domain is feelings wherein at either end of the feeling’s continuum lie

anxiety and confidence.

The following sections will examine the role of the parent, the role of the

teacher, the instruction in the classroom, and the attitude of the student when it

comes to math anxiety reasons. It will explore the reasons for the problem and

possible ways of alleviating the problem (Siebers 2015).

Whitaker and Hoover-Dempsey (2013) explained that the involvement of

parents in teaching their children at home and in college provides a significant

path for many learners to improve educational and social results. In relation to,

Hornby and Lafaele (2011) states that critical aspects in the study of parental
involvement and attitudes in children's mathematics education were the way

parents view their role in the education of their children and the belief that

parents have the ability to help their children succeed in school.

Siebers (2015) explained that teachers are important and influential

members of our society. When an individual decides to become a teacher, they

are choosing to make a difference in a young person’s life. Demanet and Van

Houtte (2012) stated that “teachers’ attitudes can have a profound impact on

students’ education growth." Teachers with low expectations of students tend to

have disruptive behavior in the classroom. The attitude of a teacher shapes the

treatment of students. When a student perceives a teacher with low expectations

for them, they show fewer academic progress and tend to act more negatively.

Math anxiety is often related in the classroom to the teaching style of

mathematics. Mathematics in many schools was based on a traditional technique

of delivery with a focus on skill growth. This traditional method of delivery

consists of the following elements: begins with parts of the whole – emphasizes

basic skills, strict adherence to fixed curriculum, textbooks and workbooks,

instructor gives / students receive, instructor assumes guidance, authoritative

role, assessment through testing / correct responses, knowledge is inert and

students work individually. With this strategy, educators use direct instruction,

with authority power. Students obtain data passively and do not question the

power of the teacher. Knowledge is drawn from the set curriculum and textbooks,

with little time for issues or a process comprehension (Finlayson, 2014).

 Using a constructivist approach to instruction helps decrease the level of

math anxiety and gains in students. Decreasing a student’s math anxiety by

focusing on the classroom experience is not the only important aspect for

academic achievement. Another deciding factor is the way our brain de-

constructs information and stores it. Through classroom experiences, students

solve problems using their active working memory (Siebers, 2015).

Siebers (2015) expressed that a fear of looking stupid in front of the class

can lead to a negative experience. Being in the wrong math class can create a

negative attitude, especially if the class is above the level of competence of a

student. Not coming to school ready or willing to learn, adds to the list of how

learners develop bad attitudes towards mathematics. With this negativity,

students enter the math classroom with hatred towards a topic that society has

deemed important. Positive attitude and self-image will fundamentally assist in

the classroom fight math anxiety. This positive attitude continues to be significant

in achieving success in mathematics and decreases math anxiety in students.

The results in this research indicate that previous developments continue without

any change and the problem is genuine. Schools need to investigate studies

around this subject and open their minds to the concept that educators, parents,

and school settings are partly accountable for creating mathematics anxiety in

tomorrow's youth.

Glogger, et. al (2009) explained that the focus of their study is to show

how they plan to overcome difficulties in understanding the topic and join the

strategies in order to easily solve the problems and get the right answers. If a
person wants to learn mathematics, he / she has the condition of thinking and

knowing about theories, solutions and lessons, becoming aware of one's

awareness, having higher thinking skills, and having self-regulated mathematical

learning all the way to him / her. However, there were too many tasks to be

accomplished, so the problem solver had to balance and prioritize the lessons,

performance tasks, quizzes and examinations in order to find and successively

achieve reasonably efficient ways of sequencing (D. Sekwi, 2009).

On the other hand, metacognition includes learning consciousness,

evaluating their learning requirements, producing strategies to satisfy these

requirements and then applying the strategies (Hacker et. al, 2009). In relation to,

Karaali (2015) illustrated how, through a specific case study in the context of a

liberal arts mathematics course, metacognition can be incorporated into a

repeated exercise in mathematics classroom. Students were asked weekly

throughout the semester to assess their own progress and review their

development in the light of their personal goals. Throughout the semester, he

noted beneficial affective modifications including levels of involvement in the

learners. He claims that the weekly metacognitive and self-reflective events

helped learners stay profoundly focused on studying, allowing them to stay

involved and motivated throughout the semester.

Marszał-Wiśniewska, Goryńska, & Strelau (2011) found motivation to be

an important factor in reducing test anxiety and increasing motivation. Students

feel positive and negative emotions before, during, and after a test. Students who
practiced motivational strategies had higher levels of emotional functioning when

faced with stress or anxiety during a test.

Review of Related Studies

Braza and Supapo's research (2014) asserted the fault that could

influence the accomplishments of learners in mathematics, lack of mastery of

fundamental ideas and abilities, absence of problem-solving and critical thinking

abilities, varied student conduct and adequate learning abilities and teacher

methods in teaching mathematics dealings. Evidently, the National Achievement

test results of the students nationwide in Mathematics was only 48.90 where it

is described as poor achievement and below the national standard passing

rate. Additionally, mathematics subject ranked two among the subjects in terms

of low MPS, NETRC (2012). In addition, in Magpet National High School, the

following MPS was obtained in the National Achievement Test (NAT), which is

administered annually nationwide: in SY: 2012- 2013- 61.56, SY: 2013- 2014-

55.26, SY: 2014- 2015- 45.65. Moreover, the MPS for Mathematics in 2015 is

only 50.55. As discovered in the statistics, the school's MPS has been declining

for the previous years. The outcome is below the passing proportion of 75

percent, which implies that learners have trouble handling the alarming topic and

a recurring situation. It is thought that most learners find it hard and tired to

manage the topic. Therefore, having a few alternatives in the classroom to cope

with these issues is a huge challenge for the educators.

One of these is that as a reciprocal teaching approach, a teacher must

integrate cooperative learning into the class. Another factor that may hinder
learners from studying mathematics is their anxiety about the topic. Anxiety in

mathematics is linked to the sensation of tense or anxious learners working with

numbers or solving mathematics problems. Students suffering from anxiety in

mathematics do not necessarily experience anxiety in other topics. Achievement

in mathematics is asserted to be inversely proportional to their anxiety. The

scientist therefore aimed at using a prevalent teaching approach to address the

anxiety of learners and enhance their success. Reciprocal teaching is a strategy

where the responsibility for the assignment or the content is shared by both

teacher and student. This is a research-based approach with research

proliferating cementing its basis. Students using reciprocal learning enhanced

their performance and worked more separately than learners who did not use this

teaching approach and were self-reliant. In addition, less nuisance behaviors

were seen in the reciprocal teaching courses as the learners were more

cognitively involved and linked in the work and assignments. Thus, the study's

behavior is aimed at evaluating and evaluating the efficacy of reciprocal teaching

approach in enhancing student success in mathematics learning academic

achievements.

Harari, Vukovie, And Bailer (2013) conducted a survey to investigate the

essence of mathematics anxiety in an instance of 106 pupils of first grade. The

results of their research showed that first grade mathematics anxiety

encompasses multidimensional structure. Negative responses specifically linked

to the basic mathematical concept. Numerical confidence specifically linked to

computing skills. And worry that was not linked to any outcome. The levels of

mathematics anxiety did not vary by the background of sex or language.

Karjanto and Yong (2013) studied the level of test anxiety in the topics of

mathematics among early graduate students at the University of Nottingham

Malaysia campus in 2013. The level of test anxiety in mathematics was

evaluated using seven likert questionnaire statements taken from the Test

anxiety inventory describing one's emotional emotions before the examination

was started. The outcome shows that the learners who receive a reduced

expectation of score were more nervous than those who had a greater

expectation of score, but they got a better score than anticipated.

Saileela (2012), conducted a study on self-regulation, self-efficacy and

achievement-related attitude towards mathematics of higher secondary students.

The aim of the research was to compare the scale of self-regulation, the scale of

self-efficacy, and the attitude towards the scale of mathematics in relation to the

mathematics researcher achievement test administered to a random sample of

1000 high school learners in the first year. The research outcome shows that

women have considerably higher self-efficacy than boys in mathematics, and a

favorable and substantial correlation exists between accomplishment and self-

efficacy.

Nelson and Harwood (2010) conducted a survey comparing research on

learning disabilities and anxiety. Researchers reviewed 58 studies, which

included 3,336 students. Researchers used a computer program to evaluate the

study information. For each study, the effect sizes, meanings, and standard
deviations were calculated. The effect size calculations were used to determine

whether or not learners with learning disabilities had greater rates of anxiety than

students without learning disabilities. The greater the size of the impact, the

greater the connection between learning and anxiety disabilities. Negative effect

size implies that a connection between learning disabilities and levels of anxiety

has not been discovered. Researchers discovered a favorable effect size valve

for 95 percent of research with an average of 0.61 and a range of -0.21 to 1.83

scientists discovered that learners with learning disabilities are considerably

more likely to experience educational anxiety.

Songita Boruah and Jnyandeep Saikia (2013), researched the

mathematics phobia among graduates of Jorhat and Golaghat district of Assam.

This document describes the mathematics anxiety of graduates of Jorhat and

Golaghat district of Assam. The study attempts to figure out the cause of

mathematics phobia. The research was performed through survey by distributing

questionnaires among graduate students from 4 chosen Jorhat and Golaghat

district universities. Finding revealed that only 15.25 percent of 1397 learners

take mathematics as their main topic, 42.01 percent take mathematics as their

key topic, and 42.73 percent do not take mathematics. 13.46 percent think that

absence of adequate number of educators is a cause of mathematics phobia.

24.23 percent think that mathematics phobia already exists among learners.

30.35 percent say that absence of adequate number of mathematics books in the

college library. 24 percent say that absence of practical school equipment is one

of the causes of mathematics phobia.

 Parvathamma and Sharanamma (2010) conducted a study on level of

anxiety and level of self-confidence and their relationship with academic

achievement. The objective of the study was to find out the relationship between

the level of anxiety and the level of academic achievement of IX standard

students to find out the relationship between the level of self-confidence and the

level of academic achievement of IX standard students; to find out the difference

between the level of anxiety of IX standard boys and girls students to determine

the difference between the level of self-confidence of IX-standard boys and girls.

The researcher embraced the instruments and the private information sheet was

administered on the chosen sample. Study findings where there is an important

correlation between anxiety and academic achievement; there is an important

correlation between self-confidence and academic achievement; there is an

important distinction between boys and girls ' level of anxiety there is a

substantial distinction between boys and girls ' self-confidence levels.

Lou et al., (2009) conducted a study with 311 middle school students at a

university in Western China. There was a statistically significant adverse

correlation between mathematics performance and mathematics anxiety, and the

correlation coefficient was -0.411. The correlation coefficient between the

cognitive components of mathematics anxiety and mathematics performance

was -0.339. Results showed the stronger the mathematics output of a student

was, the less mathematics anxiety they encountered. The worse the output of a

student was the more anxiety they displayed about mathematics. This confirmed

that anxiety in mathematics usually occurred in Western China among low-

performing students. Only kids from middle revenue households were the

participants in this research. The participants in this study were only children

from middle income families. Although the Lou et al. study contained pertinent

and valuable information for the understanding of math anxiety in middle school

students, the 20 study did not involve sixth graders and showed ninth graders

having the highest level of math anxiety. The research did not cover the factors

leading to math anxiety.

Kovarik and Tomas (2009) performed a survey on the impacts of

traditional and reformed teaching techniques on math anxiety and learning at a

community college. The findings of this study are anticipated to assist Raritan

Valley Community College's mathematics department in evaluating the efficacy

of reformation pedagogy and in deciding whether to embrace the reformed

technique for all precalculus segments and pursue comparable reformation

routes for other classes.