Christmas WS's!
Math was never my favorite subject at school and I have to admit to dreading math exams throughout my school years. I was always told by teachers that I knew more than I thought I did, and now, here’s the proof.
Stress Itself Impedes Math Performance
A new brain-imaging study conducted by associate psychology professor, Sian Beilock, at the University of Chicago found that it’s the stress response itself that impedes students with math anxiety from performing well in math tasks.
Analyzing 32 college students, ages 18 to 25, with high or low math anxiety the study suggests fear may be a bigger hindrance than previously thought. Using brain imaging technology, which measures the blood flow to different areas of the brain, students performed a series of math and spelling tasks. Students with high math anxiety performed less accurately on math than in spelling.
You can Overcome the Fear to Perform Well
Quoted in Education Week, Beilock continues: "We know that anxiety or fear of math can lead people to perform worse than what they know," said Beilock, author of the 2010 book Choke, on brain responses to performance pressure. "We know that when people perform poorly in a particular subject area, they tend to develop anxiety about their abilities, but being math anxious doesn't mean you are going to perform poorly in math. Some of these math anxious individuals were able to overcome their fear and succeed."
Anxious math students that performed well anyway showed high activity in the frontal and parietal regions of the brain when they learned a math problem was coming up; these are not the areas of the brain associated with calculating numbers, but those associated with cognitive control, focus, and regulating negative emotions.
So there’s hope for all adults and kids with math anxieties, including me.
