Anxiety cripples students' math-solving ability: Australian report

An Australian research suggests increased stress levels significantly affect the ability of students to solve mathematics problems.

The study involved 133 Melbourne high school students as they prepared for an algebra test, and found problem solving was impacted when pupils exhibited signs of anxiety.

The reports author, Melbourne University professor Kelly Trezise, told Xinhua on Tuesday how the two components -- cognitive function and anxiety levels -- were intrinsically linked to student output.

"What we found was that some students change over time in terms of cognitive abilities and anxiety levels," Trezise told Xinhua.

"Essentially, students with poorer cognitive abilities and/or higher anxiety became worse over time."

The research was published in the Cognition and Emotion journal this week.

However, Trezise said there was not always a hard-fast rule for how students would respond to anxiety during testing.

"Not everyone does change," she said. "But those who are feeling anxious and notice they're not doing so well, they are likely to respond detrimentally.

"There's probably a variety of factors that might influence anxiety, for example how important the test is or whether they feel comfortable with the subject material.

"It really shows that in learning and test situations anxiety is quite responsive."

Trezise said students' preconceived notions of their individual maths abilities were often linked with performance.

"When you hear people talking about maths anxiety, a lot of people say 'I just can't do maths'," she said.

"There is a perception that maths ability is an inherent property of the individual."

"I think also there's a lot of stereotypes, like girls aren't generally good at maths -- there's no evidence to support that.

"But if that's out there that going to affect how some people feel about maths."

Trezise believed there was a number of ways to combat the issue of maths anxiety in schools.

"The traditional approach is to work harder at maths and you'll get better."

"But the other component is that if you can recognize you can control your anxiety, then you can better cope with the situation. "

"There's also evidence to suggest that students cope better when they focus solely on problem that lies in front of them rather than the result of getting it right or wrong." Endi