Math anxiety impedes people from working to their fullest potential (Hyman et al., 2015; Retanel et al., 2021) and impacts people of all ages, including both children and adults (Oh et al., 2022; SzczygieL, 2020). The influence parents' math anxiety has on children is also impactful on the children's own development of math anxiety or negative…

The main objective of this study is to develop a mathematical modeling framework for a deeper understanding of dynamics of math anxiety as a contagious process. Borrowing from theories of the spread of infectious disease, we develop two classes of mathematical models representing the spread of math anxiety in math gateway classes. The first…

This dissertation presents a mixed-data investigation aiming to comprehensively understand math anxiety in teachers. Math anxiety is defined as "feelings of tension and anxiety that interfere with the manipulation of numbers and solving of mathematics problems in a variety of ordinary life and academic situations" (Richardson &…

The purpose of this quantitative, quasi-experimental, nonequivalent comparison-group design was to determine if "How to Learn Math: for Students" (Boaler, 2018) had a statistically significant influence on eighth-grade students' mathematical anxiety and mathematical achievement. Participants included eighth-grade students (n = 28) in a…

The purpose of this basic qualitative study was to explore nontraditional students' experiences and strategies used to overcome math anxiety. It addressed two research questions; how adult students developed their beliefs about math anxiety, and how they described the strategies used to change their beliefs and become successful in completing an…

Math anxiety negatively affects student learning and academic performance. Students with high math anxiety exhibit physical, mental, and emotional symptoms. As a result, they tend to avoid mathematics and mathematics-related situations, perform poorly, and exhibit deficiencies in working memory. Research studies have shown that inquiry-based…

This mixed-methods study investigated the impact of the Foundations of Mathematical Reasoning course within the Quantitative Reasoning Pathway developed by the Dana Center for Mathematics Pathways at the University of Texas at Austin on student motivation in mathematics. Quantitative research was conducted to determine the effects of the…

A disproportionate number of preservice elementary teachers exhibit high levels of math anxiety (Reid et al., 2018). Not only does this inhibit their ability to understand mathematical concepts, but it also negatively impacts their pedagogical approach to math (Beilock & Maloney, 2015; Reid et al., 2018). Teachers who experience math anxiety…

The study investigated best practices to increase students' skills in math fluency and computation and reduce math anxiety. The studies used in this Systematic Literature Review were analyzed using the TAPUPAS framework to ensure the studies chosen were quality and were relevant to the research questions. The results of these analyzed studies…

Current research has found evidence of effective interventions for mathematics anxiety, both motivational and cognitive interventions can affect learning through instructional design and increased student engagement. Thus, this study investigated whether a combined (cognitive and motivation) intervention approach was more effective than only using…

Success in first-year mathematics has been linked to students' success in college and graduation rates, which is critical for first generation-college students because they enter college facing many challenges their peers may not experience. This literature review explores previous research related to the relationship between first-generation…

K-12 mathematics education in the United States is failing too many students, disproportionately students of color. Furthermore, math anxiety is common, leading many students to feel, "I am just not a math person." Yet little is known about how positive student attitudes toward math might relate to the negative feelings of anxiety. This…

This study addressed whether gender, social desirability, statistics levels, and statistics self-efficacy can significantly predict variation in statistics anxiety at the graduate level. Statistics anxiety undermines performance throughout academia and reduces employment opportunities that require skills in statistics. Previous studies have…

Math anxiety, a lack of mathematics understanding and unproductive beliefs surrounding mathematics have the potential to cause math teaching anxiety in pre-service elementary teachers. This study sought to investigate the causes of math anxiety in pre-service elementary teachers and develop a course sequence to address those causes, thereby…

Despite initiatives to support women in STEM, men still outnumber women in math-intensive fields, and women in mathematics express that they are "on the outside looking in." Prior mathematics anxiety research has investigated links to performance, and neuroscientists, psychologists, and educational researchers have found gender…