Pre-service primary (elementary) teachers' mathematics anxiety affects their engagement with and future teaching of mathematics. The study measured the range of mathematics anxiety in 219 pre-service teachers starting a teacher education course in an Australian university. They responded to the Revised Mathematics Anxiety Scale (RMARS) and a set…

This submission contains the Proceedings of the 2017 Annual Meeting of the Canadian Mathematics Education Study Group (CMESG), held at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec June 2-6. The CMESG is a group of mathematicians and mathematics educators who meet annually to discuss mathematics education issues at all levels of learning. The aims of the…

There is a paucity of information surrounding maths anxiety levels in the British undergraduate student population, and, due to terminological issues, existing measures of maths anxiety may not be appropriate measures to use with this population. The current study, therefore, reports on the development and validation of a new maths anxiety scale.…

The purpose of this study was to address the gap in research regarding the use of cooperative learning instructional methods in college mathematics courses to prepare future teachers. Bruner's constructivist theory and social interdependence theory guided this study. The research questions focused on the effects of the use of cooperative learning…

Teaching circles are an innovative mechanism to support faculty and improve student learning. This article describes the use of instructor teaching circles to support math-anxious students at a mid-sized urban university, including the purposes, formation, and sometimes surprising outcomes associated with using this method. Teaching circles for…

This document sets out a novel teaching methodology as used in subjects with statistical content, traditionally regarded by students as "difficult". In a virtual learning environment, instructional techniques little used in mathematical courses were employed, such as the Jigsaw cooperative learning method, which had to be adapted to the…

Mathematics is often taught covertly as a "service" subject in geography departments, but can often be a cause of fear for students who may not have studied the subject post-GCSE. Negative attitudes are common and many students show signs of maths anxiety. This paper details how students' attitudes were changed by a new foundation mathematics…

With a large global, national, state, and local drive for post-secondary credentials, higher education institutes are exploring new retention and graduation strategies to meet the needs of the employers and employees. Many students who are unprepared for college level work will enter a community college to take developmental courses. Developmental…

While community colleges serve as a postsecondary entry point for many "at-risk" students, not many who enroll will be ready or able to participate in college level courses on entry. Statistically, large numbers of community college students require college remediation, and only a handful are able to successfully emerge from the…

This article describes the initial development of a qualitative system dynamics model as part of the periodic review of a mathematics course. In an effort to enhance the learning experience of undergraduate computing students (for whom the course is a compulsory part of their curriculum) a small sample of students were interviewed regarding their…

Many undergraduate students admit to having a fear of math courses. To address this issue, the authors created a learning community that teaches math content in the context of science. This paper outlines the positive learning and dispositional results of freshman enrolled in this unique interdisciplinary course. (Contains 5 tables.)

This study investigates whether seeing a documentary on how mathematicians do mathematics improves students' math "self-efficacy beliefs." The analysis of students' written reflections and classroom observations suggests that watching the documentary may help students' math anxiety decrease and positive self-efficacy toward learning mathematics…

This study examined the mathematics beliefs of students who attained mastery, as indicated by earning an A, in their introductory math class in fall, 2008. This study addressed the following research questions: do students who attain mastery in introductory college math courses differ in their math beliefs from students who pass introductory math…

Does the international student suffer from statistics anxiety? To investigate this, the Statistics Anxiety Rating Scale (STARS) was administered to sixty-six beginning statistics students, including twelve international students and fifty-four domestic students. Due to the small number of international students, nonparametric methods were used to…

When U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spelling announced in March the final report of the National Mathematics Advisory Panel, created by President Bush two years ago to address concerns that many students lack essential skills to become engineers and scientists, she highlighted the importance of algebra. "The panel's research showed that…