Raveling the Threads of Understanding: Reframing Mathematics Anxiety through Collaborative Professional Learning

This study investigates how collaborative professional learning communities (PLCs) can support teachers in evolving their understanding of mathematics anxiety. Conducted in a school serving a diverse student population, the research engaged a cohort of teachers in five PLC sessions, complemented by individual initial and follow-up interviews and written reflections. Data were transcribed using Otter.ai, and an iterative analytic process combined AI-assisted organization with close attention to participants’ contributions, surfacing emergent patterns in teachers’ perceptions, practices, and professional learning. Findings highlight that teachers enter professional learning with distinct histories, beliefs, and experiences, and that meaningful shifts occur when PLC conditions, such as reflective dialogue, trust, and opportunities for co-construction of understanding, are intentionally fostered. Mathematics anxiety served as an anchor for exploring these dynamics, grounding the inquiry and revealing how personal experiences and collective reflection intertwine in shaping both professional identity and practice. This study contributes to scholarship on professional learning by identifying conditions that enable reflective, relational, and emergent teacher learning. In doing so, it extends understandings of mathematics anxiety as something lived and negotiated within social and professional contexts, rather than experienced in isolation. Through the weaving together of individual and collective insight, the study illuminates how teachers can reframe their relationships with mathematics and, in turn, with their learners.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Education (EdD)

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Education Graduate Program – Educational Research

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

Graduate Studies

Year dc:date.issued

2026

Author dc:creator

• Walters, Sheryl Olive

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Davis, Andrew Brent

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Brown, Barbara Anna
• Preciado Babb, Armando Paulino

• Professional Learning
• Mathematics Anxiety
• Professional Learning Communities
• Teacher Identity
• Instructional Practice

Statement dc:rights

• University of Calgary graduate students retain copyright ownership and moral rights for their thesis. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission.

Language dc:language.iso

en

DOI

https://dx.doi.org/10.11575/PRISM/51271

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:ucalgary.scholaris.ca:1880/124516