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Dominican University of California

The Perceptions and Experiences of Math Anxiety

Abstract

dc:description.abstract

<p>Math anxiety has the potential to negatively impact a student’s knowledge and awareness of themselves. This anxiety leaves students with feelings of incapability in learning math because of their existing beliefs they received in their early years in their educations. The purpose of this research was to better understand the development of middle school eighth grade students and their teachers’ math anxiety while also exploring the obstacles that anxiety creates preventing and/or inhibiting teachers from teaching the required standardized lessons. My research shows that without a trusting relationship between the teacher and student, students experience a decline in mathematics performance which affects their learning experience, perception, skills, self-efficacy, and perseverance. Taking a qualitative approach, the thesis builds from interviews and surveys from five students and five teachers about their experiences learning and teachings of mathematics. The findings from this research demonstrate that teachers who focus on developing students’ own self-confidence in math while engaging students in the learning process effectively reducing student math anxiety.</p> <p><strong>Keywords </strong>Math Anxiety Effective teacher modeling Self-efficacy Self-regulation Negative experiences Trust</p>

Degree

thesis:*
Name thesis:degree_name
Master of Science
Level thesis:degree_level
Master's Thesis
Discipline thesis:degree_discipline
Education
Year dc:date.available
2023

Author and committee

dc:creator, dc:contributor.*
Author dc:creator
  • Baas, Bradley
Contributors dc:contributor
  • Jennifer Lucko, PhD
  • Whitney Hoyt, MS

Subjects

dc:subject × 5

Identifiers

dc:identifier.*
OAI identifier oai:identifier
oai:scholar.dominican.edu:education-masters-theses-1020

Chain of custody

source
Harvested from
Dominican University of California
Base URL
scholar.dominican.edu/do/oai/
Last updated
2026-07-24
Source record
OAI-PMH GetRecord
citation

Baas, Bradley. The Perceptions and Experiences of Math Anxiety. Master's Thesis thesis, 2023. https://scholar.dominican.edu/education-masters-theses/17