So we have a problem for you. Take a moment to steady yourself, maybe sharpen your pencil. Don’t unpack your calculator, and leave your phone to one side. This one will be purely mental – a spot of addition, long division and some basic trigonometry.
Are you sweating yet? Feeling anxious? And if so, does that anxiety feel like physical pain?
A paper published today in PLOS ONE suggests that, when anticipating a mathematical task or activity, people with higher levels of mathematics anxiety experience brain activity in regions associated with threats and pain.
The mathematical tasks the subjects were asked to imagine included:
- Receiving a math textbook
- Walking to a math class
- Being given a set of addition problems to solve on paper
- Realising you have to take a certain number of math classes to meet the requirements for graduation.
The individual subjects for this study had previously been identified as “high math anxiety” or “low math anxiety” based on an earlier test.
It is worth emphasising that this study relies on modern medical magnetic resonance imaging of a kind that was absolutely impossible even 20 years ago.
This ability to look at the neurological and biochemical activities accompanying qualitative experiences is a game-changer that educators and social scientists must become comfortable with.
So is mathematics really that traumatic? And what can be done about it?
Caveats
The researchers themselves (one from the Department of Psychology at the University of Chicago and the other from Western University in Canada) have included several important caveats for this research.
They noted that the effect was not seen when subjects were actually performing a mathematical task, and that: “it is not that math itself hurts; rather, the anticipation of math is painful.”
One might also ask: which came first, the pain or the anxiety?
More importantly, the authors acknowledge that while their experiment dealt specifically with mathematics anxiety, their results showed, more broadly, that “anticipating an unpleasant event is associated with activation of neural regions involved in pain processing.”
That the authors focused on mathematics anxiety reflects both positive and negative societal pressures. Mathematical skills are crucial, and all nations acknowledge there is a crisis.
But – at least in the English-speaking world – it is socially acceptable to be bad at mathematics.
It must also be recognised that mathematics anxiety, as studied in this test, might well be, to some extent, a cultural artifact of this test being conducted at a North American university, where “fear of mathematics” has been part of the cultural milieu for decades.
In 1992, Mattel released Teen Talk Barbie, which included a speech chip that among other things enunciated the phrase, “Math class is tough".
It is entirely possible that similar results would be obtained for any particularly dreaded cognitively challenging task, such as “walking to the test centre to take the Law School Admittance Test”, or “completing one’s tax return,” which, even though it is often nowadays done online (thus eliminating the need to do any mathematics at all), is still a dreaded occasion for many, including the present authors.
Perhaps future studies can illuminate whether there are differences for these types of tasks.
With regards to mathematics, even today items are readily available online or in novelty stores with messages that are openly hostile to mathematics and mathematics education.
One currently available T-shirt declares “MATH: Mental Abuse to Humans.”
Another T-shirt proclaims: “I’m too pretty to do math".
A hat with visor declares: “Math Is Hard. Let’s Go Shopping".
Would the same results be obtained if the test were administered, say, in Hong Kong, Finland or South Korea, societies that have the highest-ranking mathematical achievement for 15-year-olds?
A problem to solve
Whether or not the findings have cross-cultural validity, one can ask what can or should be done about them. Is the proper response to bury one’s head in the sand and give up on a high level of mathematical literacy in a society?
Or is it to make an even more determined effort to teach mathematical skills and principles to students at as early an age as possible, so they are comfortable with mathematics and mathematical reasoning when they are teens and adults?
Needless to say, as in an earlier article, we argue the latter, and we here reiterate that this requires significant public investment – not just white papers.
Ngoc Luan Ho Trieu
logged in via Facebook
I think school children need bigger incentives to do Maths. Why not giving Maths a dominant coefficient among school subjects in the calculation of final aggregate score from term and annual exams.
If the situation is desperate, this might work. Just a suggestion.
Marian Macdonald
logged in via Twitter
Ngoc,
"Dominant coefficient" - written like a natural mathematician! Not all of us need to be great mathematicians to excel in our chosen fields, though.
Ngoc Luan Ho Trieu
logged in via Facebook
Marian
How about "...more weight than other school subjects...". Is it enough for clarity and apology for the confusion?
Ngoc Luan Ho Trieu
logged in via Facebook
Furthermore, I believe that better English => speedier better professional/business advancement. Better Maths => faster and surer progress in your chosen fields.
Linus Bowden
management consultant
Ngoc
There is no need. Strong Mathematics students perform far better right across the whole curriculum, than any other subject's top performers. The only other student group that comes close is Classics students. That is why 3/4 Unit Maths, Latin, and Classical Greek HSC marks are year in year out much higher than Biology, Legal Studies, Aboriginal Studies, Dance, Drama, Environmental Studies, English, Indonesian, and so on.
Susan McCosker
Former school teacher
There are two reasons why I have an Arts degree and not a degree in Mathematics:
Read more1. I was excelled at Maths and loved Maths, but kids are cruel and loving Maths wasn't cool. By the time I reached year 11, the desire to be socially accepted had outweighed the desire to excel at Maths.
2. My year 9 Maths teacher used to routinely parade me in front of the class because I was an exemplary Maths student. When he taught me again in year 12 I disengaged from the subject and just did what I needed…
Yoron Hamber
Thinking
Let's face it. Mathematics isn't the class most inviting to laughter and happiness. A lot of that depends on the teaching methods though. Math is interesting, and, even though hard, a good educator with some humor should be able to make it a cooler experience. What really kills of interest is introducing rules without being able to give the time to explain why, and how they came to be. There's a lot of cool history around mathematics that could be used to make it 'live up'. Also you need to get all the kids with you, not only a few.
Yoron Hamber
Thinking
Eh, 'liven up' :) not 'live up'..
Bruce Tabor
Research Scientist at CSIRO
I'm a researcher in maths and stats. When I'm doing maths &/or stats (in a quiet environment) I find it enjoyable, even relaxing - the opposite of anxiety. The anxiety comes when I have to write the blasted stuff up!
Gerald Officer
Lab rat
So the apprehension of a thing or situation with which we are uncomfortable, may generate discomfort?
Amazing.
Toe Jam
Do you really need to know this?
Why have the authors of this article incorrectly abbreviated mathematics to 'math'?
The correct abbreviation is 'maths'. One doesnt study mathematic, you study mathematics.
Incorrect example:
"My teacher asked me to do mathematic for homework".
Correct example:
"My teacher asked me to do mathematics for homework".
Lucy
logged in via Twitter
I like maths, but have also felt anxiety about it and while doing it at times.
Read moreFor me this was largely related to the belief I seemed to absorb while growing up that there are people who are good at mathematics and people who aren't. If you were slow to learn something or didn't get what the teacher was saying then it seemed you were in the "not good at mathematics" category and were encouraged to do a lower level of mathematics or none at all. Mathematics in school seemed to be as much as exercise…
Linus Bowden
management consultant
Indeed, Carol, Mathematics is a cruel task mistress. Everybody's raw intellectual ability is naked before her. Most of our school education is about socialisation, and teaching us how similar we are. However, a few subjects at school rip the facade of equality away, and reveal swiftly and repeatedly just where we lie on the sheer intellectual firepower curve, and Mathematics is the most cruelly honest of them all.
No other subject, so effectively let's us know that we are clueless, or out of…
Read moreChristopher White
PhD candidate
Lucy - I agree entirely; as a child I was taught "arithmetic” in rote fashion, chanting the times tables in a repetitive, sing-song manner that, frankly, bored me to death. As a result, I never memorised them, nor anything else to do with mathematics. I lost all interest in the subject at an early age and by the time I came to high school, I was considered a remedial student in mathematics and consequently all science related subjects. The fact that I did extremely well in all non-science subjects…
Read moreLucy
logged in via Twitter
This may be true, but I think it's worth noting that being clueless and out of one's depth in mathematics is certainly something that a person can change. The self-ranking that you mention is not an immutable property of the self that needs to simply be accepted - it's arguably as much a function of background, opportunity, and effort as it is of raw intellectual power.
Especially since I don't think any of the mathematical tasks you list are actually very difficult (with the exception of continuing…
Read moreterry lockwood
maths teacher
Just those three?
"So we have a problem for you. Take a moment to steady yourself, maybe WARM UP YOUR VOICE. Don’t unpack your KARAOKE MACHINE, and leave your phone to one side. This one will be purely VOCAL – a spot of SCALES, A TENDER BALLAD and some basic HARMONY.
Are you sweating yet? Feeling anxious? And if so, does that anxiety feel like physical pain?"
Reading the article above but substituting public, SOLO singing suggests singing solo, before an audience, is a bit daunting too. "No, I can't sing.' or "OK, I'll clear the room for you". Either native talent or hard work can produce an in-tune singer. It takes neither to identify an out of tune singer.
Writing an extended answer to a 'surface area of a rectangular prism' problem can have a few mistakes an you'll get some marks. One bum note in a song and that's all the audience will remember.
terry lockwood
maths teacher
steady down there Christopher. I don't imagine that when you fly you insist on jets designed exclusively by graduates in Theatre Studies and Philosophy.
I did all the heavy maths, physics, chemistry and so on and went on to teach it to. But that did not stop me also eventually teaching at secondary level Theatre Studies, Drama and Media. And become a professional musician. (waited to be 37 before I took that one on.) Not trying to brag. Just want to point out that school is just school.
And at the last maths conference I presented at, I finished off singing a song with guitar accompaniment.
Christopher White
PhD candidate
Terry; what on earth are you talking about? Where did I indicate that ability at mathematics is a negative or that "graduates in Theatre Studies and Philosophy" should be designing aircraft?
My comment was intended to point out that a poor ability at mathematics is no indication of an inability to think critically and to do well in tertiary studies; I am the proof of that, just as you are proof that ability in maths is no barrier to ability in the arts.
I am not a primary or secondary school…
Read more