Correlation Between Standardized Test Scores And Math Anxiety

Andrews and Brown (2015) conducted a study which shows a correlation between standardized test scores and math anxiety, but it had a moderate, negative relationship. However, there are many contributing factors that are believed to affect a student’s math anxiety. These factors range from: personal beliefs, gender, environment, to parent and teacher influences.
The student’s personal belief in their ability to perform well in math will greatly contribute to their math anxiety. The lower their self-esteem the student has on their mathematical abilities the higher their anxiety will be. These students may have gotten a bad grade on a math test and from there the student will believe they just are not good at math and never will be. As these feelings continue to grow the worse the anxiety becomes. The anxiety will start out as the student simply believing they are not good at math, but gradually over time the feeling will expand to anxiety, nervousness and fear the moment the mention of math comes up. According to Orlin (2015), students with math anxiety will not ask questions, take notes or correct failing quizzes because these students that suffer from math anxiety feel they are stupid.
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What Wang is essentially saying is that if a teacher creates a negative environment in the classroom, then the students who suffer from math anxiety are going associate the negativity to math. The attributing negativity will intensify the students own anxiety towards math and set the student up for failure. Teachers need to create a positive learning environment to ensure that the students with math anxiety have the opportunity to improve their mathematical abilities and lesson their