Investigating Hispanic Preservice Teachers’ Mathematics Anxiety, Attitudes, and Self-Efficacy

Abstract

Math anxiety plagues students and teachers and may cause reduced math competency, avoidance of math courses, and physiological symptoms. This study investigated Hispanic pre-service teachers’ math anxiety, self-efficacy, and coping strategies. Previous research found that math-anxious teachers may promote the same feelings in their students and choose less effective teaching strategies. Therefore, we wanted to identify the incidence of anxiety in our Hispanic teacher candidate population while identifying potential differences from previous studies. Very few past investigations looked at this population exclusively and findings from other populations may not apply to our candidates and teachers. We collected data using a digital survey instrument and found math anxiety correlated with low self-efficacy and poor attitudes toward mathematics. Quizzes and exams, statistics, and probability caused the most anxiety among our participants. The most common way participants coped with their anxiety was to study more, followed by mindfulness and test-taking strategies. Based on our findings, math anxiety is quite common among Hispanic teacher candidates and should be studied further since many used coping strategies that did not appear to help even though they have shown promise in previous studies.