Picturing mathematicians: Examining how gender and math anxiety relate to students’ representations of mathematicians in late elementary and middle school

A common gender stereotype is that men are higher performers than women in math. This stereotype not only affects students’ math performance but also influences their interests and vocational options in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). The “Draw-a-Mathematician Task” (DAMT) has been used to understand students’ perceptions of who is a mathematician. However, the existing studies with DAMT often do not consider the role of other individual traits that are closely associated with gender stereotypes, such as math anxiety. The current study examined how students’ math anxiety, gender, and grade level may be associated with their gendered representations of mathematicians and the level of math difficulty included in their drawings. Students (N = 261; 133 girls, 128 boys; 116 fourth graders, 89 sixth graders, 56 eighth graders) completed a math anxiety questionnaire and were then asked to draw a picture of a mathematician and explain where their ideas came from. Overall, girls drew more female mathematicians than boys, and the proportion of students drawing female mathematicians dropped steeply in eighth grade, particularly for girls. Girls showed higher levels of math anxiety than boys, and math anxiety increased across grades. However, math anxiety was unrelated to the content of students’ drawings. This study emphasizes the importance of efforts to support girls’ sense of belonging in mathematics, especially into secondary grades in which reported levels of math anxiety are higher.