Part I: Mathematical Anxiety and Defining “Good Teaching”
Anxiety in mathematics is a long-studied field of educational psychology, and is a problem that has many suggested causes. To understand the issues that arise for many people when confronting mathematics, it is important first to understand what the psychological concept of “mathematical (math) anxiety” is. Math anxiety is a perceived notion, defined by Ashcraft and Kirk (2001) as: “a feeling of tension, apprehension, or fear that interferes with math performance” (Ashcraft and Kirk, 2001). Notably, math anxiety or math phobia is not an actual inability to do mathematics; it is the perceived inability to do mathematics. This observation and the resulting research ...
