Pre-service elementary teachers' achievement goals and their relationship to math anxiety

Publication date: December 2017 Source:Learning and Individual Differences, Volume 60 Author(s): Alyssa R. Gonzalez-DeHass, Joseph M. Furner, María D. Vásquez-Colina, John D. Morris Math anxiety remains a critical issue affecting student performance and confidence across grade levels, including pre-service elementary teacher education. Given the potential impact teachers' math anxiety might have on their learning as well as that of their future students, one unique purpose of this research is to investigate how achievement goals relate to math anxiety among 182 pre-service teachers enrolled in undergraduate elementary education math methods courses. While low self-efficacy is a significant predictor of math anxiety, our results indicate that taking into account pre-service teachers' achievement goals increases our ability to predict math anxiety over that afforded by their level of self-efficacy alone. In particular, students adopting either mastery-avoidance or performance-avoidance goals while learning mathematics, may be particularly susceptible to math anxiety. Further, self-efficacy does not moderate the relationship between achievement goals and math anxiety, so the relationship between achievement goals and math anxiety is consistent across levels of self-efficacy.

Source: Learning and Individual Differences - October 20, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research