Yesterday I took a little stab at the gender gap in mathematics, and today I want to follow up (despite having learned of the many amazing consequences that can follow a stabbing incidence):
It shouldn't be a surprise that math anxiety carries negative consequences for mathematical achievement. For one, being anxious about math might make people avoid it (for example by studying less, not taking additional math classes etc.), but on top of that it is also clear that being anxious can hinder us in test situations, because our anxiety literally gets into the way of letting us access whatever mathematical knowledge we do have. Although the term might now be used to mean something else, I really like referring to the negative effect of anxiety on performance as the "Tiger Woods Effect", where opponents would be anxious about playing the greatest Golfer of all-time and thus actually play worse games than they would otherwise; thereby helping Tiger Woods expand his reputation ;(all things that of course no longer have to do with Golf, I guess...).
Tiger or no Tiger, the negative consequences of anxiety, worries and self-doubt on performance have been well documented, and with this in mind an interesting storyline develops regarding girls and math when mathematics teachers are anxious of the subject they are teaching:
Schoolchildren who notice their teachers feeling uncomfortable with math, are vulnerable to the idea that mathematics is inherently difficult and that they themselves will also struggle with it. In this sense, math anxiety in teachers can be related to pupils' conceptualization of their own ability and their formulation of gender stereotypes. This seems to be the case even stronger when the teacher has the same sex as the student, so that identification comes easier.
What makes this a particular bad situation for girls is that American primary school teachers are apparently particularly math anxious, and that more than 90% of elementary school teachers in the US are female. The way this story unfolds from here should be clear...
However, in order to make this more than a neat story line, researchers and education specialists Sian Beilock, Elizabeth Gunderson, Gerardo Ramirez, and Susan Levine conducted a study in which they measured the math anxiety of first and second grade teachers as well as the math performance of their students at the beginning of the year. This initial data showed no difference in math ability between the boys and the girls. When, however, they re-assessed math ability at the end of the year, the found that
"the more anxious teachers were about math, the more likely girls (but not boys) were to endorse the commonly held stereotype that "boys are good at math, and girls are good at reading" and the lower these girls' math achievement. Indeed, by the end of the school year, girls who endorsed this stereotype had significantly worse math achievement than girls who did not and than boys overall."
I.e. the teacher's anxiety indeed appears to shift attitudes about mathematics and gender stereotypes in mathematics, and these shifts correlate significantly with consequent achievement. Considering the importance of early childhood experiences for overall educational achievement, you can see that this might indeed contribute dramatically to observed gender gap in math among adults in the US.
Although I think that this is a terrific study, I wonder what the practical consequence might be. Offer "anti-anxiety" classes to teachers? What do you think?
Main Reference:
Beilock, S., Gunderson, E., Ramirez, G., & Levine, S. (2010). Female teachers' math anxiety affects girls' math achievement Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107 (5), 1860-1863 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0910967107
