CHICAGO — Female teachers’ anxiety about math may undermine girls’ confidence in learning the subject and decrease their performance in fields that depend on a grasp of math fundamentals, such as science and engineering, research at the University of Chicago shows.
The findings are the product of a year-long study of 17 first- and second-grade teachers and 65 girls and 52 boys who were their students. The researchers found that boys’ math performance was not related to their teachers’ math anxiety while girls’ math achievement was affected.
More than 90 percent of elementary-school teachers in the country are women, and they are able to get their teaching certificates with little mathematics preparation, according to the National Survey of Science and Mathematics Education.
“We are not sure whether it’s something overt, whether it’s nonverbal behavior or perhaps (teachers are) not spending much time on the subject,” said Susan Levine, a psychology and human-development professor and co-author of the study, “Female Teachers’ Math Anxiety Affects Girls’ Math Achievement,” published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences this month.
The authors suggest that preparation programs for elementary teachers be strengthened by requiring more math as well as addressing attitudes and anxiety about the subject.
