Math anxiety saps working memory needed to do math
By Julie Steenhuysen Mon Feb 19, 9:03 AM ET

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Worrying about how you'll perform on a math test may actually contribute to a lower test score, U.S. researchers said on Saturday.

Math anxiety -- feelings of dread and fear and avoiding math -- can sap the brain's limited amount of working capacity, a resource needed to compute difficult math problems, said Mark Ashcroft, a psychologist at the University of Nevada Los Vegas who studies the problem.

"It turns out that math anxiety occupies a person's working memory," said Ashcroft, who spoke on a panel at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Francisco.

Ashcroft said while easy math tasks such as addition require only a small fraction of a person's working memory, harder computations require much more.

Worrying about math takes up a large chunk of a person's working memory stores as well, spelling disaster for the anxious student who is taking a high-stakes test.

Stress about how one does on tests like college entrance exams can make even good math students choke. "All of a sudden they start looking for the short cuts," said University of Chicago researcher Sian Beilock.

Although test preparation classes can help students overcome this anxiety, they are limited to students whose families can afford them.

Ultimately, she said, "It may not be wise to rely completely on scores to predict who will succeed."

While the causes of math anxiety are unknown, Ashcroft said people who manage to overcome math anxiety have completely normal math proficiency.

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Read this piece of news the moment i log on the net.
Maths anxiety. Okok.
I am having maths exam on Monday..so i will let my self relax on sunday.
I used to apply the technique or rather go through the routine of relaxing a day before exams and not study and talk about that particular topic on the day of exams.
Hehes.
Time to follow that routine perhaps?
Hehes.

Oh yes, my lol syndrome is back.
Yeaps. When there is something funny, i will want to say lol out instead of laughing.
Oh my, shall STOP writing the word lol online or anything already.
Hahas.
Oh yes, and talking about duckie post.
There is no reason behind it.
Michelle do things with no reason at times.
Del and hl were guessing what it meant.
But hahas, dont waste ur brain cells.
Lols.
Doing things for no reason creates more fun.
= )

Study time! A paper a day keeps worries at bay.
= )