Maths Anxiety

Maths anxiety is very common among commencing university students. 

Quick tips for dealing with maths anxiety include:

• Reflect on why you feel anxious
• Look back on your successes so far
• Think positive and practice positive self talk eg 'I know I can do this'
• Practice relaxation techniques
• Talk with fellow students about how you feel
• Talk with your tutor.

Students can also talk with the maths staff in The Learning Centre or with Student Services who have many strategies to help you cope with the stress of studying.

Thinking about Studying Mathematics

Everybody you talk with has a different view about mathematics. Some people like it and some don't...some people feel they use it all the time and some that they have never touched it since they left school. Our past students have described, sometimes quite colourfully, just what mathematics was to them when they first enrolled.  For example:

• maths is something we use every day, when we go to buy something, weigh out ingredients for cooking, mark up a building site
• maths is just a lot of rules and formulas.

Even ‘experts' in mathematics have different views of mathematics.

Here, where we reach the sphere of mathematics, we are among processes which seem to some the most inhuman of all human activities, and the most remote from poetry. Yet it is here that the artist has the fullest scope of his imagination.
Havelock Ellis (1859 -1939) in Pappas, T. 1995, The Music of Reason, World Wide Publishing, USA.

You might like to stop and think now about what you believe mathematics is.

Obviously, mathematics is different things to different people. In your studies of mathematics we hope you will find that mathematics is more than just numbers. Sure, it does involve numbers but it also involves recognising patterns, reading and writing, understanding and using tables, pictures and graphs. You might be surprised just how much mathematics you know and have been using already....just reading and understanding the newspaper these days can be a mathematical exercise that most of us perform regularly. As you travel along the road of tertiary study it is now essential that you take out the store of mathematical knowledge you have kept locked away and dust it off.

Each of us has our own feelings about starting to learn mathematics again.

The following are some of the comments that students have recorded. You may be interested to know that all these men and women went on to successfully complete some  mathematics, sometimes within a nursing , education , or psychology subject or sometimes at a more formal level.

• Maths brings to people like myself a wild look to the eye, a dry mouth and low self esteem. In a class situation the fear that the tutor may ask you a question in front of the class is and has been a very unnerving experience.
• When I decided to return to study mathematics I was excited about the prospect of learning.
• Studying maths again was a frightening prospect, especially when I first saw some of the problems. My first reaction was ‘Oh my goodness ! What have I done?'
• I have always been interested and able to do mathematics but never before had the opportunity.

We have found that is not unusual to feel like the first student above as many students who return to study mathematics have had unpleasant experiences in the past.

• I had a maths teacher many years ago who took great joy in calling me a criminal and showed his dislike by hitting me on the top of my head with his knuckles when other boys in the class answered his questions incorrectly. I would average three canings a week for poor work and behaviour and couldn't get out of school quick enough. I recall getting top of the class in one maths test after deciding to apply myself but was promptly accused of cheating by the teacher who felt the result was out of character.

Others have not had unpleasant experiences but circumstances have made it not possible for them to stay at school, while for some students, school is a very distant memory.

• I was a school dropout who spent more time having a good time than concentrating at school.
• I always loved maths and was good at it but had to leave school when I was fifteen - I am more keen than ever to get back to it.
• I last went to school 30 years ago, I am wondering what I am doing here.

However, you might be encouraged to know that all of the above students have progressed successfully through their university studies.

With small stages and small successes you can increase your skill and confidence.

Contact The Learning Centre staff if you want to talk about your mathematics anxiety.