Until recently, scientists and educators thought that math anxiety first appears when children begin to learn complicated mathematics (such as algebra). This would mean that young children (who do not yet do complicated math) do not experience math anxiety. However, recent research has shown that some children as young as 6 years old say that they feel anxious about math. A team of researchers asked 154 children in grades 1 and 2 questions like, "how do you feel when taking a big test in your math class?" The children had to indicate how nervous they felt by pointing to a position on a scale, ranging from a very nervous face on the left to a calm face on the right. After answering these questions, the children took a math test that measured their math abilities. These researchers found that almost half of the children who participated in the study said that they were at least somewhat nervous about doing math. Also, children with higher math anxiety got worse scores on the math test.

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Go to source: https://kids.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/frym.2017.00057