Open AccessEffect of expressive writing on math anxiety of engineering students
Author(s) -
Vikrant Jaltare,
Kshipra V. Moghe
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
iop conference series. materials science and engineering
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1757-899X
pISSN - 1757-8981
DOI - 10.1088/1757-899x/804/1/012057
Subject(s) - mathematical anxiety , remedial education , feeling , anxiety , psychology , control (management) , mathematics education , developmental psychology , social psychology , computer science , artificial intelligence , psychiatry
Math Anxiety is the negative reaction to situations involving mathematical computation. Studies have shown that math anxiety restricts access to working memory, which is essential to solve mathematical problems. Using the math anxiety – performance relationship, the effectiveness of expressive writing as remedial measure was tested. Participants (N=42) were asked to either sit quietly (control group) or were told to write about their thoughts and feelings (experimental group) prior to taking a math test. The experimental group participants performed significantly better than the control group participants. A significant improvement in performance due to expressive writing shows positive reaction toward math anxiety.