THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MATHEMATICS ANXIETY AND NUMBER PATTERN RECOGNITION IN SIXTH GRADE STUDENTS

This study is an investigation of the relationships among mathematics anxiety, algebraic pattern recognition, use of algebraic patterns to facilitate recall of a list of numbers and mathematics achievement. Instruments designed to measure these variables were administered individually to each of 60 sixth grade students. The Iowa Basic Skills Test scores were used as measures of general and mathematics achievement. Performance on equivalent forms of the algebraic pattern recognition test and the number recall task by a subsample of 25 students indicates that these instruments are reliable. The evidence from this study does not support the hypotheses that among sixth graders mathematics anxiety is highly negatively correlated with pattern recognition, successful recall of lists of numbers or mathematics achievement. Correlations, tests for independence of variables and a principal factor analysis support the conclusion that mathematics skills achievement, use of algebraic patterns in a recall task and successful recall of a meaningless list of numbers are the three major, relatively independent performance factors described by the variables considered. Mathematics anxiety showed no significant correlation with any of these descriptors. While the distributions on most of the variables measured were not significantly different for the male and female subsamples, sex differences were observed in the correlations involving the recall test scores, suggesting that males and females tend to employ different strategies when asked to recall lists of numbers. This study indicates that the strong negative correlation between mathematics anxiety and mathematics achievement observed among college students is not evident among college-bound sixth grade students. This researcher concludes that employment of a rote memory strategy rather than a search for the algebraic pattern in the number recall task is a factor likely to predict both lower mathematics achievement and greater mathematics anxiety when the student undertakes the study of more advanced mathematics. If this conclusion is supported by a longitudinal study, it would seem that early training in both pattern recognition and employment of algebraically expressible patterns might alleviate some of the mathematics anxiety and avoidance which tend to occur during the high school years.