Abstract:
The present study focused on math anxiety and entailed two key objectives. The first was to develop a model illustrating cognitive and behavioral factors that instigated and perpetuated math anxiety. Participants were three-hundred Grade 9 students who responded to four self-report measures of math anxiety, negative math beliefs, negative math appraisals, and math avoidance. Results from the Structural Equation Modeling Analysis suggested that indices of the model proposed were consistent with empirical data, suggesting model fit. These cognitive and behavioral factors could account for 84.5% of the variance of math anxiety. Secondly, a quasi-experimental study was conducted to examine the efficacy of Cognitive-Behavioral Group Therapy in alleviating math anxiety in junior high school students. Participants were forty-eight Grade 9 students whose Math Anxiety scores were above the 73th percentile of those attending the first study. Twenty-four participants were assigned into the experimental and control groups each. Those in the experimental group attended a 6-session 2-hour weekly CBT group. Prior to and after study participation, participants responded to the measures of math anxiety, negative math beliefs, negative math appraisals, and math avoidance. Results from MANOVAs indicated that, at post treatment, the experimental groups MA and most of the variables examined decreased significantly from pre-treatment and were lower than those of the control group.