Maths anxiety is an issue that effects many disciplines across multiple countries and sectors. Literature analysed in this scoping review spanned disciplines as diverse as education, engineering, health and science while covering diverse geographical locations such as United States (US), Austria, United Kingdom (UK), Israel, Portugal and Canada. The included articles utilised an array of varied study designs, including, cross-sectional, randomised control trial, and prospective cohort studies. The main themes that emerged from this review include gender, self-awareness, numerical ability, and learning difficulty each of these will now be synthesised and discussed.
Gender
Six articles addressed the gender concept; two American studies, three European and one Israeli study with mixed findings for the role gender plays in maths anxiety. Some of these articles found that gender has a role in maths anxiety [18, 18, 20, 21], while others found there was no significant difference between males and females [20, 22]. For example, a study of female psychology students in the US reported more maths anxiety than males [19] whereas there was no significant difference between males and females in maths anxiety in psychology students reported in the UK [20]. Psychology female students in the US [19] and Austria [21], and social science and education female students in Israel showed more maths anxiety than male students [22]. While in another study there was no significant difference in maths anxiety between males and females in the Portuguese engineering students [23].
The reasons why females frequently report higher maths anxiety than males is not well understood [24]. One explanation might be the different gender socialisation during childhood may differentially affect the anxiety experienced by males and females in certain situations which is known as the sex-role socialization hypothesis [24]. The sex-role socialization hypothesis argues that because mathematics has been traditionally viewed as a male domain, females may be socialised to think of themselves as mathematically incompetent and therefore females may avoid mathematics. When females do participate in mathematical activities they may experience more anxiety than males [24].
The pattern of gender effect on maths anxiety is different among disciplines and countries. In a recent study, Paechter et al. [21] administered the Revised Maths Anxiety Ratings Scale (R-MARS) to 225 psychology students at the University of Graz, Austria. This study showed that there were three antecedents of maths anxiety. Firstly, female gender who reported a higher level of maths anxiety β = − 0.660. Secondly, a high proneness to experience anxiety in general report higher levels of maths anxiety β = 0.385. Finally, poor grades in maths. According to Paechter et al. [21] maths anxiety is inversely related to maths grades β = 0.393. Of the above three factors, female gender was the most strongly related to maths anxiety and is supported by the findings of other studies such as Devine et al. [23]. Developing anxiety toward maths might be effected by gender and highlights a specific area for future empirical work.
Self-awareness
Self-awareness helps people to manage themselves and improve performances while the opposite is true that lacking self-awareness leads to making the same mistakes repeatedly [25]. Being self-aware enables us to determine our strengths and areas that can be improved [25]. Four studies addressed the self-awareness concept in relation to maths anxiety, one American study, one UK study, one Israeli study and one Portuguese study. Under the self-awareness theme, a number of other subthemes emerged including self-efficacy, maths confidence, maths value, maths barriers and performance. McMullan et al. [26] developed a Drug Calculations Self-Efficacy Scale that measured critical skills of medication calculations (dose of liquid oral drugs, solid drugs, injections, percentage solutions and infusion and drip rates). McMullan et al. [26] reported that there was a significant positive correlation between students’ maths self-efficacy and maths performance and between maths self-efficacy, drug calculation self-efficacy and drug calculation performance. Low level of maths anxiety was demonstrated by 10% of the students, medium level by 70% and high level by 20% of the students. McMullan et al. [26] also noted that numerical skills can be improved by remedial approaches as lectures, study groups, workshops and computer assisted instructions [27]. The authors suggested that the lectures should be more student-directed not only didactic in nature. Study groups increase the cooperation and encourage students to exchange and clarify information leading to improve the self-efficacy.
Maths confidence, maths value and maths barriers are related to maths behaviour and performance. Hendy et al. [28] studied maths behaviours in 368 university maths students. They reported maths behaviours (attending class, doing homework, reading textbooks and asking for help) at week 8 of the 15 week-semester using self-reported questionnaires. The aim of their study was identify the subclasses of maths beliefs and their role in maths behaviours. The most commonly reported maths belief was maths confidence (mean rating = 3.79, SD = 0.90). This study reported that students with low maths confidence or high maths anxiety might benefit from the maths self-evaluation and self-regulation interventions. These interventions utilised suggestions which include: maths skills are learnable not innate, assessing current skills and believing in their development abilities, teaching student the specific strategies to solve maths problems and keeping self-regulatory records to track development in overcoming maths anxiety. These interventions may be used in overcoming maths anxiety. This study outlined the approach to develop interventional teaching methods that can be applied to students or course curriculum to help in reducing maths anxiety. Self-awareness might determine the person’s areas of strength that might help future career selection. Self-efficacy, maths confidence and values, maths barriers and performance are factors that related to self-awareness. Assessing these factors can determine the methods of improving self-awareness which may end in overcoming maths anxiety.
Numerical ability
Two articles addressed the numerical ability concept [25, 2]. In their efforts to understand the origin of maths anxiety, Maloney et al. [29] investigated the processing of symbolic magnitude by high and low maths anxious individuals. They reported that high maths anxious individuals have less precise representations of numerical magnitude than their low maths anxious peers. Two experiments were performed on 48 undergraduate students in the University of Waterloo. A single Arabic digit in 18-font Arial font was presented at fixation. Numbers ranged from 1–4 to from 6–9. The participants were told to identify whether the number above five or below it. This study revealed that high maths anxious individuals have a less precise representation of numerical magnitude than the low maths anxious individuals. The results suggest that maths anxiety is associated with low level numerical deficits that compromise the development of higher level mathematical skills.
On the other hand, McMullan et al. [26] reported that numerical ability and maths anxiety are the main personal factors that might influence drug calculation ability in nursing students. The numerical ability test (NAT), used by McMullan et al. [26], is comprised of 15 questions that covered calculation operations like multiplication, addition, fraction, subtraction, percentage, decimals and conversion. McMullan et al. [26] reported that both numerical ability and drug calculation abilities of the participants (229 UK nursing students) were poor which might have been to an over-reliance on using calculators or not having adequate maths education in the past. Improving numerical ability and reducing maths anxiety can be achieved through teaching in a supportive environment using multiple teaching strategies that address the needs of all students and not being didactic [26]. Examples of these strategies include: accept and encourage students creative thinking, tolerate dissent, encourage students to trust their judgments, emphasise that everyone is capable of creativity, and serve as a stimulus for creative thinking through brainstorming and modelling [30].
Learning difficulty
Australian surveys have indicated that 10 to 16 per cent of students are perceived by their teachers to have learning difficulties according to Learning Difficulty Australia (LDA) (2012). Within the population of students with learning difficulties, there is a smaller subset of students who show persistent and long-lasting learning impairments and these are identified as students with a learning disability. It is estimated that approximately 4 per cent of Australian students have a learning disability (LDA 2012).
In this scoping review, one UK study addressed this concept, comparing undergraduate psychology students who represent 71% of the sample and nursing students who represent 14% of the sample who either had dyslexia (n = 28) or were assigned to the control group (n = 71). In 2014 Jordan et al. [31] reported that students with dyslexia had higher levels of maths anxiety relative to those without [31]. This study showed that significant correlations with maths anxiety were found for self-esteem (r = − 0.327; n = 99, p .001), worrying (r = 393; n = 99; p < 0.001 the denial (r = 0.238; n = 99; p = 0.018, seeking instrumental support (r = 0.206; n = 99; p = 0.040 and positive reinterpretation (r = − 0.216; n = 99; p = 0.032). In addition, this study found that seeking instrumental support served as an indicator of students at high risk of maths anxiety. In explaining variation in maths anxiety. Jordan et al. [31] claimed that 36% of this variation is due to dyslexia, worrying, denial, seeking instrumental support and positive reinterpretation. The limitation of this study is that not all dyslexia cases were disclosed by the students. As long as some of the students with dyslexia are not reported, the generalisation of this study would be limited. This study recommends positive reframing and thought challenging as techniques to overcome difficult emotions and anxiety.
