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While counseling psychologists are becoming increasingly involved in the treatment of math anxiety, little is yet known about its prevalence, nature, or effects. The present study, an investigation of factors related to the prevalence and intensity of math anxiety in college students, utilized 652 subjects obtained from two math courses and one psychology course at a large midwestern university. Results indicated that math anxiety occurs frequently among college students and that it is more likely to occur among women than among men arid among students with inadequate high school math backgrounds. Higher levels of math anxiety were related to lower mathematics achievement test scores, higher levels of test anxiety, and higher levels of trait anxiety. Implications for the identification and treatment of math-anxious students and for the process of educational/vocational counseling are discussed.
Nancy E. Betz (Fri,) studied this question.