A Study of the Attitudes Toward Arithmetic of Students and Teachers in the Third, Fourth, and Sixth Grades

In the last few years many changes have occurred in the teaching of arithmetic, with the result that today arithmetic has a place of much greater importance in the curriculum. However, even with these changes, much of the current literature about arithmetic in the elementary curriculum gives one the impression that arithmetic is still a much disliked subject. Statements such as these appear in periodicals: “It is only too certain that today's mathematically ill-prepared teachers, many of whom are ill-disposed toward the subject, are infecting too large a number of our boys and girls with an enduring fear and hatred of mathematics, which can rarely be overcome later on in high school,”1 and “Most students who have a fear and dislike of mathematics met with some frustration in the elementary grades.” 2