Mathematics is, in its own way, the poetry of logical ideas: Albert Einstein

Mathematics is the cradle of all creations, without which the world cannot move an inch. The absolute knowledge and wisdom of God are revealed through mathematics. The laws of nature are the mathematical thoughts of God, from rainbows, rivers meadows, and shadows to spider webs, honeycombs, and the markings on animal coats, the visible world is full of patterns that can be described mathematically even the small snowflakes are the example of symmetry in nature. Mathematics makes our life orderly prevents chaos and develops the power of reasoning, creativity, abstract or spatial thinking, critical thinking, problem-solving ability, and even effective communication skills.
Mathematics forms the basis for every subject be it physics, chemistry, economics, history accountancy, or statistics, in fact, every subject is based upon mathematics. In this regard, Roger Bacon has rightly said, “Neglect of mathematics works injury to all knowledge since he who is ignorant of it cannot know other sciences or things of the world”. There are many people who feel apprehensive and their reactivity gets increased when they deal with maths, such as when they have to manipulate numbers, solve mathematical problems, or when they are exposed to an evaluative situation connected to maths, such people face the problem of mathematical anxiety which is nowadays mostly investigated in educational settings which not only affects students tasks performance but influences long term learning and academic achievement as well.
As per the Annual Status Educational Report (ASER) 2022, “A National Math problem” was seen after the pandemic in India, among children in class 3rd, 9.8% were not able to recognize numbers between 1-9, however, 27.6% can recognize numbers up to 9 but fail to recognize numbers up to 99 or higher. Only 17.6% can perform basic mathematical operations like subtraction, but cannot do division, and only 8.3% can do division. This report further revealed that only 21.6% of students of class V can perform division among private schools and only 38.7% among government schools. The report also revealed that only 41.8% of students of class VIII can do division and only 53.8% of students studying in private schools can do division. Students with a high level of math anxiety are prone to a variety of adverse learning behaviors, they invest less time and effort in learning maths, organize their learning environment less efficiently, devote less concentration attention to a learning session, took less interest in mathematics and tend to avoid math-related situations and courses; they often exhibit procrastination behavior due to which they often postpone their involvement with academic tasks such as homework or preparation for the examination.
Maths-anxious students not only avoid enrollment in maths-related courses but also avoid fields such as engineering, science and technology. At the cognitive level, mathematical anxiety hampers the functioning of working memory, at the emotional level student faces apprehension, worry, stress, and nervousness, at the physiological level symptoms of mathematical anxiety include sweaty hands, upset stomach and lightheadedness, at the social level societal beliefs, cultural influences, gender issues and a very important factor that leads to mathematical anxiety is missed opportunity which would account for individuals who measure highly in other academic domain but are not able to perform well in mathematics, because they did not had an opportunity to learn the fundamental knowledge in mathematics that is required to learn higher level of mathematics. In this regard recently, a very good step was taken in our Kashmir where authorities in Srinagar have decided to teach four fundamentals of mathematics such as addition, subtraction, multiplication and division along with BODMAS upto class 10th because students lacking basic and fundamental skills cannot become vibrant, efficient and productive members of society. This initiative will help to improve the attitude of society towards mathematics and help parents, teachers, school principals, and curriculum developers to find new ways of teaching mathematics, improving the learning outcomes and minimizing the mathematical anxiety issue among secondary school students which can help to improve the academic achievement of students . Various measures should be taken by different stakeholders of society to work towards enhancing the mathematical competencies of students and minimizing the chances of mathematical anxiety. Some of the strategies that can help in this direction are:
1. Mastery Learning: can help children to make sense of concepts and achieve fluency through carefully structured questions, exercises and problems that use conceptual and procedural variation to provide “practice” which develops conceptual understanding and procedural fluency. It is considered a useful strategy for developing a deeper understanding of mathematics rather than memorizing key concepts of mathematics. This method can be proven helpful for reducing anxiety related to mathematics among students because it can encourage teachers to understand students’ perceptions related to mathematical learning and examine the nature of evaluation and assessment. It can help students share ideas and try out different methods of problem-solving.
2. Relating maths to life: Our teachers should not primarily focus on mathematics content, but they should teach their students in such a way that can help them to solve problems that they face in the real world. Teachers can give maths activities to their students as homework such as counting items in their home, and drawing shapes that they saw in their surroundings; this can develop an understanding of the numerical properties of the physical environment. National Curriculum Framework (2005) has laid emphasis on teaching mathematics by relating it to real-life situations so that students can enjoy this subject rather than fear it. Parents through informal education can teach their children how to calculate grocery bills, how to credit/debit money within a bank, etc. In this way, basic mathematics can be taught to children in day-to-day life.
3. Manipulatives: Teachers can use numerous manipulatives like multilink cubes, Dienes, apparatus, counters, bead strings, Cuisenaire rods, digit cards, and dice; and also can use numerals such as place value cards, and hundred squares to teach basic mathematical operations to students. For example, students may not understand the significance of the area of a shape unless they know what it means in the physical world and why it is calculated. The progression from a point to a line with length to a shape with an area can be demonstrated using interlocking cubes, so manipulatives can give meaning to abstract symbols like +, -, ×, ÷, and so on.
4. Activity-oriented learning: Activity-based learning focuses the use of these sense organs and learning should be based on doing some hands-on experiments and activities. The idea of activity-based learning is rooted in the common notion that children are active learners rather than passive recipients of information. If a child is provided the opportunity to explore his/her own and provided an optimum learning environment then the learning becomes joyful and long-lasting. Teachers can use child-friendly educational aids to foster self-learning and allow a child to study according to his/her aptitude and skill. At the school level in mathematics, the activity/activities may be in the form of games, puzzle, worksheets, paper folding/paper cutting, concept mapping of mathematical modeling, etc.
5. Developing a good attitude and strong skills towards mathematics: Teachers and parents should take extra effort to develop strong skills and a good attitude towards mathematics. Research studies have shown that if the teacher is having mathematical anxiety it will definitely lead to anxiety among students. In Kashmir, we lack subject expert teachers, at many places. M.A. in History, English, Urdu teacher is teaching mathematics due to which we are unable to build a strong foundation, skills and good attitude among students related to mathematics result is these students avoid careers that demand mathematics and build a negative attitude towards this subject throughout their life. So it’s the responsibility of teachers, parents, researchers, and psychologists to frame strategies that lead to the development of a positive attitude towards this mathematics.
Apart from the above strategies, it is necessary that parents-child mathematical interaction should be improved. Positive parent-child interaction not only boost children’s mathematical learning but also enhance parents’ attitude and belief about mathematics, this change could carry long-lasting consequences for children’s math achievement and help to reduce mathematical anxiety. Various online mathematical apps like Banzu, Mathpid, Photomath, and Cuemaths can help children to learn abstract maths, understand concepts and build a good foundation in maths. In today’s digital world data sciences, statistical skills and mathematical applications are crucial for the employment market, which is faced with a shortage of these much-in-demand quantitative skills. Considering this, mathematical anxiety has become a problem of global interest. So the combined responsibility of educationists, policy framers, teachers, mathematicians, educational psychologists, and parents can help to reduce mathematical anxiety.
The authors can be reached at [email protected] and [email protected]

Simeranjeet Kour and Dr MohdZia-ul-Haq Rafaqi