Anxiety about Math affects the performance of the students early: they try to avoid courses and works where they must address this subject, limiting their ability to learn and their possibilities in some areas of knowledge. However, there is no research about the impact of anxiety in the capability of Math teachers to make impartial judgments about their students and how this anxiety is related to gender’s stereotypes.
A research by members of the Universidad de Chile’s Center for Mathematical Modeling Salomé Martínez and Francisco Martínez, with the academic director of Center Center for Advanced Research in Education Alejandra Mizala, addressed this issue.
The sample included 208 preservice teachers, 176 women and 32 men, from 15 universities. These Education students read hypothetical cases about low performance in Math students who also misbehave. Future teachers should answer questionnaire thinking like every schoolchildren is in their own class. Gender and socioeconomic status of the pupils were changed sistematically, so different situation were produced with man from high and low socioeconomic status and women from high and low socioeconomic status. Preservice teachers were asked about their expectations about the future perfomance of these students in Math and all the other subjects.
The research concluded that expectations about future performance are very different according to student’s gender. Preservice teachers thought men shall performance better than women in Math. They also believe only girls could suffer long term consequences in academic performance.
“It’s worrying that teachers could have biased expectations if a students is a girl or a boy. We have to address that problem from teachers education on universities. If a teacher has different expectations, he or she couls affect the future of his/her students,” said Salomé Martínez.
Source: www.uchile.cl
