This study1 focuses on mathematics anxiety in nine- to eleven-year-old children and compares the
mathematics anxiety of pupils taught in a traditional manner with that of pupils whose teachers adopted an
alternative teaching approach emphasising problem-solving and discussion of pupils’ own informal
strategies. One finding is that pupils who were exposed to a traditional approach reported more
mathematics anxiety than those who were exposed to the alternative approach, particularly with regard to
the social, public aspects of doing mathematics. The question is raised whether it is these public aspects of
doing mathematics in the presence of teachers and peers which actually evoke mathematics anxiety in many
pupils, and not working with numbers or doing sums. However, the majority of pupils in this study reacted
with either high or low anxiety to both aspects of doing mathematics.