MATHS ANXIETY: FURTHER COMPLICATED BY SPREADSHEET SHOCK?

Abstract

This paper offers an augmentation to the work of Smailes and Heyman (2018) and Farjadpour and Fresneda-Portillo (2018). Smailes and Heyman (2018) considered techniques for teaching mathematics to non-mathematicians (e.g. business programmes) whilst Farjadpour and Fresneda-Portillo (2018) considered mathematics anxiety. What was particularly salient about the latter study was that it involved undergraduate mathematics students. This struck a particular chord with the first presenter: if mathematics anxiety occurred in students choosing this as a specialism, what additional impacts could be occurring within Business based cohorts? Are there further complexities that require consideration within these cohorts? For example, past experience indicates that the advent of technologies, in this case spreadsheets, can be both a blessing and a curse. Hesse and Hesse-Scerno (2009) posit that spreadsheets have changed the world and suggest that they have potentially saved some mathematics based business curricula. Spreadsheets are now a universal business tool that needs to be learned (Pan et al., 2018). What are the potential relationships between mathematics anxiety and spreadsheet confidence? Do similar factors that impact on mathematics anxiety impact on spreadsheet confidence? This paper illustrates that indeed there are a number of similarities between the two and suggest the impact of technologies is such that techno-math literacies supersedes numeracy capability as a concept (Geiger, Goos, & Forgasz, 2015). Furthermore, additional dynamics linked to confidence are exposed that merit further qualitative investigation.