Regulating Math Anxiety and Improving Math Performance: A Review of Intervention Research

Math anxiety as a stressful reaction to interacting with mathematics is a common problem in education and is highly prevalent across the globe. Moreover, math anxiety is negatively correlated with math performance. Researchers are looking for promising ways to mitigateits negative association by designing and testing various interventions. This article presents a review of intervention research aiming at regulating students’ math anxiety. The findings revealed that interventions may be classified into two types: (1) behavioral interventions, and (2) interventions focusing on improving math knowledge and skills. The article further provides an overview of interventional studies that examined the effect on both math anxiety and math performance. It includes the identification of primary characteristics of the studies,and also the effects of interventions. The findings are discussed in terms of the present state in the field of math anxiety, particularly its potential regulation or treatment.