Supporting Nursing Students with their Mathematical Anxiety and Mathematical Resilience

It is well known that many nursing students struggle with the mathematics needed to be able to perform accurate calculations for safe drug administration. What is less well known is whether it is possible to help students control a phenomenon called mathematics anxiety to, in-turn, support learning. Those who experience mathematics anxiety can feel panic, flustered, or helpless whilst undertaking a mathematical task and can therefore find it difficult to complete calculations accurately, if at all. Previous studies have focused on improving understanding and related attainment however little research has focused on helping students control mathematics anxiety and build mathematical resilience, providing motivation for this study.

In this paper, 384 first-year nursing students, across two academic years, were given an intervention session in their timetabled classes to introduce them to the concept of mathematics anxiety, coping techniques, and applications of tools including the Growth Zone Model to support their learning. Measurements of mathematics anxiety and resilience were taken, using validated scales, before the intervention and approximately four weeks after. A group of 20 students were then interviewed at the end of the module (up to 6 weeks later) to investigate their opinions and feelings towards mathematics. The results showed a significant decrease in mathematics anxiety levels and a slight increase in resilience levels, despite the students having a surprisingly high level of mathematical resilience prior to the intervention. Students in the interviews felt that the intervention was useful and were using the tools taught to help control their anxieties in the longer term.

Overall, the study suggests that introducing the concepts of mathematics anxiety, along with the tools for controlling their anxiety, and supporting mathematical resilience to nursing students provides important benefits for them, enabling an improvement in their understanding of the mathematics needed within nursing.