ROLE OF GRIT AND OTHER FACTORS IN MITIGATING MATH ANXIETY IN COLLEGE MATH STUDENTS.

Math anxiety refers to feelings people get when facing computational challenges. The fear of failure often causes people to avoid activities, like taking challenging mathematics courses or choosing majors that require mathematics. Grit describes how people persist or persevere in the wake of failure. This article looks at factors that contribute to a person having grit and the interaction of grit and math anxiety. Students (N = 258) enrolled in college math classes at a large university completed a set of surveys that indicated their levels of self-compassion, mindfulness, self-efficacy, math anxiety, and grit. The analyses of the data found that grit predicted math anxiety, and that self-compassion, mindfulness, and self-efficacy predicted grit. The results of this study suggest that promoting factors that help students develop grit can in turn affect their math anxiety and thus their persistence in mathematics courses and STEM majors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]