The Relationship between Mathematics Anxiety and Learning Styles of Students

The general purpose of this research is the study of relationship between mathematics anxiety and learning styles in high school students. To assess the student's learning styles, the Kolb's learning styles inventory and to assess the mathematics anxiety, Chiu and Henry's “Mathematics Anxiety Scale for children (MASC)” were applied, the reliability and validity of which had previously been calculated. The population consisted of all high school science and mathematics students that studied in four districts in Shiraz; participants were selected by random-cluster sampling. The findings indicated that there was a positive significant relationship between mathematics anxiety and concrete experience learning methods, on the one hand & negative significant relationship between mathematics anxiety and abstract conceptualization, on the other hand. There was no significant relationship between mathematics anxiety and learning styles with respect to gender. In addition, surveying the relation between student's mathematics anxiety and their learning styles according to their education grades revealed that there was a negative and significant relationship between mathematics anxiety and abstract conceptualization learning style. The correlation was statistically significant for students of the third grade.