The pre-service primary school teachers? mathematics teaching anxiety levels and the reasons which cause this anxiety

The purpose of this study was to examine the pre-service primary school teachers? levels of anxiety and the factors that cause concern for pre-service teachers to teach mathematics. 177 pre-service primary school teachers who were enrolled Afyon Kocatepe University, Faculty of Education in the 2008-2009 and 2009-2010 academic years participated in this study. To determine the pre-service teachers? levels of anxiety for teaching mathematics, Mathematics Teaching Anxiety Scale developed by Peker (2006) was applied to the participants. After the collection of the data, descriptive statistics to determine the pre-service teachers? anxiety levels for teaching mathematics and t-test with independent samples to determine their anxiety levels for teaching mathematics in terms of gender were employed. To determine the factors that cause anxiety of the pre-service teachers for teaching mathematics, 14 pre-service teachers with the highest anxiety level among the surveyed pre-service teachers were interviewed by means of semi-structured interview method, reasons of anxiety for teaching mathematics around specific themes were tried to be determined by means of content analysis after the interviews were transcripted.According to the results of the pre-service teachers for teaching mathematics anxiety levels were generally below average. Additionally, it was understood that teaching of mathematics anxiety of the pre-service teachers in terms of gender showed statistically significant differences, women were more anxious than men. As a result of the second part of the study, when ?teaching mathematics? is said to the pre-service teachers before studying mathematics, feelings such as fear, shudder, confusion, worry, nervousness, excitement woke up in themselves and feelings of anxiety arose at the same time were reached as a conclusion. In addition, as a result of the interviews it was identified that factors that cause teaching mathematics anxiety was related with mathematics anxiety, training, lack of self-esteem, lack of knowledge of the area. Pre-service teachers slightly overcame the concerns of teaching mathematics, gave increasing importance to the teaching of mathematics, felt increased self-confidence and relaxation after taking the course of teaching mathematics were the conclusions that came out. Besides, as a result of the interviews measures to be taken in terms of pre-service teachers to eliminate the teaching of mathematics anxiety were given.