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In a new study about the way kids learn math in elementary school, the psychologists at the University of Chicagol Sian Beilock and Susan Levine found a surprising relationship between what female teachers think and what female students learn:If a female teacher is uncomfortable with her own math skills, then her female students are more likely to believe that boys are better than girls at math.
"If these girls keep getting math-anxious female teachers in later grades, it may create a snowball effect on their math achievement said Levine. In other words,girls may end up learning math anxiety from their teachers. The study suggests that if these girls grow up believing that boys are better at math than girls are,then these girls may not do as well as they would have if they were more confident.
Just as students find certain subjects to be difficult, teachers can find certain subjects to be difficult to learn and teach. The subject of math can be particularly difficult for everyone.Researchers use the word "anxiety" to describe such feelings: anxiety is uneasiness or worry.
The new study found that when a teacher has anxiety about math, that feeling can influence how her female students feel about math. The study involved 65 girls,52 boys and 17 first- and second-grade teachers in elementary schools in the Midwest. The students took math achievement tests at the beginning and end of the school year, and the researchers compared the scores.
The researchers also gave the students tests to tell whether the students believed that a math superstar had to be a boy. Then the researchers turned to the teachers:To find out which teachers were anxious about math,the researchers asked the teachers how they felt at times when they came across math, such as when reading a sales receipt. A teacher who got nervous looking at the numbers on a sales receipt, for example,was probably anxious about math.
Boys,on average,were unaffected by a teacher’s anxiety. On average,girls with math-anxious teachers scored lower on the end-of-the-year math tests than other girls in the study did.Plus,on the test showing whether someone thought a math superstar had to be a boy,20 girls showed feeling that boys would be better at math -- and all of these girls had been taught by female teachers who had math anxiety.
"This is an interesting study,but the results need to be interpreted as preliminary and in need of replication with a larger sample," said David Geary,a psychologist at the University of Missouri in Columbia.
1. What is the result of the research at the University of Chicago,according to the first paragraph?
A Girls comfortable with their own math skills are better than boys at math.
B Girls uncomfortable with their own math skills are not as good as boys at math.
C Female teachers’ math skills have influence over girl students’ math skills.
D Female teachers’ confidence in their math skills is related to girl’s math skills.
2. What is implied in the third paragraph?
A Math teachers,like math learners,do not like the subject due to its difficulty.
B A difficult subject like math may affect teachers’ confidence in teaching the subject.
C Teachers are more anxious teaching math than their students learning math.
D Math is so difficult that no teachers like to teach it.
3. According to the experiment,those teachers were probably anxious about math when they felt
A nervous memorizing the numbers of a sales receipt.
B helpless saving the numbers of a sales receipt.
C uneasy reading the numbers of a sales receipt.
D hopeless filling in the numbers of a sales report.
4. The sixth paragraph tells us that the research findings
A prove a strong link between female teachers’ math anxiety and their female students’ math achievements.
B show that male students are less likely to be affected by their math anxiety than female students.
C provide strong evidence that math superstars are more likely to be males than females.
D discover a strong link between teachers’ math anxiety and their students’ math achievements.
5. David Geary thinks that
A the study is interesting but it is based on unreliable research process.
B the research results need to be retested based on a larger sample.
C the research results need to be reinterpreted to be meaningful.
D the study is well based and produces significant results.
