Do girls really experience more math anxiety?   Existing
research suggests that females are more anxious when it comes to
mathematics than their male peers, despite similar levels of
achievement. But education researchers Thomas Götz and Madeleine
Bieg of the University of Konstanz and the Thurgau University of
Teacher Education and colleagues identified a critical
limitation of previous studies examining math anxiety: They
asked students to describe more generalized perceptions of
mathematics anxiety, rather than assessing anxiety during actual
math classes and exams.  To address this limitation, the
researchers conducted two studies in which they collected data
from approximately 700 students from grades 5 to 11. In the
first study, they compared students’ responses on two different
measures: A questionnaire measuring anxiety about math tests,
and their real-time self-reports of anxiety directly before and
during a math exam. In the second study, they compared
questionnaire measures of math anxiety with rep