Intervenção neuropsicológica para manejo da ansiedade matemática e desenvolvimento de estratégias metacognitivas

• Ano de defesa: 2015
• Autor(a) principal: Danielle Cristine Borges Piuzana Barbosa
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Tipo de acesso: Acesso aberto
• Idioma: por
• Instituição de defesa: Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais; UFMG
• Palavras-chave em Português: Autorregulação; Intervenção; Autoeficácia; Ansiedade matemática; Memória de trabalho; Neurociências
• Link de acesso: http://hdl.handle.net/1843/BUBD-AC7FXE

Math anxiety (MA) is a specific phobia that arouses feelings of fear, tension and worry in situations where a numerical reasoning or problem solving is required. A consistent risk factor for MA is the poor performance in arithmetic tasks. Poor performance can promote negative self-assessment and consequently reduce their self-efficacy. Therefore, math tasks can be associated with feelings of failure and this would increase anxiety about discipline. As math anxiety, metacognitive mechanisms such as self-efficacy and self-regulation are important to learning process. Poor metacognitive skills also are correlated with worse academic performance. Math anxiety also has an important role on working memory tasks. Several studies demonstrate how individuals with high math anxiety show worse results in tasks that require working memory. Therefore, the aim of this study was to test the effectiveness of a group intervention to reduce the math anxiety and develop metacognitive strategies. It was also tested the hypothesis whether there is a performance improvement in working memory tasks. The sample included 19 adolescents range 12 and 17 years age, with high levels of math anxiety. The intervention was based on cognitive-behavioral techniques. The results indicate that the sample was composed of two groups with different profiles, so that the intervention was effective in reducing anxiety only for one of the groups. However, none of the groups demonstrated better scores on working memory tasks. Subsequently, we conducted a case study of one of the participants of the intervention. A 16-years old girl with high intelligence and deficits in working memory and executive functions. Her skills such as language, visuospatial skills and basic numerical skills was preserved, but with a persistent math learning difficulty. The hypothesis investigated was whether there could be some mediating factor (math anxiety) between the general deficit (executive functions) and mathematics learning. After the intervention, there was a statistically improvement in the reduction of anxiety levels and increased self-efficacy and self-regulation. However, there were no improvements in working memory.