HOW CAN WE REDUCE MATH ANXIETY IN UNDERGRADUATE NURSING STUDENTS AND INCREASE MEDICINE MANAGEMENT COMPETENCY?
A. Costello, K. Newland
Lego as a Phenomena:
Using Lego as a phenomenon, is an interesting creative pedagogical concept and can be developed as a teaching and learning task. Interpretive phenomenology can be further used as a framework to understand Math anxiety and also developed as an innovative and engaging approach. This is a useful tool to use when developing educational staff. Math anxiety refers to undergraduate nurses and their fear of being able to use applied math's in their medicine management examination. By relating this concept to Lego, we can support educators to grasp the essential elements of learners experiencing math anxiety more concretely.
Workshop:
The Lego workshop will begin with an interactive exploration of math anxiety, and its perceptions from a staff perspective. This is followed by a visionary Lego activity to understand how alleviating math anxiety in undergraduate nurses informs good teaching and learning practices to achieve expected learning outcomes. A further exploration of digital resources will be presented to enhance the use of a digital platform to increase the development of thinking using a dilemma approach to learning.
To ensure our pedagogical practices are evidence based and research informed, the workshop will encourage attendees to reflect on their beliefs and practices to inform medicine management competency for undergraduate nurses and other health professionals, with an international perspective on competence and patient safety.
Specifically, we used Lego to:
1. Build parallels between Lego bricks and components of math anxiety, focusing on objectives, questions, rubrics and feedback.
2. Explore the design and alignment of different types of assessment, such as exam, presentation, poster and assignments; reducing math anxiety and increasing applied math competence
3. Consider how we can modify and improve medicine management assessment.
4. Examine what could be seen as an assessment challenge for those with math anxiety.
References:
[1] Deluca, C., Coombs, A., MacGregor, S., and Rasooli, A. (2019) Toward a Differential and Situated View of Assessment Literacy: Studying Teachers’ Responses to Classroom Assessment Scenarios.
[2] Kirby, B.P. and Pawlikowska, T., 2019. Pharmacology through play: using Lego® to revise core concepts for undergraduates. MedEdPublish, 8(201), p.201.
[3] Lindsey, M.D. and Neeley, C.R., 2010. Building learning curve and script theory knowledge with LEGO. Marketing Education Review, 20(1), pp.71-76.
[4] Macmull, M.S. and Ashkenazi, S., 2019. Math anxiety: The relationship between parenting style and math self-efficacy. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, p.399445.
[5] McKenna, L., Johnston, J., Cross, R., Austerberry, J., Mathew, T. and McKenzie, G., 2022. Mathematics anxiety and associated interventions in nursing: A scoping review. Nurse Education Today, 112, p.105335.
[6] Price, M., Rust, C., O’Donovan, B., Hindley, K. & Bryant, K. (2012) Assessment literacy: foundation for improving student learning. Wheatley: Oxford Brookes University.
[7] Schlagwein, D. and Bjorn-Andersen, N., 2014. Organizational learning with crowdsourcing: The revelatory case of LEGO. Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 15(11), p.3.
Keywords: Math anxiety self-efficacy creativity concrete support