University of Minnesota’s 2016 McNair scholars showcased their projects to faculty, alumni, and fellow students on August 4th in Coffman Memorial Union. Ana Lozano— an undergraduate student in the family social sciences program mentored by Dr. Rose Vukovic— presented her project on math anxiety. Her research takes a new approach— not only asking how math anxiety affects students— but how it affects parents’ involvement in their child’s education. She found that parents with high math anxiety reported feeling less comfortable communicating with their child’s school and with engaging in home-based activities such as helping with homework. She also found that having high educational expectations for their children’s success was more important for children’s mathematical outcomes than was having high math anxiety

The Ronald E. McNair Scholars Program works in an effort to prepare underrepresented, low-income, and first-generation students for graduate studies. The goal of this program is to increase graduate degree awards from underrepresented segments of society.