Mathematical Anxiety and Academic Performance among Junior High School Students

This research work “MATHEMATICAL ANXIETY AND ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE AMONG JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS” focuses on the relationship between Mathematics anxiety and students’ performance. A descriptive correlational design was employed to investigate the research questions. The sample was composed of 356 Grade 7 students from all secondary schools of Dolores I and II Districts, of Eastern Samar Division. An adapted survey questionnaire was utilized to gather information relative to the respondents’ mathematics anxiety, while the third quarterly general average was considered to represent students’ performance. Meanwhile, to interpret mathematics anxiety, mean and standard deviations were used, whereas frequency and percent were used to describe academic performance. However, Spearman’s rank correlation was employed to test the significant relationship between variables.  In terms of findings, the study revealed that the mathematics anxiety was high to very high level. This suggests that teachers should encourage students to overcome their anxiety towards the subject by means of incorporating activities in the classroom which are fun-filled and interactive. On the other hand, the students’ performance in Math 7 was ranging from satisfactory to outstanding. The result is indicative that some of the students still need to improve their academic performance, while other only need to maintain their remarks. Lastly, results show that there was a significant relationship between students’ mathematics anxiety and performance in Math 7, which emphasizes that in order for the students to earn exemplary academic performance, they should overcome their anxiety towards the subject.