The relationship between Mathematics anxiety and test performance in Mathematics of secondary school students

Abstract

The math anxiety and math test performance of 192 secondary school students from Palaca-Damilisan National High School were assessed using a math anxiety questionnaire and a math test. This was done to find out the effects of math anxiety on high school students’ math test performance. Sex and year level differences on math anxiety and math test performance were also investigated using the analysis of variance. Findings reveal that math anxiety affects math test performance negatively. No statistically significant sex differences were found in both math anxiety and math test performance. No statistically significant year level differences were found in math anxiety. Year-level differences were found to be statistically significant in math test performance. Year level math test performance means showed a decreasing pattern from first year to third year but the means went up in the third year. Tukeys HSD showed that significant differences were coming from the differences in the means of the first and second year levels and the first and third year levels.