Impact Of Mathematics Anxiety On Secondary School Students' Academic Achievement

Mathematics knowledge is necessary for secondary school students. Mathematics anxiety is a feeling of tension or fear that affects the performance of students in mathematics. The present investigation has been conducted to study Mathematics anxiety with respect to gender, locality and its relationship with academic achievement. The study employed descriptive survey method. The sample size is 105 secondary school students from Bankura district in West Bengal. The instrument (Effect of Mathematics Anxiety on Academic Performance Scale) used to measure the differences has been developed by the investigators. The data has been analyzed by using ‘t’-test and Pearson correlation. Analysis of the ‘t’-test results for gender show that there is no significant differences of anxiety towards mathematics between boys and girls students and ‘t’-test results for locality show that there is no significant differences of anxiety towards mathematics between rural and urban area students. Though the correlation test shows a significant and positive relationship between student’s mathematics achievement and their academic achievement with correlation value r = 0. 001, it indicates almost no effect of mathematics anxiety on their academic achievement.