Assessment of Mathematics Attitude, Test-taking Skills and Mathematics Anxiety of Secondary School Students in Ondo State
Abstract
Mathematics is very important for skill acquisition and sustainable national development since it laid solid foundations for science and technology. Despite its practical utility, the performance of secondary school students in the subject is not encouraging. Test taking skills, mathematics anxiety and poor attitude towards mathematics have been identified in literature as some of the factors contributing to students' poor achievement in the subject. This study therefore assessed Mathematics attitude, test-taking skills and Mathematics anxiety of Secondary School Students in Ondo State. Descriptive survey research design was used for the study. Three hundred and sixty (360) SS3 students randomly selected using multistage random sampling procedure constituted the sample. Three self-constructed instruments were used for data collection. The instruments are: Test-taking Skills Scale (TTSS); Mathematics Anxiety Scale (MAS) and Students' Attitude towards Mathematics Scale (SAMS). Cronbach alpha was used to measure the internal consistency of the instruments. The reliability coefficients for the three measures are: 0.88, 0.79 and 0.73 respectively. Data collected were analyzed using frequency counts, percentage, mean and standard deviation. Findings revealed that majority of the secondary school students in Ondo state have negative attitude towards the study of mathematics, manifest high level of mathematics anxiety and do not have appropriate test-taking skills. It was concluded that secondary school students in Ondo State are still having problems with the identified variables causing poor performance in mathematics. Appropriate recommendations were also made to improve students' achievement in the subject.
Keywords
Assessment, Mathematics Attitude, Test-Taking Skills, Mathematics Anxiety, Sustainable Development
Authors
Joseph Oluwatayo OSAKUADE
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