Attitudes, Anxiety, and Mathematics Performance of Grade11 Senior High School Students: Input to Instructional Materials Development

Abstract

INTRODUCTION

Various educational research has identified a number of factors that influence students learning in mathematics. Anxiety and attitudes of the students are often associated with their math learning and performance. Math becomes extraordinarily difficult for some that they begin to consider having a learning disability. This study determined the influence of the modularized and technology-based instructions to students' anxiety and attitudes towards Mathematics.

METHODS

Utilized descriptive-experimental designs withtwo experimental groups matched accordingly into three levels ofabilities. Documentary analysis is done through the average grade ofstudents during the first semester. There were 15 selected students matched per group, a total of30 respondents for the two experiments.

RESULTS

Significant differences were noted on the negative andpositive attitudes ofthe respondents for both methods ofinstructions used. There were significant differences observed on the students' level ofanxiety in both modular andtechnology-based approaches. Students' overall performance for the competencies tested is verbally interpreted as "satisfactory" in the pretest to "very satisfactory" in the posttest.

DISCUSSIONS

Both modularized andtechnology-based instructions may be used to increase the positive values ofstudents while decreasing levels ofnegative attitude, reducing mathematical anxiety, andincreasing mathematical performance. Results posted an evident strong correlation between three variables (i.e. attitudes, anxiety, mathematics performance), as shown by strong correlation values exposed after the experiment. For the results ofthe two matched groups, results in the modularized instruction showed higher mean gains than in a technology-based approach.