Math Anxiety among Students in Higher Education Level

AbstractThe purpose of the present study was to examine whether math anxiety and attitudes among students in higher education have an effect on their academic achievement. For this reason 125 first semester students were presented with a math anxiety questionnaire about their perception towards mathematics based on emotional, assessment and environmental factors. Result indicated that emotional factor was the highest score related to math anxiety followed by environmental and assessment factors. Study also revealed that students’ performance much depends on math anxiety, which means that the higher score in math anxiety cause lower score in math performance. We recommend that all students should be motivated and have self-confidence to ensure that their math anxiety will not affect their performance by improving teaching and learning process. Thus, the finding of this study is hoped to provide useful information in improving the mathematics performance in higher level institution