Relationship Between Shs Students‘ Attitude, Motivation, Anxiety, and Achievement in the Study of Elective Mathematics

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to analyze the relationship between SHS students‘ attitude, motivation, anxiety, and achievement towards the study of elective mathematics. The sample consisted of all public grade B mixed SHS 2 students doing Elective Mathematics, selected from five (5) SHSs in three municipalities, drawn from five programmes namely, General Arts, Science, Agricultural Science, Business and Technical. In all, nine hundred and sixty-seven (967) students participated in the study (595 males and 372 females). The purposive sampling technique was used to select the participants. The research designs used were descriptive survey and inferential statistical method. The tools used were achievement test and a questionnaire. The instruments were pre - tested and the construct validity was established using Cronbach alpha. The Cronbach alpha coefficients of the instruments were 0.795 for attitude, 0.791 for motivation and 0.767 for anxiety, which established the internal consistency of the instrument. The statistical tools used to analyse the research questions were Pearson‘s Product Moment Correlation and Standard Multiple Regression. Attitude, motivation and anxiety therefore, had positive significant effects on achievement. The results revealed that there were strong positive significant correlations between the achievement and each of the affective variables used. There were positive high significant correlations between each pair of affective variables. It is therefore, recommended that elective mathematics teachers and parents check attitude and motivation of the students effectively to enable them develop much desire, interest and the right attitude towards the study of elective mathematics. This will help reduce elective mathematics anxiety level among the students.