Assessment of mathematics anxiety of university undergraduate students

Abstract

This study examined the influence of programme of study and gender on students' anxiety in mathematics. Descriptive survey research design was adopted. Preservice teachers from a University of Education in Nigeria were used. A total of 160 second year (200 Level) students (87 male and 73 female) were selected using stratified, proportionate random sampling. A questionnaire, titled items Mathematics Anxiety Rating Scale (MARS) with reliability coefficient of 0.90 was used. One way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used for the analysis. Results indicated a significant difference in the mathematics anxiety of respondents based on programme of study. F (6, 153) = 2.58, P < 0.05 and the t-test revealed that mathematics anxiety is gender invariant [t (160) = 1.266, P < 0.05}. Mathematics anxiety exhibited by male students [ = 58.89, S.D = 14.020] is higher than that exhibited by female students [ = 46.33, S.D = 10.537]. It is recommended that deliberate effort should be made to encourage students and give proper counselling to them on how to develop confidence in mathematics. Also, training of students should be geared towards building students' confidence in mathematics particularly at the foundation level.