Philippine E-Journals

MATH for Math: The Common Stressors and the Academic Performance in Mathematics of Senior High School Students in a Philippine University

John Robby Robiños

 

Abstract:

Fear of Math stems primarily from student’s stress driven by different factors. These stress factors must be dealt with for students to exhaust all opportunities to improve their mathematical skills and abilities. The descriptive-correlational study was conducted to identify the common stressor in mathematics among senior high school students and determined its association with their academic performance. Some 398 senior high school students were randomly selected to answer a stress-checklist instrument (Cα=.92). The academic achievement of the selected students was also retrieved. Data analysis was carried out using Chi-square. The study identified (1) subject factors –number of class hours per week, availability of references, topic coverage in one school year; (2) personal factors – peer pressure, readiness to new topic, prior knowledge; (3) classroom factor – class schedule; and (4) teaching factors–assessment techniques, teaching approaches, vocabulary used, sufficiency of examples, instructional materials, cause moderate stress to students. From among these stressors, it is the personal factors that were associated with students’ academic performance. Based on the findings, a MATH (Maintaining a healthy lifestyle, Asking help from experts, Thinking positively and Having a growth mindset) coping strategy is proposed for senior high school students.