Learners' Test Anxiety, Test Wiseness and Mathematics Achievement in Secondary Schools in Jos North Local Government Area, Plateau State

Abstract

The study examined the relationship between learners ‘test anxiety, test wiseness and achievement in mathematics. It was prompted by the need to investigate if test wiseness can reduce students’ test anxiety which may adversely affect their performance in mathematics. A correlation design was adopted the study. Three research questions and three hypotheses were formulated to guide the study. The population for the study was made up of all the 755 I SS2 students in all the 107 Senior Secondary Schools in Jos North Local Government area, Plateau State. A total of 4 75 SS2 students selected from ll schools sampled out of I07 made up the sample for the study. Proportional stratified sampling technique using a sampling fraction of 1/1 0 was employed in sampling two public schools out of 21 and 9 private out of 86, all SS2 students in the sampled schools were involved in the study. Data were collected using documents (records of students’ mathematics achievement scores) and test anxiety/ testwiseness questionnaire. The content validity of the questionnaire was judged to be adequate by two Measurement Experts. The Cronbach-alpha internal consistency reliability coefjicients of the test anxiety and testwiseness sub-scales of the questionnaire were 0.80 and 0.81 respectively while the construct validities of the test anxiety and testwiseness sub-scales of the questionnaire using correlation method were 0.81 and 0.87 respectively. Pearson correlation coeflicients were used to answer the research questions and test the hypotheses. The findings show a low, negative but significant correlation.