Relationship between Anxiety and Academic Performance among Secondary School Students in the First Arrondissement, Antananarivo, Madagascar
Date
2023-08
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Tangaza University
Abstract
Secondary school students have been experiencing anxiety, which might have an effect to their school performance. This study investigated the relationship between anxiety and academic performance among secondary school students in Antananarivo's First Arrondissement, Madagascar. The objectives of this study were to determine levels of anxiety among secondary school students; to measure the levels of academic performance among secondary school students; to determine the relationship between anxiety and academic performance among secondary school students. Cognitive behavioural theory was used in this study. The research was designed a quantitative survey. The target population was 1,207 students. Four public and private schools were chosen using the stratified random sampling method. The sample size was 300 students and systematic random sampling was used. BAI assessment was used to ensure instrument validity while test-retest was employed to ensure instrument reliability. Data was collected using APRS as academic performance research tools and the BAI for anxiety evaluation. Through SPSS version 22, descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyse the data. The first and second hypotheses were tested using the independent T-test, whereas the third hypothesis was tested using Pearson's product moment 'r'. The findings revealed that secondary school students in First Arrondissement, Antananarivo suffered from severe anxiety at 56.33%, moderate anxiety at 22.67% and mild anxiety at 21.0%. Female students expressed higher levels of anxiety with 47.67% than their male counterparts with 31.34%. This led to poor academic performance with a percentage of 51.71% and the cumulative of passing performance is 48.29%, which relates to female students’ poor academic performance compared to their male counterparts. The relationship between anxiety and academic performance was found significant through Pearson product moment correlation r = -.496 with significance at p = 0.01. This means that there is a negative and moderate correlation between anxiety and academic performance of students. The study recommends that direction diocesan catholic school and circumscription scholar could provide school counsellors and group counselling to students, as well as send teachers for further studies in order to get counselling skills. The school education department also could organise professional training teachers to help support the students.