The Effect of Anxiety Towards the Academic Performance of Undergraduate Students in Public Universities in Malaysia
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.37134/ejoss.vol7.2.8.2021Keywords:
State Anxiety, Trait Anxiety, Academic Motivation, Academic Performance, UndergraduatesAbstract
This research is a survey to examine the effects of state/trait anxiety towards academic achievement among undergraduates. This study also examines the mediation effect of academic motivation in these relationships. Furthermore, it also investigates gender differences in state anxiety, trait anxiety, academic motivation, and academic performance among undergraduates of Malaysian public universities. Students. To achieve the purpose of study, 143 undergraduates from public universities in Malaysia were surveyed using State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, Demographic Questionnaire and Academic Motivation Scale-College version. The data for were analyzed using descriptive analysis, independent t-test, regression analysis and Sobel test by through SPSS version 23. This study indicated that there is no direct effect of state anxiety and trait anxiety on academic performance among undergraduates. However, they have indirect effects on undergraduates’ academic performance through academic motivation. Furthermore, gender difference was not found to be significant in this study in terms of all the variables involved. For the educational purpose, the influence of academic motivation among undergraduates should be taken into account by various parties such as education providers and policy makers in order to ensure a better academic outcome among undergraduates.
Downloads
References
Ansari, M. S. (2015). Speaking anxiety in ESL/EFL classrooms: A holistic approach and practical study. International Journal of Education Investigation, 2(4), 38-46. Retrieved from https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/b348/0c4977df6c8c770bbd8c1ae948f9dd604aa2.pdf
Balkis, M., & Duru, E. (2017). Gender differences in the relationship between academic procrastination, satifaction with academic life and academic performance. Electronic Journal of Research in Educational Psychology, 15(1), 105-125. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.14204/ejrep.41.16042
Balogun, A. G., Balogun, S. K., & Onyencho, C. V. (2017). Test anxiety and academic performance among undergraduates: The moderating role of achievement motivation. The Spanish journal of psychology, 20. DOI: 10.1017/sjp.2017.5
Bieg, M., Goetz, T., Wolter, I., & Hall, N. C. (2015). Gender stereotype endorsement differentially predicts girls' and boys' trait-state discrepancy in math anxiety. Frontiers in psychology, 6, 1404. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01404
Bugler, M., McGeown, S. P., & St Clair-Thompson, H. (2015). Gender differences in adolescents’ academic motivation and classroom behaviour. Educational Psychology, 35(5), 541-556. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/01443410.2013.849325
Doğan, C. (2015). Self-efficacy and anxiety within an EFL context. Journal of Language and Linguistic Studies, 12(2), 54-65. Retrieved from https://dergipark.org.tr/jlls/issue/36115/405541
Friedman, M. (2020). Anxiety in college students: Signs, symptoms & treatments. Retrieved from https://www.choosingtherapy.com/anxiety-in-college-students/
Habibović, M., van den Broek, K. C., Theuns, D. A., Jordaens, L., Alings, M., van der Voort, P. H., & Pedersen, S. S. (2011). Gender disparities in anxiety and quality of life in patients with an implantable cardioverter–defibrillator. Europace, 13(12), 1723-1730. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/europace/eur252
Hill, F., Mammarella, I. C., Devine, A., Caviola, S., Passolunghi, M. C., & Szűcs, D. (2016). Maths anxiety in primary and secondary school students: Gender differences, developmental changes and anxiety specificity. Learning and Individual Differences, 48, 45-53. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2016.02.006
Hodges, W. F. (2015). The psychophysiology of anxiety. Emotions and anxiety (PLE: emotion): New concepts, methods, and applications, 12, 175.
Justicia‐Galiano, M. J., Martín‐Puga, M. E., Linares, R., & Pelegrina, S. (2017). Math anxiety and math performance in children: The mediating roles of working memory and math self‐concept. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 87(4), 573-589. DOI:10.1111/bjep.12165
Keeley, J., Zayac, R., & Correia, C. (2008). Curvilinear relationships between statistics anxiety and performance among undergraduate students: Evidence for optimal anxiety. Statistics Education Research Journal, 7(1). Retrieved from http://iase-web.org/documents/SERJ/SERJ7(1)_Keeley.pdf
Kurimay, D., Pope-Rhodius, A., & Kondric, M. (2017). The relationship between stress and coping in table tennis. Journal of human kinetics, 55(1), 75-81. DOI: 10.1515/hukin-2017-0007
Li, S., & Zheng, J. (2017). The effect of academic motivation on students’ English learning achievement in the eSchoolbag-based learning environment. Smart Learning Environments, 4(1), 3. DOI: 10.1186/s40561-017-0042-x
Macher, D., Paechter, M., Papousek, I., Ruggeri, K., Freudenthaler, H. H. & Arendasy, M. (2013). Statistics anxiety, state anxiety during an examination, and academic achievement. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 83(4), 535-549. DOI:10.1111/j.2044-8279.2012.02081.x
MacKinnon, D. P., Krull, J. L., & Lockwood, C. M. (2000). Equivalence of the mediation, confounding and suppression effect. Prevention science, 1(4), 173-181. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1026595011371
Moeller, J., Salmela-Aro, K., Lavonen, J., & Schneider, B. (2015). Does anxiety in science classrooms impair math and science motivation? Gender differences beyond the mean level. International Journal of Gender, Science and Technology. Retrieved from https://helda.helsinki.fi/bitstream/handle/10138/232935/398_2935_1_PB.pdf?sequence=1
Mulyadi, S., Rahardjo, W., & Basuki, A. H. (2016). The role of parent-child relationship, self-esteem, academic self-efficacy to academic stress. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 217, 603-608.
DOI: 10.1016/j.sbspro.2016.02.063
Núñez-Peña, M. I., Suárez-Pellicioni, M., & Bono, R. (2016). Gender differences in test anxiety and their impact on higher education students’ academic achievement. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 228, 154-160. DOI: 10.1016/j.sbspro.2016.07.023
Panno, A., Donati, M. A., Milioni, M., Chiesi, F., & Primi, C. (2018). Why women take fewer risk than men do: The mediating role of state anxiety. Sex Roles, 78(3-4), 286-294. DOI: 10.1007/s11199-017-0781-8
Racic, M., Todorovic, R., Ivkovic, N., Masic, S., Joksimovic, B., & Kulic, M. (2017). Self-perceived stress in relation to anxiety, depression and health-related quality of life among health professions students: A cross-sectional study from Bosnia and Herzegovina. Slovenian Journal of Public Health, 56(4), 251-259. DOI: 10.1515/sjph-2017-0034
Razak, N. A., Yassin, A. A., & Maasum, T. N. R. B. T. (2017). Effect of foreign language anxiety on gender and academic achievement among Yemeni University EFL students. English Language Teaching, 10(2), 73-85. DOI:10.5539/elt.v10n2p73
Sawhney, N., & Bansal, S. (2015). Metacognitive awareness of undergraduate students in relation to their academic achievement. The International Journal of Indian Psychology, 3(1), 107-114. Retrieved from https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/679f/7912211bf7f65cf616c6bb0ae384005fd91a.pdf
Sesé, A., Jiménez, R., Montaño, J. J., & Palmer, A. (2015). Can attitudes towards statistics and statistics anxiety explain students’ performance. Revista de Psicodidáctica, 20(2), 285-304. DOI: 10.1387/RevPsicodidact.13080
Sheard, M. (2009). Hardiness commitment, gender, and age differentiate university academic performance. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 79(1), 189-204. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1348/000709908X304406
Silva, M., Dorso, E., Azhar, A., & Renk, K. (2007). The relationship among parenting styles experienced during childhood, anxiety, motivation, and academic success in college students. Journal of College Student Retention: Research, Theory & Practice, 9(2), 149-167. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2190/CS.9.2.b
Stevens, R., Nussbaum, R., & Blake, T. (2019). Evaluating state anxiety levels in nursing students. Retrieved from https://ideaexchange.uakron.edu/honors_research_projects/815
Wu, Z. (2019). Academic motivation, engagement, and achievement among college students. College Student Journal, 53(1), 99-112. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com.ezpustaka2.upsi.edu.my/login.aspx?direct=true&db=s3h&AN=136193466&site=ehost-live
Yousefi J. A., Jamshidnejad, A., & Moatamed, N. (2018). Evaluation of relationship between academic motivation and achievement in students of Zanjan University of Medical Sciences. Journal of Medical Education, 11(29), 54-62. Retrieved from http://zums.ac.ir/edujournal/article-1-892-en.pdf
Yüksel, M., & Geban, Ö. (2016). Examination of science and math course achievements of vocational high school students in the scope of self-efficacy and anxiety. Journal of Education and Training Studies, 4(1), 88-100. DOI:10.11114/jets.v4i1.1090
