RESEARCH ARTICLE | OCTOBER 24 2016

The anxiety level versus performance in mathematics for

engineering undergraduates in UniMAP
Mohd Hafiz Zakaria; Nor Hizamiyani Abdul Azziz; Nornadia Mohd Yazid; ... et. al

AIP Conference Proceedings 1775, 030078 (2016)

https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4965198

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 The Anxiety Level versus Performance in Mathematics for
Engineering Undergraduates in UniMAP
Mohd Hafiz Zakaria1, a), Nor Hizamiyani Abdul Azziz1, b), Nornadia Mohd Yazid1, c)
and Syafawati Ab. Saad 1, d)

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1
Institute of Engineering Mathematics, Universiti Malaysia Perlis, Campus Pauh Putra,
02600 Arau, Perlis.
a)
Corresponding author: hafizzakaria@unimap.edu.my
b)
hizamiyani@unimap.edu.my
c)
nornadia@unimap.edu.my
d)
syafawatisaad@unimap.edu.my

Abstract. This study did a survey on the level of anxiety on a mathematics subject of 1274 first semester undergraduates
in Universiti Malaysia Perlis (UniMAP) using the established instrument of Abbreviated Mathematics Anxiety Rating
Scale (A-MARS) that was adjusted to fit with the Malaysia education environment. Due to this adjustment, reliability test
was initially conducted. This was to make sure that the quality of the instrument is not affected and as expected, it shows
a good reliability level. Then, this study proceeds with the main objective, which were to study the anxiety level of
mathematics among the respondents of engineering programs based on some of their demographic nature (gender, race,
and higher entrance qualification). Overall, the results indicated that the anxiety level of the respondents was moderate.
In specific, male respondents have the same anxiety level in mathematics as female respondents. In terms of race, Malay
shows the highest level of anxiety, followed by Chinese, Others, and Indian. As for higher entrance qualification, all
respondents show a fair level of anxiety in Mathematics. As for correlation, high anxiety levels with low grade and
moderate anxiety levels with moderate grade in the overall mathematics were having a positive and moderate relationship
and low anxiety level with high grade shows a strong and positive relationship.

INTRODUCTION
Mathematics is an essential tool used in many fields, especially in engineering, finance, medicine and sciences
where it helps scientist and engineers to understand complex world’s law, especially algebra and calculus which are
commonly used as a way to analyze data and express physical laws. The ability to simplify and solve the complex
situation are needed in this field. Mathematics is one of the core subjects that are important to learn, especially for
engineering programs. The mathematics preparation at the high school level was deemed an important factor to
include in future models predicting academic performance in engineering. This indicates strong connections
between mathematics background and persistence in engineering career aspirations [1]. The experience in solving
problems of the subject is very important to develop students’ thinking skills and help them gain more skills in
solving the problem in daily life [2].

Each year, over 1000 enrollments in engineering programs in Universiti Malaysia Perlis (UniMAP). As first year
students, it is compulsory for them to take mathematics subject. However, based on examination results, shown that
most of the engineering program’s students in UniMAP have low grade in mathematics subject and this affecting
their CGPA results. In Ireland, it is reported that mathematics is the reason why the interest of students to study in
engineering declining where many third level engineering students struggle with the mathematics courses [3]. A lot
of studies have been done by researchers to investigate the cause of this problem. According to Joefel, there are
three factors that influenced students’ performance. Teacher factor, student factor and environmental factor. Teacher
factor composed of mastery of the subject matter, instructional techniques and strategies, classroom management,

International Conference on Mathematics, Engineering and Industrial Applications 2016 (ICoMEIA2016)

AIP Conf. Proc. 1775, 030078-1–030078-7; doi: 10.1063/1.4965198
Published by AIP Publishing. 978-0-7354-1433-4/$30.00

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communication skills, and personality. Student factor, including study habits, time management, and attitude and
interests towards mathematics. Environmental factor such as parents’ values attitudes, classroom settings, and peer
group. The findings show that student factors such as their study habits, time management, and attitude towards
mathematics are the factors that affect underachievement in mathematics [4].

In Malaysia, students’ with strong mathematic background has performed better in examination compared to
students with poor academic background. Pre-Calculus, Calculus I, Mathematics II and Engineering Mathematics I
was categorized as underachieved Mathematics courses in UiTM Sarawak. From the finding it shows that, academic
background has strong impact on Pre-calculus and gender also played a significant role in determined the
underachieved Mathematics course marks [5].

Mathematics anxiety is one of the factors which influence students’ performance in mathematics subjects.
Anxiety can be described as a psychological and physical response to treat a self-concept characterized by
subjective. The anxiety response towards mathematics is a significant concern in terms of the perception where
students always trying to avoid mathematics tasks [6]. Mathematics anxiety causes problems, especially for students

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to process the information and applying the concepts of mathematics that they already learn in the real life problems,
where most of the students, they tend to avoid mathematics problems. Students with anxiety disorder exhibit a
passive attitude in their studies such as lack of interest in learning and poor performance in exams. The anxiety
psychological symptoms among students include feeling nervous before a tutorial class, panicking, going blank
during a test, feeling helpless while doing assignments, or lack interest in a difficult subject, whereas the
physiological symptoms include sweaty pants, cold, nervousness, panic, fast pace of breathing, racing heartbeat, or
an upset stomach [6].

There are lots of studies have been done to find the relationship between mathematics anxiety and students’
achievement in mathematics subjects. Adamu (2012) analyzed the correlation between mathematics achievement
and mathematics anxiety, where the results show that there is an insignificant negative correlation [7]. From the
same research, he also showed that there is a significant difference between genders in mathematics anxiety where
females exhibit higher anxiety than male students. According to Blanding, test anxiety is just one of the factors
influencing undergraduate and graduate students’ academic performance, and there is a significant but small inverse
relationship between test anxiety and GPA [8]. A study about mathematics anxiety among Engineering students in
Universiti Malaysia Pahang had been done where the finding indicated that there are five causes of mathematics
anxiety; feeling mathematics as difficult subject, always fail in mathematics, always writing down in mathematics
class (students tend to memorize the calculation instead of trying to understand the solution), feeling anxious when
they don’t understand the mathematics problem, hence these lead students to lose interest in mathematics [9].

Mathematics anxiety was found to affect the students’ performance in mathematics. The relationship of anxiety
level between male and female undergraduates at a university in Malaysia had been done. According to Yeo, Tan
and Lew (2015) there was no significant difference of anxiety level among the gender. In other words, there was no
relationship of anxiety level with the gender. Levels of mathematics anxiety and test anxiety were higher for female
compared to male students. Both genders showed a positive correlation between mathematics anxiety and test
anxiety [10], [11].

However, not only engineering students have the anxiety problems when facing the mathematics subject, a
research done by Kathleen explored the nursing students' mathematics anxiety, beliefs about mathematics, and
mathematics self-efficacy in relationship to performance on a medication mathematics test which revealed that the
students have mathematics anxiety and had positive beliefs about mathematics and mathematics self-efficacy [12].

RESEARCH QUESTIONS
1. What is the anxiety level of first year engineering students in Universiti Malaysia Perlis (UniMAP) in the
first semester of 2015/2016?
2. Is there any significant difference in the mathematics anxiety level of those students based on their gender
and race?

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 3. Is there any significant difference in the mathematics anxiety level based on their entrance qualification
(Matriculation / STPM / Diploma)?
4. Does the result in their anxiety level have a relationship with their performance in mathematics?

Basically, this study focused on the anxiety level for first year students in Universiti Malaysia Perlis (UniMAP)
to determine whether is there any significant difference in mathematics anxiety level based on gender, race and
students’ academic background. Secondly, this study correlate the anxiety level with the students’ overall
mathematics performance to get the idea on their type of relationship.

OBJECTIVES
1. To determine the anxiety level of first year engineering students in Universiti Malaysia Perlis (UniMAP) in
the first semester of 2015/2016.

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2. To find the difference in the mathematics anxiety level of students based on their gender and race.
3. To find the difference in the mathematics anxiety level based on the students’ entrance qualification.
4. To determine whether anxiety level have a relationship with performance in mathematics.

METHODOLOGY

A survey was conducted using the Abbreviated Mathematic Anxiety Rating Scale instrument (A-MARS)
developed by Alexander and Martray in 1989. A-MARS was a well-established (internally consistent and reliable)
25-items instrument revised from the Mathematics Anxiety Rating Scale (MARS) that originally has 69 items [13],
[14], [15]. However, Item 2 (Taking math section of the college entrance exam) was dropped as it did not match the
Malaysia educational environment. Basically, dropping one item should not affect the instrument’s reliability.
However, for the sake of justification, reliability testing was still conducted. The target population for this study
consist of the first year engineering students in Universiti Malaysia Perlis (UniMAP) for the first semester of
2015/2016, which involved 1274 students from all engineering programs in UniMAP (Table 1). The survey was
given to all of the students through their mathematics lecturer and was conducted during the teaching and learning
session in their class on the early semester.

TABLE 1. List of engineering programs in UniMAP

No. Program No. Program

1 RK 01 – Civil 12 RK 45 – Industrial electronic
2 RK 05 – Microelectronic 13 RK 53 – Communication
3 RK 07 – Environment 14 RK 56 – Metallurgy
4 RK 08 – Mechanical 15 RK 84 – Product design
5 RK 12 – Material 16 RK 85 – Biomedical electronic
6 RK 13 – Manufacturing 17 RK 86 – Electronic
7 RK 20 – Computer 18 RK 89 – Photonic
8 RK 23 – Electrical system 19 RK 90 – Biosystem
9 RK 24 – Mechatronic 20 RK 93 – Computer network
10 RK 28 – Bioprocess 21 RK 96 – Energy system electric
11 RK 32 – Polymer

Analysis was conducted using SPSS version 22. However, before any analysis was conducted, the collected data
were checked for any errors such as outliers, missing values and illogical response. This was to make sure that the
findings will be able to truly represent the observed respondents. Outliers was checked by looking at descriptive
statistics output. Missing values were dealt by substitution using multiple imputation method [16]. Lastly, illogical
response being determined by looking at Item 16 (Being given a set of numerical problems involving addition

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 operation) and Item 19 (Being given a set of integration problems to solve). Table 2 shows the example of illogical
response.

TABLE 2. Examples of illogical responses

Not at all Low Fair High Very High

Item 16 /
Item 19 /

Item 16 /
Item 19 /

These items can also be considered as “trap questions”. Basically, the response was assumed logical if the level

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of anxiety of Item 16 is at least the same or less than Item 19. Other than that, the response was deemed illogical.
Lastly, to measure the anxiety level of students, this study conducted a simple analysis using measures of central
tendency,  as an analysis of a population did not require statistical inference analysis to achieve the objectives of
this study. After that, Spearman Rho was used to measure the relationship between the students’ anxiety level and
their final score in Mathematics. The analysis was based on the initial assumptions as below:

1) Students with high level of anxiety is expected to have a low score in Mathematics.
2) Students with moderate level of anxiety is expected to have a moderate score Mathematics.
3) Students with low level of anxiety is expected to have a good score Mathematics.

Next, Table 3 displays the general guideline used in this study to assess the anxiety level of the respondents with
their expected examination grade. Scores guideline was created based on three levels “low, moderate and high”.

Table 3. General anxiety level guideline.

Mean scores Anxiety level Expected Grade

1.0 – 2.4 Low A+, A, A-, B+
2.5 – 3.4 Moderate B-, C+, C, C-
3.5 – 5.0 High D+, D, D-, F

ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS

Out of the 1274 copies of distributed instrument, only 574 (45.1%) were obtained. Due to low response rate,
researchers did a check on the problems that lies behind this issue and found out that out of those 21 surveyed
programs, 10 programs have zero responses, which is equal to 598 missing respondents. Hence, to solve this issue,
the authors decided not to include those programs in any of the findings made by this study to avoid bias in making
conclusions. Showed in Table 4 is the programs that were excluded from this study. By excluding those programs,
the response rate for this study was actually 84.9%.

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 Table 4. Engineering programs excluded from this study.

No. Program No. Program

1 RK 01 – Civil 6 RK 28 – Bioprocess
2 RK 05 – Mechatronic 7 RK 45 – Industrial electronic
3 RK 08 – Mechanical 8 RK 53 – Communication
4 RK 20 – Computer 9 RK 89 – Photonic
5 RK 24 – Mechatronic 10 RK 90 – Biosystem

Next, Table 5 showed a respondents’ profile. Gender-wise, there were 46.8% male and 53.2% female
respondents. Of these, the majority were Malays (55.4%) and followed by Chinese, Indian and other races. As for
entrance qualification, only one student that came from diploma background (0.57%). 58.4%and 32% were from
matriculation and STPM background, respectively, and for the rest, they were from international students with a

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different kind of academic background classified as others (9.03%).

Table 5. Profile of respondents

Gender Male 269 (46.8%)

Female 305 (53.2%)
Race Malay 318 (55.4%)
Chinese 166 (28.9%)
Indian 15 (2.6%)
Others 75 (13.1%)
Entrance qualification Diploma 1 (0.5%)
Matriculation 335 (58.4%)
STPM 184 (32.1%)
Others 52 (9.0%)

Initially, the internal consistency reliability test was conducted and shows a result good result of 0.90. Next, the
data obtained were analyzed and the score was categorized based on the guideline of anxiety level as in Table 3. In
general, the findings in Table 6 indicated that the anxiety level across all elements in gender, race, and academic
entrance is moderate. Specifically, male and female students show the same level of mathematic anxiety. As for
race, Malay students show the highest anxiety level (3.4), followed by Chinese (3.2) and others (3.2). Indian
students show the lowest score of anxiety in mathematics. Next, for entrance qualification, students from diploma
shows the lowest anxiety level among others with the average score of 3. For matriculation background, their
average score indicates that they were having the highest anxiety in mathematics (3.4). Finally, students from STPM
and Others shared the same anxiety level of 3.2. However, the score of diploma background students might be
invalid due to the small number of respondents.

Table 6. Anxiety level across gender, race, and entrance qualification.

Item Element Average score Anxiety Level
Gender Male 3.3 Moderate
Female 3.3 Moderate
Race Malay 3.4 Moderate
Chinese 3.2 Moderate
Indian 2.9 Moderate
Others 3.2 Moderate
Entrance qualification Diploma 3 Moderate
Matriculation 3.4 Moderate
STPM 3.2 Moderate
Others 3.2 Moderate

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 Next, correlation analysis was conducted to see relationships based on the assumptions stated in Methodology.
Based on Table 7, the relationship between high anxiety levels with low grade and moderate anxiety levels with
moderate grade in the overall mathematics performance are 0.56 and 0.58, respectively, which can be classified as
having a positive and moderate relationship. As for low anxiety level with high grade, they shows a strong and
positive relationship of 0.75.

Table 7. Correlation analysis

Condition Correlation (r)

High anxiety level with low grade 0.56
Moderate anxiety level with moderate grade 0.58
Low anxiety level with high grade 0.75

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CONCLUSION

In summary, it can be concluded that the difference between elements of gender, race, and entrance qualification
was just slight. Specifically, male students have the same anxiety level in mathematics as female respondents. As for
race, Malay shows the highest level of anxiety, followed by Chinese, Others, and Indian. For higher entrance
qualification, despite of different in background, they show a fair level of anxiety in Mathematics. Next, based on
correlation analysis, it can be concluded that respondents that have a moderate or high anxiety level not exactly will
get a low or moderate score in mathematics. Some of the respondents with high or moderate anxiety also able to
perform in Mathematics. As for students with low anxiety level, correlation result shows that they have a strong and
positive relationship, which means that low anxiety students will surely perform in Mathematics.

LIMITATION

As stated in the methodology, the target respondents for this study involved the first semester students of
2015/2016 only. Furthermore, no sampling was made in collecting data as each targeted respondent was being
involved in this study. Therefore, any result obtained by this study was not suitable to be used describe other
students.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The authors wish to express their gratitude to Universiti Malaysia Perlis (UniMAP) in general and Research,
Management, and Innovation Center, UniMAP for the financial support under the Short Term Grant Scheme and
facilitating the management of the research.

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