The Relationship between Mathematics Performance and Anxiety Levels among Learners in Secondary Schools of Chisamba District, Central Province of Zambia

Mathematics is a fundamental part of school curriculum as a subject and acts as a tool for the development of other sciences.Mathematics is essential in every facet of life as numeracy skills become a requirement to function effectively in daily life (Gafoor and Kurukkan, 2015).Mathematics stimulates involvement and success in many careers especially those in the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) (Ferguson et al., 2015).Following research findings that mathematics as a subject is poorly performed the following factors are attributed to the same; inadequacy of resources and teaching personnel, anxiety and fear of Mathematics, poor teaching methods, overcrowded classrooms and mathematics attitude of students.There is an observed consistent poor academic performance of learners in Mathematics from 15 % (2019), 27 % (2020), 30 % (2021), 36 % (2022) and 45 % (2023). LITERATURE REVIEW Relationship between Mathematics Anxiety and Mathematics AttitudeAmericans stop the study of Mathematics and avoid many careers that related to mathematics.Mathematics anxiety is one of the main reasons for these avoidance behaviours (Gafoor and Kurukkan, 2015).Ashcraft (2002) reported that students show a severe negative emotional response in situations that involve numerical and mathematical activities, a situation referred to as Math anxiety (Ruff and Boes, 2014).Mathematics anxiety is a feeling of fear and tension towards mathematics which can result to an individual's inability to do mathematics.It is therefore vital to detect math anxiety in children to prevent them from developing an avoidance of mathematics which might bring about lasting effects (Aarnos and Perkkil, 2012).The levels of anxiety can either be of high, moderate or low.Low/moderate levels result in students focusing on mathematics computations and problem solving,