Pixel International Conferences

This study aims to study the effect of the mathematical anxiety level (MA level) on the mathematical reasoning ability (MRA) of 96 grade 8 students who study in the English Program in the second semester of the academic year 2020. The researchers instrument used were the Mathematics Anxiety Questionnaires and the test of mathematical reasoning ability on the prior knowledge of triangles. The quality of questionnaires achieved a reliability score of 0.84 and the quality of mathematical reasoning ability test achieved a difficulty score of 0.20 to 0.79, a discrimination score of 0.20 to 0.50, a validity score of 1, and a reliability score of 0.78. This research was carried out using quantitative and qualitative research methods. The statistics used to analyze the data was linear regression. Furthermore, we use content analysis to analyze the completeness of the written solution for giving right reasons. The study results revealed that: MA was significantly negatively associated with MRA at the level of .05 (r = -0.43). Interestingly, considering students in the high MA group, students with high MRA were more numbers than those with low MRA. Moreover, the MA level affects the MRA when it is viewed from the students' written solution; the students who have low MA can answer the question correctly and explain their reasons better than the students who have high MA.

Keywords: Mathematical Anxiety, Mathematical Reasoning Ability, Geometric Congruence, Linear regression.