Reducing students' math anxiety through super brain yoga

Abstract

Math anxiety is describing by feeling pressure, nervous and has to fear when performing math problems (Richardson and Suinn, 1972). Yet, many types of research proved that it continuously occurs especially in secondary level and students are struggling on coping their math anxiety. For that matter, the result of the pretest conducted in Grade nine students at one public school in Davao City revealed that numerous of the students are experiencing high anxiety level in mathematics. Through this, it brought us to conduct a study on reducing students' math anxiety using the super brain yoga. Ten students were chosen as a participant of this study based on the result of the pretest that experiencing a high level of math anxiety through the use of the math anxiety scale and personal interview. Furthermore, results from the interview present that using Super Brain Yoga helps to reduce the students' math anxiety. On the basis of the foregoing findings, it can be concluded that the Grade 9 students are experiencing a high level of math anxiety. It is stated that the main cause of their anxiety is the fear of the teacher in math. For some reason, even though they study hard, mathematics seems usually hard for them. Their mind goes blank and they unable to think clearly when they are in their classes. On the basis of the aforementioned conclusions, the researchers, therefore, recommend in reducing math anxiety of the students the teacher will use effective strategies. Do "Super Brain Yoga" activity before math class start to reduce stress and help recharges the brain.