PERCEIVED ACADEMIC STRESS ON PRIMARY SCHOOL PRE-SERVICE TEACHERS’ PERFORMANCE AND INTEREST IN MATHEMATICS

Abstract

The study investigated perceived academic stress on primary school pre-service teachers’ performance and interest in Mathematics. Survey research design was adopted in the study. The population for the study comprised all the primary school pre-service teachers’ in Emmanuel Alayande College of Education, Oyo and random sampling method was employed to obtain 100 respondents as sample size for the study.  The research instrument used for this study was questionnaire tagged “Academic Stress Questionnaire (ASQ) with a reliability coefficient of 0.74. Two research questions were generated and answered in this study. Frequency count, percentages and Pearson Product Moment Correlation coefficient were used to analyse the data.  Findings revealed that primary school pre-service teachers’ academic stress has low influence on performance in Mathematics while academic stress is not related to primary school pre-service teachers’ interest in Mathematics. Based on the findings, school administrator should implement stress reduction programmes for students and Teachers and parents should not put unnecessary pressure on students so as to reduce stress and improve their performance and increase their interest in Mathematics.