EVERY STUDENT AN EXPRESSIVE AND REFLECTIVE WRITER: ADDRESSING MATH ANXIETY

This study determined the effectiveness of the fusion of expressive writing of anxiety and reflective writing on content journal-writing activity in reducing Math anxiety among Grade 11 students in a public senior high school in Northern Mindanao, Philippines. A modified Math anxiety scale test was utilized in this quasi-experimental pretest-posttest controlled group research anchoring on the concepts enshrined in Vygotskys Socio-Cultural Theory. Using descriptive statistics and Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA), the effect of expressive and reflective journal writing intervention was examined. Results revealed that there was a statistically significant difference between the groups anxiety level, proving that the intervention did have a substantial effect on the level of anxiety experienced by the students in their Math class in favor of the control group. The study concluded that the expressive and reflective journal writing does not only help students express negative thoughts, but it makes teachers and students connect their ideas, thereby mitigating emotional apprehensions in a Mathematics class.