Examining Students’ Mental Toughness, Self-Worth and Critical Thinking Skill as Predictors of Academic Achievement in Mathematics in Anambra State, Nigeria

Abstract

Students’ mental toughness, self-worth and critical thinking skill are strong facilitators and drive for effective learning. The study aimed to elucidate students’ mental toughness, self-worth and critical thinking skill as predictors of academic achievement in mathematics in Anambra State. Four research questions and three null hypotheses guided the study. The study adopted a predictive correlational research design. The population of the study comprised of 21204 SS II students from which a sample of 840 were drawn. Multi-stage procedure was used to select the sample. Three standardized research instruments namely; Mental Toughness Questionnaire (MTQ), Contingencies of Self-Worth Scale (CSWS) and Critical Thinking Questionnaire (CTQ) were used for data collection. Students’ Mathematics Achievement Scores (SMAS) from the state wide promotion examination were used to represent mathematics achievement. Cronbach’s alpha was used to determine the reliability of the items in the instruments. Reliability index were found to be .68, for mental toughness .89, for self-worth, and .74, for critical thinking skill. The data were analyzed using standard multiple regression analyses. The t-test for r, F-test and test of significance for β, were used to test hypotheses at .05 level of significance. Findings from the study showed that using mental toughness scores yielded an adjusted R squared of .008. This implies that predictors accounted for about 0.8% of the variance scores in mathematics academic achievement. Also, that mental toughness significantly predicted academic achievement scores in mathematics since their p-values are smaller than .05, while self-worth and critical thinking scores does not significantly predict academic achievement scores in mathematics since their p-values are greater than .05. Based on these findings, it was recommended that students should endorse the use of mental toughness, self-worth and critical thinking skill since the outcomes of the study have indicated that the variables relatively and jointly contributed in predicting students’ academic achievement in mathematics.