SCIENCE ANXIETY AS A PREDICTOR OF STUDENTS PREFERRED SUBJECT IN THE POST JUNIOR SECONDARY CLASSROOM

The world, including Nigeria, is increasingly seeking to improve its educational system to attain the desired scientific-driven society. Thus, education is geared towards science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). To this effect, Nigeria is investing in science-based education, and the students are encouraged to embrace science in their educational pursuits. Based on this, the present study examined students subject preference in the post junior secondary classroom based on science anxiety. One hundred and sixty-six students drawn from public and private secondary schools in the Kogi State participated in the study. Their level of science anxiety was assessed with the Science Anxiety Scale (Oludipe & Oludipe, 2019). The simple regression analysis performed on the data revealed that science anxiety statistically significantly predicted the respondents subject preference. Thus, the study concludes that science anxiety is a positive determinant of students choice of subject in the secondary school classroom.