Investigating the effect of brain-based learning on anxiety and academic performance in math in the 7th grade female students

This study aims to investigate the effect of brain-based learning on anxiety and academic performance in math in the 7th grade female students of junior high school in 2014-2015 academic year. This is a quasi-experimental research with experimental and control groups conducted on 50 seventh grade students who were randomly placed in experimental and control groups. For assessing the research variables, the Mathematics anxiety scale of Chiu and Henry and a researcher-made test of math performance were adopted. For data analysis, covariance analysis was used. The results indicated that math scores in the experimental group increased up to 5.77 and it increased in the control group up to 1.56. This variation in score increase in pretest and posttest was significant in the experimental group. Moreover, the covariance analysis results indicated that math scores after intervention in the experimental group were meaningfully higher than the control group, while no meaningful difference was observed in the anxiety among both groups and math anxiety score change before and after the intervention didn’t show a meaningful variation in both groups; thus, instruction of brain-based learning can be utilized as an intervening method in improving the academic performance of students in mathematics.