Students’ online course activity, together with self-efficacy and test anxiety, predicts mathematics exam results

Many students find mathematics to be a challenging subject to learn, leading to anxiety and low self-efficacy. While positive self-beliefs towards mathematics encourage engagement and learning, negative emotions like anxiety restrain it. Voluntary online courses for learning mathematics may provide an opportunity to strengthen mathematical skills in a more flexible and self-paced environment, potentially helping reduce anxiety and increase self-efficacy. The present study investigated the associations among online course activity, test anxiety, and self-efficacy with mathematics performance in high-stakes settings. The analyses focused on 144 final-year high school students who completed the wide national mathematics exam after participating in a voluntary online preparation course. In addition to self-reported data, data regarding online course activity logs and national mathematics exam results from a state registry were extracted. According to our analysis, more frequent online course activity was associated with higher mathematics exam scores. Surprisingly, online course activity was not related to either students' self-efficacy or test anxiety. The regression analysis results suggest that self-efficacy was the strongest predictor of mathematics national examination results, with test anxiety and online course activity also contributing significantly. Although previous research has examined the role of self-beliefs in predicting mathematics exam results, this study offers a fresh perspective by focusing on these relationships in an online educational context, where their dynamics may differ.