Relationship between Assertiveness, Academic Performance and Anxiety in a Sample of Mexican Students in Secondary Education

Social skills in their most advanced form are aimed at solving any immediate problems of a situation while minimizing the likelihood of future problems. This is also known as assertiveness, a variable that can be related to academic performance and the level of anxiety in adolescents. This research is descriptive and correlational with the aim of knowing the relationship between level of assertiveness, academic performance and various components of anxiety in a sample of Mexican high school or secondary students, as well as exploring possible differences related to sex. This study uses two instruments: Children's Assertive Behavior Scale (CABS) and the Revised Children's Manifest Anxiety Scale (TM). The grade point average (GPA) was taken as an indicator of academic performance. The participants were 535 adolescents (54.6 % female, 45.4 % male), with a mean age of 13.01 years (std=.74, range 11 to 17 years). Cluster sampling and convenience sampling were used, encompassing all students in the first two grades of a public or state school in the state of Hidalgo. The results indicate sex differences in all study variables. We also found statistically significant correlations between assertiveness and anxiety (r=.182, p<.01), between academic performance and assertiveness (r=-.203, p<.01), and between academic performance and the social concerns component of the anxiety scale (r=-.124, p<.01), although these were low in magnitude.