An investigation of the attitudes, anxieties and self-efficacy beliefs towards mathematics lessons high school students’ in terms of gender, types of school, and students’ grades

Abstract

The main objective of this study is to explore relationships between high school students’ attitudes towards mathematics lessons, anxieties towards mathematics lessons and self-efficacy beliefs in terms of gender, types of school and students’ grades. In this study, the data were gathered by “Attitudes Towards Mathematics Scale” (Aşkar, 1986) and by “Mathematics Anxiety Rating Scale” which was adapted to Turkish by Akın, Kurbanoğlu and Takunyacı (2009). Besides, in order to determine students’ self-efficacy beliefs were determined by self-efficacy, sub-scale of “Motivation Scale” which was adapted to Turkish by Büyüköztürk, Akgün, Özkahveci, & Demirel (2004). The sample of this study consisted of 418 students who attended from three different high schools. The study was conducted during the fall semester of academic year 2009-2010. ANOVA and t-Test were employed to analyze the hypotheses of research. It was observed in the findings of the study that there are no statistically significant differences between students’ gender and scores of attitudes towards mathematics lessons, anxieties towards mathematics lessons and self-efficacy beliefs. But there are statistically significant differences between students’ types of school and students’ grades and scores of attitudes towards mathematics lessons, anxieties towards mathematics lessons and self-efficacy beliefs.