An investigation of the relationship between epistemological beliefs and mathematics anxiety levels of student teachers

Abstract

There is dearth of literature on the relationship between epistemological beliefs and mathematics anxiety levels at the national level. It is important from to analyze the relationship between the two variables which are effective on student teachers’ performance of mathematics as other disciplines. The aim of the study is to explore the relationship between mathematics student teachers’ epistemological beliefs and anxiety levels considering all the sub-dimensions of the variables. The study uses the quantitative paradigm and the correlational model. The sample of the study comprised of the 547 student teachers trained in Selcuk and Marmara Universities. The data collection tools are ‘epistemological beliefs scale’, ‘mathematics anxiety scale’ and personal information form. Statistical analyses were made using descriptive statistics, Pearson Product correlation and chi-square formulas. Most of the correlations between all dimensions of the two variables showed statistically meaningful relationships. The statistically meaningful and slightly below average correlations are among the noteworthy findings of the study whose reasons and implications are discussed in the paper.