The relationship between attitude and achivement in mathematics

Abstract

There have been a number of studies investigating how attitudes affect students’ academic achievement. This study was conducted to identify specifically the relationship between ninth grade students’ attitudes and their achievement in mathematics. Gender was studied to determine its effect on attitude and achievement. Furthermore, three types of attitude cluster were studied including pupils’ confidence, math usefulness, and attitude about math teacher to determine their effects on achievement. A total of 119 students as sample from nine community secondary schools of Dhanusha district were selected by multistage random sampling techniques. To gather the data a questionnaire based on a five point Likert scale was administered. The data were analysed descriptively using percentage, graphs and Pearson’s correlation coefficients was used to determine relationship between attitude and achievement in mathematics. Multiple regression model was determined to observe the relationship between the three clusters of attitude with achievement in mathematics. Independent sample T- test was used to test whether gender affect attitude and achievement in mathematics. The results indicated that there is a significant relationship between attitudes and achievement in math (r=0.548). Considering gender, males (32.63) had a slightly positive attitude towards math compared to females (31.88) however not statistically significant but the achievement in mathematics of males (26.90) was higher than females (22.41) and this difference in achievement was significant. Lack of confidence (60.5%) was the major problems associated with attitude affecting learning and performance in mathematics.