Relationship between beliefs and achievements in mathematics

Abstract

This is a survey study aimed to find out relationship between beliefs and achievement of mathematics. This study also compares such beliefs by gender, location and structure of schools to investigate the relationship between beliefs and achievements in mathematics. A total of 200 students' from Kailali district were the participants of the study. Of the 200 students' 90 were males, 110 were females; 100 were from public school and 100 were from private school; 100 from urban area and 100 from rural area. The main instruments used in the survey were a set of opponnaire with 40 statements. This opponnaire was composed of five point likert scale items. The scores 5, 4,3,2,1 were given in the favor of SA, A, N, D, SD respectively for positive statement. Similarly, the scoring process was reversed for negative statement. The total score of each statement of MBO was computed and they were compared with the moderate score. If the total score exceeded to moderate score, then it was concluded that statement yielded positive belief and this evaluation technique was reversed for negative statement. At the end, the t-test was used to test significant difference between belief and achievement score by gender, structure of school, and location of school. The relationship between beliefs and achievement was also tested by computing Pearson's correlation coefficient. This research yielded that the students of grade X have positive beliefs about mathematics, male and female showed similar beliefs toward mathematics. Public and private school students showed similar beliefs and the beliefs do not differ by location of school.. There existed positive and moderate relationship between students beliefs and achievement in mathematics.