What Factors Explain the Anxiety Level Towards the Study of Mathematics among Elementary School Students?

Abstract

In this paper we examine anxiety towards mathematics among elementary school students, utilizing an anxiety scale (Muñoz and Mato 2007). To achieve this, 228 registered students, all enrolled in the fifth and sixth elementary school year in the region of San Juan Bautista Tuxtepec Oaxaca, México, were surveyed during the period July-December, 2013. To achieve the tests validity, we obtained an Cronbach alpha 0.944 (extended) and 0.842 (grouped), which are very acceptable if we consider the criterion AC > 0.8 (Hair et al 1999). The statistical procedure used is the factorial analysis with an extracted principal component in order to measure data. The results obtained from the Bartlett test of Sphericity KMO (0.871), X2 calculated, 865.970 with 10 df > X2tabulated, Sig. 0.000 p< 0.01, MSA (ANSIEVAL .815ª; ANSITEM .835ª; ANSICOM .905ª; ANSINUM .906ª; ANSISIMA .919ª) and the determinant value of 0.021, which indicate high correlations in all variables (>0.5), and demonstrate that the variables of the scale utilized help us to understand the elementary school students’ anxiety towards mathematics.

DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n4p564