Mathematics anxiety questionnaire: Development and validation

Abstract

The purpose of present research was to develop the questionnaire that could measure middle and high school students' mathematics anxiety levels. Because mathematics anxiety is one of important components of mathematics classroom. In order to develop the questionnaire, a pretest form was developed through a literature survey and presented to experts for evaluation. After alterations based on their suggestions, a pilot study with 100 middle and high school students was held to revise the questionnaire. After the revision, a total of 69 items in the questionnaire was administered to 1015 students who were attending at middle and high school at Sivas city of Turkey. In order to realize the validity, exploratory factor analysis was performed. Exploratory factor analysis showed that the questionnaire included four factors and four-factor analysis of variance is 57.35%; for each factor, analysis of variance ranged 18.20 %, 16.32%, 12.41%, and 10.40% respectively. Cronbach Alpha Coefficient is also calculated for the entire questionnaire was as .867; for each factor, alpha ranged .832, .771, .754, and .609 respectively, for reliability of the questionnaire. In this way, a questionnaire consisting of 17 items has been developed. So, the questionnaire had satisfactory results on validity and reliability tests.