Dissertation
Adolescents' perception of parental and peer mathematics anxiety and attitude toward mathematics: A comparative study of European-American and Mainland-Chinese students
Washington State University
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
05/2007
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7273/000006137
Abstract
The primary purpose of this study was to examine the similarities and differences in adolescents' perception of their parents', peers' and their own mathematics anxiety and attitudes toward mathematics between European-American and Mainland-Chinese groups. The second goal of this study was to examine whether adolescents' perception of their parents', peers' and their own mathematics anxiety and attitudes toward mathematics predict their perceptions of mathematics achievement in both European-American and Mainland-Chinese groups. The samples of this study were 80 Mainland-Chinese and 54 European-American adolescents. Students were evaluated with the Math anxiety Rating-Scale-Revised (MARS-R) and The Attitudes toward Mathematics Inventory (ATMI). European-American adolescents (M = 37.463, SEM = 1.145) view their peers as more anxious than Mainland-Chinese adolescents (M = 33.381, SEM = .945). Mainland-Chinese adolescents (M = 37.518, SEM = .697) view their peers as holding more positive attitudes toward mathematics than European-American adolescents (M = 30.944, SEM = .844). European-American adolescents' perceptions of parental and peers' math anxiety predicted their perceptions of own math anxiety (F (2, 51) = 9.545, p< .01). European-American adolescents' perceptions of mathematics anxiety negatively predicted adolescents' perceptions of their own mathematics achievement and their perceptions of math attitudes positively predicted their perceptions of their own math achievement (F (2, 51) = 6.359, p< .01). For Mainland-Chinese adolescents, (a) their perception of peers' anxiety significantly predicted their own anxiety (F (2,77) = 23.060, p < .01); (b) their perceptions of parents' and peers' mathematics attitudes significantly predicted their own mathematics attitudes (F (2, 77) = 20.63, p< .01); (c) their perception of their parents' anxiety negatively predicted adolescents' mathematics achievement (F (2, 77) = 3.614, p = .032); (d) their perception of their peers' anxiety negatively predict adolescents' mathematics achievement (F (2, 77) = 3.884, p = .025); and (e) adolescents' mathematics anxiety and math attitudes significantly predict their math achievement (F (2, 77) = 15.592, p< .001). Findings from this study support the notion that parents' and peers' math anxiety and attitudes toward mathematics provide an important source for adolescents' math anxiety, attitudes and math achievement.
Metrics
10 File views/ downloads
40 Record Views
Details
- Title
- Adolescents' perception of parental and peer mathematics anxiety and attitude toward mathematics
- Creators
- Huihua He
- Contributors
- Jennifer Marie Beller (Chair)Paulette Mills (Committee Member) - Washington State University, Department of Teaching and LearningMichael Steven Trevisan (Committee Member) - Washington State University, College of EducationDennis Allan Warner (Committee Member) - Washington State University, College of Education
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- College of Education
- Theses and Dissertations
- Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
- Publisher
- Washington State University
- Number of pages
- 106
- Identifiers
- 99901055117901842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Dissertation