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This investigation was intended to examine the relationship among perceived competence, anxiety, and mathematical and verbal achievement in a population of male and female Italian middle school students. One hundred and eighty students were administered measures of trait anxiety, and measures of state anxiety were administered immediately prior to administering achievement tests in math and literature. In addition, students were administered six subscales of a perceived competence scale. Analyses of these data yielded a moderate negative correlation between mathematics achievement and state anxiety for the math test, and a descriptively smaller negative correlation between the literature scores and state anxiety for the literature test. Significant correlations were also observed between achievement and perceived competence for academic ability. The two state anxiety measures were found to be highly correlated; however, trait anxiety was not statistically related to academic achievement in either math or literature. A moderate negative correlation was observed between perceived competence for academic ability and state anxiety for math and a somewhat lower correlation between perceived competence for academic ability and literature achievement. Males scored higher than females on the test of trait anxiety; however, females and males did not differ on any other anxiety or academic measures, including perceived competence for academic ability, math achievement, or literature achievement. Implications for future research are discussed.

The study’s objective was to ascertain the connection between secondary school students' test anxiety, academic self-concept, motivation and academic performance in mathematics. The difference between the academic performances of male and female secondary school students who exhibit high and low test anxiety, academic self-concept and motivation levels in mathematics.

Four hypotheses and four research questions were adopted. The design is a correlation. 42,299 mathematics students in senior school year two (SS2) made up the research population. A sample of 1,650 students was selected through a multi-stage sampling procedure. The main instruments used were the Mathematics Test Anxiety Questionnaire (MTAQ), Academic Self-Concept Questionnaire (ASQ) and Academic Motivation Questionnaire (AMQ) and students’ math scores. These instruments were validated by three experts and the reliability coefficients of 0.69, 0.68 and 0.68 were obtained for MTAQ, ASQ and AMQ, respectively, using Cronbach alpha. Pearson product moment correlation was used to analyze the data.

The study’s results showed a correlation between secondary school students' academic performance in mathematics and test anxiety, academic self-concept and motivation. There was a significant difference between secondary school male and female students' test anxiety; there was a significant difference between secondary school male and female students' self-concept and academic performance in mathematics, and there was a significant difference between secondary school male and female students' motivation and academic performance in mathematics.

The major contribution of this study is to investigate the connection between test anxiety, academic self-concept motivation and students’ mathematics performance. There is a difference between psychological variables, gender and mathematics performance.

The goal of this chapter is to gain a better understanding of the experiences of mathematics anxiety that some women elementary preservice teachers encounter while learning mathematics during their own K-12 years. Specifically, this chapter is an analysis of the personal well-remembered events (WREs) told and recorded by women during their preservice teaching professional sequence. These narrative writings provide a powerful voice for the degree to which mathematics anxiety shape preservice teachers’ beliefs on what it means to learn mathematics. This intersection of teacher knowledge is important, as these are women who are on the professional track to teach mathematics. The focused analysis for this chapter is aimed at ways in which teacher preparation programs could broaden current views of women who have anxiety and confidence issues in mathematics.

The purpose of this paper is to verify the existence of a gender unbalance regarding choice of quantitatively oriented masters’ programs at a business school. The aim, further, is to analyze variables potentially affecting this unbalance: interest in quantitative matters, perceived competence regarding quantitative subjects and measures of quantitative knowledge.

Empirical data was collected through a survey of 203 students at a Swedish business school. A measure of quantitative orientation was developed to assess the level of nine masters’ programs at the school. A regression analysis was used to identify the impact of gender and the other explanatory variables.

The results indicate that there is a gender unbalance: female students choose master programs perceived to be less quantitatively oriented. However, when studying gender together with level of interest, perceived competence and objective knowledge, the direct gender effect disappears. Instead, a strong positive effect of interest in quantitative matters emerges, as does an indirect effect of gender through the mediating variable level of interest.

The dual importance of level of interest influences the pedagogical suggestions made. Interpersonal contact between teacher and student and use of technology are suggested to raise the level of interest. To reduce the indirect effect of gender through interest, a suggestion is made to work with stereotype threats.

The paper addresses a topic of importance: the potential gender unbalance as regards qualitative orientation. It manages to nuance the picture of the importance of gender – and through the introduction of level of interest suggests a productive path forward.

The purpose of this study was to design and iteratively improve the quality of survey-based measures of three non-cognitive constructs for Grade 5-6 students, keeping in mind information needs of users in education reform contexts. The constructs are: Mathematics-related Self-Efficacy, Self-Concept, and Anxiety (M-SE, M-SC, and M-ANX).

The authors applied a multi-stage, iterative and user-centered approach to design and validate the measures, using several psychometric techniques and three data samples. They evaluated the utility of student-level scores and aggregated, classroom-level means.

At both student and classroom levels, replicated evidence supported theoretically-grounded validity arguments on information produced by four of five scales tapping M-SC, M-ANX and M-SE. The evidence confirmed a second order, two-factor structure for M-SC, representing positive math affect and perceived competence, and a one factor structure for M-ANX representing negative math affect. Consistent with the literature, these served as precursors to a perceived confidence factor of M-SE which, in turn, positively influenced mathematics achievement scores, off-setting negative effects of M-ANX. Research is continuing on a self-regulatory efficacy factor of M-SE, which yielded mixed results.

The survey scales are in line with current reform policies in the United States calling for schools to monitor changes in cognitive and non-cognitive domains of student development. Validated scales could be useful in serving information needs of teachers, decision-makers and researchers in similar school-based contexts.

This study demonstrates a comprehensive, user-centered methodology for designing and validating construct measures, departing from purely psychometric traditions of scale development.

A project was undertaken to determine the appropriateness of providing subject‐based courseware in an academic library's software center or microcomputer lab. The courseware was intended to provide remedial instructional support to re‐entry students in selected subjects. For this project, college algebra became the chosen subject because there appeared to be widespread local agreement that a number of adult students needed remedial instruction in college algebra. The question of the appropriateness of CAI in the library remains open. This service seems to be a viable one for academic libraries to offer. Success would be dependent on wide ranging cooperation involving the library, teaching faculty, computing staff, and instructional technologists.

This study aims to better understand how students’ academic strains and multilevel strengths relate to their math achievement, with a particular emphasis on underrepresented students of color and girls given the need to broaden science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) participation for these groups.

National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 data was used for a historical examination of the various student academic strains and multilevel strengths that relate to math achievement in high school. T-tests and chi-square tests were conducted to examine differences in strains and strengths across policy-relevant student subgroups. Ordinary least squares (OLS) regression was used to examine how students’ strains and strengths related to their math achievement and the relative importance of each of these factors.

The findings suggest that both the academic strains and multilevel strengths that students’ experience in middle school are related to their high school math achievement and the prevalence of these factors varies across different policy-relevant student subgroups. Furthermore, the relative importance of these factors on achievement differs.

Studies which focus on either students’ academic challenges or their adaptive strengths fall short of a more nuanced discussion about how both factors relate to math outcomes. This study addresses this limitation and emphasizes that stakeholders who are interested in STEM diversity should consider holistic strategies for alleviating gender and racial/ethnic discrepancies in secondary math achievement.

To establish the existence of barriers to communication and numeracy skills development and to establish the levels of these exhibited by accounting and business students at the commencement of their courses in higher education.

Uses questionnaires to establish the levels of communication apprehension (CA) and maths anxiety (MA) in students at the commencement of their accounting and business courses in higher education. Establishes the underlying factors that are influential in determining the levels of apprehension and anxiety in individual students. An analysis of the underlying demographic variables such as age, previous educational background, etc. is also undertaken.

Identifies the existence of high levels of CA in accounting students and MA in business studies students at the beginning of their courses.

Where high levels of CA in accounting students and MA in business studies students are shown to exist consideration must be given to relevant curriculum design and delivery, and the use of techniques designed to reduce apprehension/anxiety in the students concerned. Because the apprehension/anxiety is present on entry to higher education it may be that specific courses appear to be recruiting students whose perception of their longer term vocational skills requirements may be inappropriate to their chosen career area.

Identifies specific differences in the areas of CA and MA between differently focused vocational courses, which have syllabus overlap, within a business school.

There is a considerable emphasis today on bridging the gap between theory and practice. On the other hand there is a divergence of thinking through a traditional perspective that mathematics exists independently of its applications and should be taught in its pure form. The purpose of this paper is to examine the key epistemological theories underlying teaching and learning mathematics from above (i.e. traditional approaches) and mathematics from below (contemporary approaches) and how they relate to adult numeracy education. This begs the question: Why is it hard to engage students and why can’t we connect with both the real‐world and mathematical abstractions?

The purpose of this paper is to examine hypothesized links between the Dana Center Mathematics Pathways’ (DCMP) Foundations of Mathematical Reasoning curriculum and the four hypothesized sources of self-efficacy. The sample of developmental mathematics students who were taught with a curriculum that incorporates active and collaborative learning reported increased ratings on social persuasions from the beginning to the end of the semester.

The study examines changes in the four sources of self-efficacy. Students completed a pre- and post-survey. Non-parametric methods were conducted to measure changes.

The paper provides empirical insights into changes in the four sources of self-efficacy with the implementation of a new curriculum in developmental mathematics classrooms. Students in the DCMP Foundation course increased their ratings on social persuasions and mastery experiences and decreased their ratings on physiological states. The largest proportion of variability in the four sources that was accounted for by course grade was mastery experiences followed by vicarious experiences, social persuasions and physiological states.

A control group was not included. Therefore, comparisons between students enrolled in the intervention course and a traditional course were not possible.

An implication of the study is that a curriculum that has an emphasis on face-to-face communication with collaborative learning activities might be linked to more positive measures of the sources of self-efficacy.

This paper fulfils a need to study how the implementation of an alternative curriculum in developmental mathematics classrooms can be linked to students’ self-efficacy.