On Mathematics Anxiety of Japanese Junior High School Students Measured by a Likert-type Instrument

Abstract

The purpose of the study is to develop an instrument for measuring anxiety toward junior high school mathematics, and to investigate the followings: (a) existence of school, grade, and sex-related differences of mathematics anxiety, and (b) relationships between mathematics anxiety and mathematics achievement, and among mathematics anxiety and some affective variables, one of which is attitude toward mathematics. Scores for investigating the above (a) and (b) are gathered from students of four junior high schools which are in the north, central, and south parts of the Akita Prefecture, Japan. The instrument developed with validity and reliability is a five-point Likert-type one, and consists of 24 items, each of which represents mathematics anxiety. Main findings obtained from using the instrument are as follows: Although school and grade differences of mathematics anxiety can not be found significantly, sex-related differences are in existence. Coefficients of correlation between mathematics anxiety and mathematics achievement in the four schools are distributed from 0.34 to 0.56. Mathematics anxiety and each of the affective variables dealt with in the study are closely related.