On the Causal Relationships between Students Attitudes toward Mathematics and Related Variables

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to causal and effect relationships between students attitudes toward mathematics and their related variables. I found some path diagrams of causal and effect relationships among students attitudes toward mathematics, students feeling levels of difficulty toward mathematics and students perceptions of mathematics teacher on three groups of students based on levels of mathematics achievement. The results of this study reveal that there are more significant cause and effect relationships on junior high school students than on senior high school students, and that there are more significant cause and effect relationship on high level class students than on low level class students. I think that "attitude → achievement" relation is stronger than "achievement → attitude" relation, and that teacher variables and students feeling levels of difficulty toward mathematics affect students attitudes toward mathematics strongly.