Indian Journal of Science and Technology

Abstract

This paper aims to understand students’ mathematics anxiety through determining specific areas that significantly influence this sort of feeling towards mathematics subject. Setting the application of Rasch techniques, a survey data from a 32-item questionnaire, all in Likert-scale type, was used. The questionnaire is divided into four specific areas namely peer, test/assessment, teacher, and computational/numerical factors. Participants of the survey consist of a random sample of high school students who were equally allocated across grade level. A dichotomous Rasch model was fitted and the differential item functioning was then applied. Research findings revealed that student’s mathematics anxiety could be lessened or if possible could be avoided by: (1) Encouraging a class success rather than an individual success within and outside classroom, (2) Guiding student learning under the teacher’s availability and approachability; (3) Considering student’s preparedness prior the conduct of any learning assessment, and (4) Designing assessment tools that are both accurate and appropriate. Moreover, this paper has identified the different roots of students’ mathematics anxiety which include sex, study time in mathematics, whether or not mathematics is the favorite subject, and the type of learning by the students. The results of this paper can further be used by mathematics educators to gain insights about these causes of mathematics anxiety making classroom instruction effective as well as the learning of the subject both meaningful and fun to the students. In general, the techniques applied in this paper could be adopted in other discipline to understand more the student’s behavior towards a particular subject.

Keywords: Item Response Model, Likert-Scale Items, Mathematics Anxiety, Rasch Scores, Rasch Techniques