Among the mathematics tasks, math courses and math exams: How's the level of student anxiety toward maths in a private high school in Mexico?

Abstract

The purpose of the study is to determine a latent structure of variables that explain the level of anxiety towards mathematics of high school students based on the interaction that the student has with the tasks, courses and math exams. For this purpose, the RMARS mathematical anxiety scale was used, which has a Likert-type scaling. The instrument was applied to a sample of 183 enrolled students from a private institution of upper secondary education located in Veracruz, Mexico and to obtain results, a factorial analysis was applied. The most significant finding is the obtained tetra-dimensional model, which contrasts with other models such as those of Alexander and Martray (1989) and recently with the penta-dimensional model of (Author 1 2017). This result suggests that the original design of the three-factor scale of Richardson and Suinn (1972), modified by Alexander and Martray (1989), does not apply to students in Latin contexts, such as the case of Mexico.