Predictors of students’ enjoyment in learning Mathematics

Abstract

Despite the role that emotions play in students’ learning, little research has been carried out to study the predictors of the individual emotion that students experience throughout and as a result of their learning. The present research attempts to do that for the enjoyment emotion, where it considers four variables related to different aspects of students’ learning (value of mathematics, self-concept of learning mathematics, teacher’s support and effort in learning mathematics) as predictors of this emotion. Seven hundred and twenty students, from grade eight, nine and ten, participated in the research. Stepwise regression analysis was used to analyze the data. The research results indicated that self-concept was the variable that explained the variation in students’ enjoyment more than the other variables (49.2% of the variance). Value of mathematics came next (10.6% of the variance), then teacher’s support (2.6% of the variance) and then student’s effort (1% of the variance). The research results indicate that special stress needs to be put on promoting student’s self-concept in order to cultivate students’ emotions.