What factors explain the anxiety level towards studying mathematics among students in elementary school?

Abstract

In this paper we examine the anxiety toward mathematics on elementary school students; therefore, we utilized an anxiety scale (Muñoz and Mato 2007). To do this, 228 students (registered) were surveyed, who are enrolled in the fifth and sixth scholar year in elementary school in the region of “San Juan Bautista Tuxtepec Oaxaca, México”, during the period July- December 2013. To validity tests, we obtained an Cronbach alpha 0.944 (extended) and 0.842 (grouped) which is very acceptable because if we consider the criterion AC > 0.8 (Hair et al 1999). Statistical procedure used is the factorial analysis with an extracted principal component in order to measure data. The results obtained from the Bartlett test of Sphericity KMO (0.871), X2 calculated, 865.970 with 10 df > X2tabulated, Sig. 0.000 p< 0.01, MSA (ANSIEVAL .815a; ANSITEM .835a; ANSICOM .905a; ANSINUM .906a; ANSISIMA .919a) and the determinant value of 0.021 which indicate high correlations in all variables (>0.5), allow us to know that the variables of the scale utilized, help us to understand the elementary school student’s anxiety toward mathematics.