Mathematics now dominates almost every field of one’s activities.

In this age of science

and Technology, it has permeated through the human life in such a way that, it has now
become every man’s everyday concern. Mathematics disciplines the mind, systematizes
one’s thought and reasoning. The subject has also rich potentialities of affording true
enjoyment to its students. Mathematics is an important subject in school curriculum. It is
more closely related to one’s daily life as compared to other subjects. Except one’s mother
tongue there is no other subject which is more closely related to one’s daily life as
mathematics. Mathematics is considered to be the father of all sciences.

Napoleon remarked that- “The progress and improvement of mathematics is linked to the
prosperity of the state”. Although there is no standard definition of the term attitude, in
general it refers to a learned predisposition or tendency on the part of an individual to
respond positively or negatively to some object, situation, concept or another person.

In assessing Mathematics performance and potential of students, attitudes towards

Mathematics and Mathematics learning are frequently cited as factors contributing to
success. Several studies have shown that positive attitudes are conductive to good
performance.

Pupils could like, enjoy, or the opposite, could hate mathematics. Attitude could be
described as a long-term positive or negative emotional disposition towards mathematics.
Therefore, this attitude is rather stable, contain both affective and cognitive factors. A
dimensional definition of the attitude contains only the emotions and beliefs associated
with mathematics. According to a multidimensional definition, the attitude has three
components: emotional response, beliefs regarding mathematics, and behavior related
to the subject. Some factors that influence attitude towards mathematics are confidence,
beliefs in the importance of mathematics and its utility in practice, and mathematical
anxiety (Ashby, 2009).

Students’ interest in mathematics, their beliefs in the utility of the mathematical knowledge
in their future career or in their everyday life are important. „Belief systems are one’s
mathematical world view, the perspective with which one approaches mathematics and
mathematical task. One’s beliefs about mathematics can determine how one chooses to
approach a problem, which techniques will be used or avoided, how long and how hard
one will work on it, and so on.” (Schoenfeld, 1985, p. 45)

Mohamed and Waheed when reviewing literature aimed at understanding attitudes and
the influences on their development in relation to differences between students, identified
three groups of factors that play a vital role in influencing student attitudes: factors
associated with the students themselves (e.g., mathematical achievement, anxiety, self-
efficacy and self-concept, motivation, and experiences at school); factors associated with
the school, teacher, and teaching (e.g., teaching materials, classroom management,
teacher knowledge, attitudes towards maths, guidance, beliefs); finally factors from the
home environment and society (e.g., educational background, parental expectations).
Attitudes can be seen as more or less positive. A positive attitude towards mathematics
reflects a positive emotional disposition in relation to the subject and, in a similar way, a
negative attitude towards mathematics relates to a negative emotional disposition. These
emotional dispositions have an impact on an individual’s behavior, as one is likely to
achieve better in a subject that one enjoys, has confidence in or finds useful. For this
reason, positive attitudes towards mathematics are desirable since they may influence
one’s willingness to learn and also the benefits one can derive from mathematics
instruction.

According to Nicolaidou and Philippou showed that negative attitudes are the result of
frequent and repeated failures or problems when dealing with mathematical tasks and
these negative attitudes may become relatively permanent. According to these authors
when children first go to school they usually have positive attitudes towards mathematics.
However, as they progress their attitudes become less positive and frequently become
negative at high school. Köğce et al. found significant differences between younger and
older students’ attitudes towards mathematics with 8th graders having lower attitudes
than 6th graders.
There are a number of factors which can explain why attitudes towards mathematics
become more negative with the school grade, such as the pressure to perform well, over
demanding tasks, uninteresting lessons and less than positive attitudes on the part of
teachers.

Attitude towards mathematics plays a crucial role in the teaching and learning
processes of mathematics. It effects students’ achievement in mathematics. The
teaching method, the support of the structure of the school, the family and students’
attitude towards school affect the attitudes towards mathematics. Usually, the way that
mathematics is represented in the classroom and perceived by students, even when
teachers believe they are presenting it in authentic and context dependent way stands
to alienate many students from mathematics (Barton, 2000; Furinghetti and Pekhonen,
2002). Researchers concluded that positive attitude towards mathematics leads
students towards success in mathematics. Attempt to improve attitude towards
mathematics at lower level provides base for higher studies in mathematics. It also
causes effect in achievement of mathematics at secondary school level (Ma and Xu,
2004).
The purpose of mathematics classes in schools is to help students gain problem-solving
skills, reasoning, to be able to make interconnections, generalization, establish
communications, and some other mathematical skills such as sensory and psychomotor
skills, and to use these skills in order to solve problems they encounter in real life
(Baykul, 1990; Olkun & Toluk Uçar, 2007; Gürefe & Kan, 2013). However, the real
target in the educational system is obtaining voluntary changes in the positive direction
of individuals’ behaviors from the education-training process. Often, students think that
mathematical issues can either not be learned, or can only be learned with great
difficulty.
It is known that there are three components of the attitude; cognitive, sensory and
behavioral dimensions. Although (i) environmental factors: negative classroom
environment, teacher properties that may be perceived as negative, family pressure,
highly complex symbols or signs used in mathematics, (ii) cognitive properties: lack of
self-conscience in the student, having not gained sufficient mathematics knowledge and
its infrastructure in previous mathematics experiences, (iii) personal properties: feeling
insufficient in social relationships, shyness, being introvert, insufficient selfpersonality
are interrelated with the mathematical anxiety, it must also be accepted that these
properties have the power of affecting these three components of attitude.
Papanastasiou (2000) states that mathematical attitude is the positive or negative
attitude developed by the individual towards mathematics
References
Ashby, B. (2009). Exploring children’s attitude towards mathematics. In: M. Joubert
(ed.), proceedings of the British Society for Research into Learning mathematics, 29(1),
7-12.
Barton, A. C. (2000), Crafting multicultural science education with pre-service teachers
through service-learning. Journal of Curriculum Studies, Volume 32(6), pp. 797-820.
B. Moore, “Predictors of high school students attitudes towards involvement with
mathematics”, Mathematics teacher, 42(1993), pp.46-90.
F. Khatoon, “A study of mathematical aptitude among boys and girls and its relationship
with interests and vocational preferences at the secondary school level”, Ph.D., Edu.
Osmania Univ. (1988)
L. Mohamed and H. Waheed, “Secondary students’ attitude towards mathematics in a
selected school of Maldives,” International Journal of Humanities and Social Science, vol.
1, no. 15, pp. 277–281, 2011. View at Google Scholar

M. Nicolaidou and G. Philippou, “Attitudes towards mathematics, self-efficacy and

achievement in problem solving,” in European Research in Mathematics Education III, M.
A. Mariotti, Ed., pp. 1–11, University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy, 2003. View at Google Scholar

Papanastasiou, C. (2000). Internal and External Factors Affecting Achievement in

Mathematics. Studies in Educational Evaluation, 26, 1-7
R. Zan and P. Martino, “Attitude toward mathematics: overcoming the positive/negative
dichotomy,” in Beliefs and Mathematics, B. Sriraman, Ed., The Montana Mathematics
Enthusiast: Monograph Series in Mathematics Education, pp. 197–214, Age Publishing
& The Montana Council of Teachers of Mathematics, Charlotte, NC, USA, 2008. View at
Google Scholar

Schoenfeld, A. H. (1985). Mathematical problem-solving. New York: Academic Press.