CHAPTER IV

RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS

Introduction

This chapter presents the results and conclusions of the data. The

data are analyzed using various statistical methods and presented in

written and graph form.

Results

Of the approximately 90 eighth grade students, 49 returned consent

forms and were given the survey. The survey consisted of 14 Likert scale

questions and three open-ended questions. The Likert scale range was

from 1 (strongly agree) to 6 (strongly disagree). A score of 1 also indicates

a strong negative attitude toward math for that specific question. One of

the open-ended questions was “what grade do you think you will make in

this class?” which indicates the students perception of their achievement

in that math class. The other two open-ended questions were related to

classroom affective environment. (see appendix 1)

The students mean score for the 14 Likert scale questions was

compared to their expected grade. The results showed a highly significant

correlation (df=47, r=.704, p<.001) indicating that students with a

negative attitude toward math expect worse grades than those with

positive attitudes. This was an expected result and emphasizes the need

to change negative attitudes toward math. The results are plotted in Graph

1 showing the strong positive correlation.

 Scatter Graph

100

90

80

70
Expected Grade

60

50
0 1 2 3 4 5 6
Mean of Scores (df=47, r=.704, p<.001)

Graph 1

The questions covered many areas that could possibly be related the

negative attitudes. Of the 49 students 18 (37 percent) indicated a dislike

for math (see question 1). While there is no comparison to students who

dislike other subject matter areas, 37 percent is a large number of

students who dislike math.

Like vs Dislike

37%

63%

Graph 2

Graph 3 compares the answers of students who like and dislike math
using the mean for each question.

Answer Comparison

3 Dislike
Answer Like

Agree
2 = 1, Disagree = 6

0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
Question

Graph 3

This study’s focus was on students who dislike math, therefore those

students’ answers are now considered. For the students who dislike math,

there were many answers that were correlated. Some of the interesting

and important correlations are discussed. Table 1 shows the correlations

between answers of the students who indicated they dislike math. The

correlations are for each question compared to every other question. For

example, the first column shows the correlation of answers on question 1

with questions 2 through 15.

Questio
n 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
1 1
 2 0.129 1

3 0.487 0.233 1
-0.04 -0.01
4 2 0.508 8 1

5 0.025 0.230 0.250 0.104 1

6 0.315 0.414 0.485 0.057 0.263 1

7 0.176 0.534 0.468 0.282 0.455 0.253 1

8 0.267 0.551 0.286 0.220 0.456 0.218 0.447 1

9 0.439 0.020 0.431 0.385 0.219 0.164 0.189 0.006 1

-0.30 -0.40 -0.11
10 0.179 1 0.174 9 0.076 0 0.130 0.036 0.371 1

11 0.153 0.387 0.052 0.322 0.536 0.135 0.453 0.600 0.189 0.098 1

12 0.346 0.170 0.215 0.589 0.348 0.107 0.194 0.422 0.697 0.273 0.595 1
-0.00 -0.28
13 0.166 5 0.234 5 0.484 0.355 0.223 0.338 0.223 0.343 0.365 0.183 1
-0.12
14 0.025 0.159 0.280 0.354 0.261 0.068 0.311 0.111 0.342 0.196 0.282 0.401 5 1
-0.17
15 0 0.197 0.261 0.311 0.257 0.213 0.523 0.410 0.061 0.154 0.408 0.395 0.352 0.37

Table 1
(df=34, p<.05=.331, p<.01=.428. p<.001=.527)

Although there are many correlations, three important correlations

related to the research question of this study and previous research are

discussed. First, “I don’t like math” had highly significant correlations with:

“I’m not good at math” and “I dread having to do math”, and a significant

correlation with: “I’m afraid to answer questions in math class”. Second,

“The personality of the math teacher is not very important” had significant

correlations with “Math is too hard”, “When taking a math test, I usually

feel nervous and uneasy” (highly significant), “I’m afraid to ask questions

in math class” (highly significant), “I’m afraid to answer questions in math

class”, and “I will only take math courses that are required” (highly

significant). Lastly, “I will only take math courses that are required” had

significant correlations with “The personality of the math teacher is not

very important”, “Math is boring”, “When taking a math test, I usually feel

nervous and uneasy”, “It scares me to think I will be taking harder more

advanced math”, and “I’m afraid to ask questions in math class.”

Of the 18 students who indicated they dislike math, a tally was taken

of the questions for which the students strongly agreed (1 on the Likert

scale) and is shown in table 2 below.

“It scares me to think I will be taking harder or more advanced 6

math
“I’ve had at least one year I fell behind in math” 5
“I’m not good at math” 4
“I will only take math courses that are required” 4
“When taking a math test, I usually feel nervous and uneasy” 3
“Math is too hard” 3
“Math is boring” 2
“I dread having to do math” 2
“I’m afraid to answer questions in math class” 1
Table 2

Further insight into students’ thoughts about math and the

classrooms affective environment can be obtained in reviewing answers to

the last two open-ended questions. For this analysis, all students’

responses were used (like and dislike).

The first question was “What can teachers do to make math more

enjoyable?” Following is a list of the most popular responses along with the

number of students making that suggestion:

 Play more math games – 19

 Fun activities/Make it more fun/interesting – 12

  Have group assignments - 5

 Less homework – 4

 Use real life examples – 4

The second question was “Describe your best and worst experience

in math.” The overwhelming responses for both best and worst

experiences were related to achievement (grades, understanding

particular topic, test scores, etc.). Some examples of the students’

answers are:

 “My best experience was when I could answer all the questions

and worst was when I really make a bad grade on an important

test”

 “Ratio was my best and integers was my worst”

 “Best – when I actually started to understand, worst – when we

do algebra”

 “best – making a B, worst – making a C”

 “Well, the best would have to be when I pass a math test. I

have my worst experience when I do poorly on a math exam”

Summary

This chapter analyzed the data from the surveys. These results

suggest a significant number of students dislike math and there were

several significant correlations between answers that may indicate the

cause of their dislike.