AN INVESTIGATION OF THE MIDDLE SCHOOL STUDENTS' MATHEMATICS EXAM ANXIETY AND SELF-EFFICACY FOR PROBLEM-POSING

Abstract

The aim of the study was to analyze the mathematics exam anxiety and problem-posingself-efficacy of middle school students in terms of their school, gender, and grade levels, aswell as the relationship among these parameters. The research was conducted with 37 fifthgrade students, 53 sixth grade students, 72 seventh grade students, and 77 eight gradestudents; in total 239 students in two middle schools in Kayseri province, Turkey in 2019.The data collection tools comprised the “Mathematics Exam Anxiety Scale”, developed byŞan (2014) and revised by Dulkadir (2017), and the "Problem Posing Self-Efficacy Scale",which was developed by Özgen (2019). For the analysis of the data the SPSS 25 packageprogram was used. In the study, the reliability coefficient of the mathematics exam anxietyscale was found to be 0.486, and the reliability coefficient of the problem-posing self-efficacyscale was 0.942. Mathematics anxiety and problem posing self-efficacy did not differsignificantly according to gender. A significant difference in mathematics exam anxiety wasdetected and the difference was between the fifth and seventh grades. No significantdifference was found in the self-efficacy for problem posing at the grade levels. Whilemathematics examination anxiety showed a significant difference in terms of the schools, theself-efficacy for problem-posing did not differ significantly between schools.