Factors Associated with Mathematics Achievement of Spanish Students in Primary Education
Keywords:
Associated factors, Performance, Mathematics, Anxiety, Self-efficacy
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Abstract
This study analyzes the effect of student factors on mathematics achievement according to gender based on the database from TIMSS 2019 in Spain. The sample consisted of 9512 students of the 4th grade of Primary Education. An Exploratory Factor Analysis (KMO = .941 and significance level of Bartlett = .000) was used on the 18 items of the student questionnaire. A 4-point Likert scale (1 = Strongly disagree and 4 = Strongly agree) was used to analyze student factors. Student´s t-tests and Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) were used. Three factors have been identified: attitude, anxiety and self-efficacy in mathematics Results show that girls feel more math anxiety than boys, although anxiety has more effect on boys ‘achievement. In self-efficacy, the second most influential factor, greater differences were found between boys and girls, with more effect on boys´ achievement. Attitude is the factor that has the least effect on achievement. This constitutes a relevant contribution to reduce the gender gap in secondary education.
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References
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