Anxiety towards mathematics and educational level a study on means diferences

The aim of this research work is to analyze whether there is a difference in the degree of anxiety towards mathematics among students of different educational levels. The study is not-experimental and cross sectional, and it is based on difference of means between groups. The sample is not-probabilistic, and consisted of 226 students from Tuxtepec, Mexico of different educational levels: basic, middle, upper-middle and upper. For this purpose, the questionnaire designed by Muñoz and Mato-Vázquez (2007) was utilized. It comprises five factors: anxiety toward evaluation, anxiety toward temporality, anxiety toward understanding of mathematical problems, anxiety about numbers and mathematical operations, anxiety toward mathematical situations of the real life. The results shows that anxiety toward mathematics is different by level of study, that significant differences exist between groups, and that anxiety toward assessment is higher among upper, upper-middle and middle levels, while for elementary students there is no perceptible anxiety toward mathematics. © 2016 by Academic Publishing House Researcher.

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