The Development of a Geometry Attitude Scale

Abstract This study presents the development of a Geometry Attitude Scale. 334 eight grade Turkish students were employed to conduct an exploratory factor analysis (EFA). Factor structure obtained by EFA was evaluated by a confirmatory factor analysis in the different sample of 126 eight grade students. Findings suggested that the scale measures two constructs: motivation and self-confidence. These factors indicated .92 and .87 Cronbach alpha reliability estimate. Introduction As there is a general belief that children learn more effectively when they are interested in what they learn and that they will achieve better in mathematics if they like mathematics, attitudes have played an important role in academic researches in the field of mathematics education. A number of researchers have demonstrated that there is a significant correlation between attitude and achievement (Aiken, 1976; Davis, 2002; Haladyna, Shaughnessy, & Shaughnessy, 1983; Kulm, 1980; Ma, 1997; Nkwe, 1985; Schoenfeld, 1989; White, 2001). In contrast, a number of researchers have indicated that there is low or no correlation between attitude and achievement (Barssell, Petry & Brooks, 1980; Kiely, 1990; Quinn & Jadav, 1987). Limitation of these researches is that they were after a general attitude toward mathematics, used or developed instruments to gauge the attitudes toward mathematics. The observation of the students in the schools, however, shows us that they have low achievement in and attitudes towards some subjects in mathematics. Geometry is one of these subjects in mathematics that students have low achievement and attitudes. Therefore, determination of attitude toward geometry with an instrument is important. Attitude is defined in different ways by diverse individuals (e.g. Aiken, 1976; McLeod, 1992; Thompson, 1993). Attitude may be seen as one's feelings toward a given circumstances and affect one's reaction to a particular situation. The previous researches reported mathematics attitudes composed of several dimensions. At least six broad dimensions may be identified in the literature as fundamental to people's attitudes toward mathematics, including anxiety, confidence, motivation, enjoyment, value--usefulness, and teacher-parent expectations (Goolsby, 1988; Ma, 1997; Mulhern & Rae, 1998; O'Neal, Ernest, McLean & Templeton, 1988; Tapia & Marsh, 2004, Watson, 1983). The earlier researches reported that the dimension of anxiety and confidence can be worked together. Tapia and Marsh (2004), for example, labeled anxiety and confidence as self-confidence. That is, it can be concluded that students with low self-confidence are nervous about learning geometry, find geometry difficult, feel that they are weak at geometry, and worry more about geometry. Even self-confidence, motivation, enjoyment, value, and teacher-parent expectations are the descriptors of the attitudes toward mathematics, motivation and self-confidence are considered the main descriptors that affects the achievement on mathematics (e.g. Ercikan, McCreith, & Lapointe, 2005; Mogari, 1999). Therefore, the focus of this study is to develop an attitude scale towards geometry measuring motivation and self-confidence. A two-phase study was conducted in 2002-2003 academic year to develop the GAS. In the first study, the draft scale was constructed and piloted to determine the dimensions of the scale. The data gathered from the pilot study was evaluated by the exploratory factor analysis. The second study included confirmatory factor analyses to evaluate whether the factor model specified in the lust phase provides a good fit or not. This scale might help educators to determine students' attitudes toward geometry so that provide more convenient geometry learning environment for them. Furthermore, this instrument might be useful to determine the relation between geometry attitude and geometry achievement. Samples In the first phase, 334 eighth grade students (48. …