Attitudes towards mathematics in students from 7th to 9th of basic education in Honduras

Abstract

This research has analyzed the attitudes that students of the third cycle of basic education have towards mathematics. It is a quantitative study with a descriptive design based on the application of an attitude towards mathematics scale to a sample of 247 students from three departments in Honduras: Lempira, La Paz and El Paraíso. A descriptive and inferential analysis of the data was carried out with the help of the
Statistical System for the Social Sciences. The results show that students have a positive attitude towards mathematics, mainly in the factors of trust, usefulness and liking. It should be noted that the level of anxiety is low, however, the students are unmotivated. The factors with the highest correlation are confidence-liking, which means that students feel good about learning math and solving math problems is satisfying. It is important to mention that when the trust and liking factors are correlated with motivation, a negative coefficient is obtained, which leads to inversely proportional results. Demotivation leads to a decrease in liking and confidence. It is concluded that in the qualitative variables gender, place of origin and smart devices for connection to virtual classes used by students, do not present significant differences in attitude towards mathematics. Likewise, students belonging to the seventh, eighth and ninth grades have the same level of confidence and demotivation; and the seventh grade has greater enjoyment and usefulness, and less anxiety.