The structure of mathematics anxiety in a community college setting

Abstract

This study investigated whether there exists a component of mathematics anxiety in addition to the Numerical Anxiety and Mathematics Test Anxiety previously identified in MARS by Rounds and Hendel. Twenty of these Rounds and Hendel items were chosen and augmented by ten additional researcher constructed items intended to measure a mathematics anxiety factor tentatively labeled as Abstract Anxiety. The resulting thirty item self-inventory named PHOBUS was administered to N = 365 subjects. The subjects were students in eighteen classrooms selected at random from a population of 136 mathematics classes offered during the day division of San Antonio College during the spring semester of 1982. Both principal axis and alpha method were used to initialize factor matrices. Orthogonal rotation by varimax and equimax algorithms resulted in the isolation of five factor patterns. In terms of contribution to variability, the most important factor had heavy loadings (greater than 0.5) on the items intended to measure Abstraction Anxiety. The items extracted from MARS were partitioned into Numerical Anxiety, Mathematics Test Anxiety and into two other factors that were loosely labeled as fear of embarrassment and fear of intimidation. A general linear model was used to compare the test-retest reliability of PHOBUS with MARS. The data did not support that PHOBUS was as reliable as a 98 item version of MARS. If MARS were shortened to 30 items, then PHOBUS compared favourably with the Spearman-Brown predicted value for the resulting reliability. The advantages of PHOBUS over MARS lie are in the economy of administration and presence of another factor of mathematics anxiety. Factor analysis has shown that Abstraction Anxiety is the primary factor of PHOBUS. Further research using PHOBUS should be directed towards the contribution of Numerical Anxiety, Mathematics Test Anxiety, and Abstraction Anxiety toward dysfunction in mathematics performance. In particular, since adolescence has been identified as a time of emerging differences in mathematics activity when sex is used as a variable, and since the middle school years are also the time of increased abstractness in mathematics, PHOBUS may prove to be useful in determining any significant interactions.