Abstract

ASSESSMENT OF PSYCHOMETRIC PROPERTIES OF MATHEMATICS ANXIETY QUESTIONNAIRE BY PRESERVICE TEACHERS IN SOUTH-WEST, NIGERIA

Adeneye O. A. Awofala, PhD & Sabainah O. Akinoso, PhD

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Abstract This study investigated the psychometric properties of the mathematics anxiety instrument involving a sample of 450 Nigerian pre-service mathematics teachers selected from four different universities in South-West, Nigeria within the blueprint of the descriptive method of a survey research design. Responses of the participants to the Mathematics Anxiety Questionnaire (MAQ) were analysed using the classical test theory involving the principal components extraction with orthogonal rotation and this supported the factor structure of the mathematics anxiety in the collectivist culture context. The result showed a two-factor model and the two factors accounted for 63.95% of the total variance. This was in agreement with the results from previous studies. The findings suggest that the MAQ, an instrument for measuring mathematics anxiety appears to be culturally and contextually invariant. Based on the findings of this study, it was recommended that MAQ should be used in the Nigerian context to measure the mathematics anxiety of the preservice teachers. Future research should focus on confirming the higher order factor structure findings (e.g., confirmatory factor analysis) of the MAQ, to assess the stability of these two factors across different samples and groups within mathematics and science education settings.

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