Attitudes Towards Mathematics: a Study in a Rural School

Abstract

In this research, it has been analyzed the mathematical attitudes of High School students from a rural school. It is a quantitative study based on the descriptive design where a scale of attitudes towards mathematics was provided to 60 students of Rural High School. Descriptive analysis of the data, at student's test, analysis of variance and HSD-Tukey test with the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) were performed. The results show that: the attitude toward mathematics is positive; factors liking, usefulness, motivation and confidence manifested, are contributing to demonstrate that math anxiety is less; Men and women have the same degree of attitude, and there are no statistically significant differences related to the degree of study. It is concluded that attitudes towards mathematics are part of students' training from rural high school, as it allows them to develop skills and abilities to know, value, understand, emotions and feelings management in a harmonious way in the resolution of mathematical situations related with everyday life.