Evaluation of Student Attitudes Using Multivariate Statistical Analysis

Abstract

This study aims to classify the high school students’ attitudes towards Mathematics and Geometry courses with exploratory factor analysis and cluster analysis and to determine whether there is a difference between several variables determined using t-test. For this purpose, 1265 students were selected from 8 schools in Antalya province using by random sampling method and they were asked to respond to the survey form given to them. The collected data are classified using Factor Analysis and Cluster Analysis which are among the multivariate statistical methods. According to the factor analysis results, 4 factors were determined using the Geometry Attitude Scale, and two factors were determined by evaluating the Mathematics attitude scale. It was also investigated whether there was a difference between the attitudes of the students towards mathematics and geometry courses based on the averages of the responses provided by the students according to the variables of gender, grade level, and parents’ education level. The results of the analyses revealed that there was a significant difference according to the grade level, while it did not differ according to gender and education level of the parents. It was observed that the average increased as the grade level increased.

Keywords

• Multivariate Statistical Analysis
• Factor Analysis
• Cluster Analysis
• Applied Mathematics

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