Eighth Grade Students’ Attitude Toward Algebra in Maldivian Schools

Abstract

Students’ attitude towards algebra is important in deciding the factors that influence students’ achievement in algebra as well as mathematics learning. This is a quantitative study which has explored the algebra attitudes of eighth grade students. The study population included students from two main schools in Male’ who were selected using stratified random sampling. One component of the Fennema Sherman Mathematics Attitudes Scale and three components of the Attitude Towards Mathematics Inventory (ATMI) by Tapia and Marsh were used to survey the algebra attitudes of 39 boys and 45 girls in grades eight. The results show that the learners have a neutral attitude for the components of the attitude towards algebra as well as for the total attitude and that there is no gender difference in their attitude.