The relationship between math anxiety, student engagement in mathematics and responsibilities towards learning among middle school students

Abstract

Learning responsibility is an important concept in students' school success because responsible learners perceive responsibility for learning as a tool for achieving school success and individual career goals. This study aimed to investigate if math anxiety and students’ engagement in mathematics predict students’ responsibilities toward learning above and beyond that accounted for by gender, grade level, loving math, loving math teacher, owning room, parents’ involvement in students’ studies using Hierarchical Regression Analysis. Data were collected from 568 middle school students. The results showed that students’ social, emotional, and cognitive engagement in mathematics were found to be positively associated with students’ responsibility towards learning whereas math anxiety was significant and negative predictor of the students’ responsibility towards learning. The finding suggests that student’s responsibility towards learning is associated with math-related activities and behaviors. Future studies may investigate a cause-effect relationship using same sample and other classes such as science, linguistic, history.