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Assessing engineering students’ mathematics self-efficacy and mathematics anxiety levels in Latino contexts

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Gustavo Morán-Soto at Instituto Tecnológico de Durango (ITD)
Gustavo Morán-Soto
Lisa Clemence Benson at Clemson University
Lisa Clemence Benson
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Abstract and Figures

Mathematics self-efficacy and mathematics anxiety can influence a student’s decision to pursue and complete an engineering major, and these influences can disproportionately affect female students. This research adapted two instruments to collect information about the mathematics self-efficacy and mathematics anxiety of first-year engineering students at a Mexican university. Descriptive statistics and k-means cluster analyses were used aiming to characterize engineering students based on their levels of mathematics self-efficacy and mathematics anxiety; and a MANOVA was used to test for sex-based differences. The results showed that engineering students are likely to have high levels of mathematics self-efficacy, and they also have high levels of mathematics anxiety. Male students reported higher mathematics self-efficacy and lower overall mathematics anxiety levels than female students, and mathematics test anxiety levels were higher than overall mathematics anxiety for both male and female students. Reliably characterizing engineering students’ levels of mathematics self-efficacy and anxiety can help educators better understand their students as they learn mathematics and develop learning environments that leverage students’ confidence in performing mathematic-related activities. This study highlights the need to identify ways to ameliorate engineering students’ feelings of mathematics test anxiety.
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Current Psychology
https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-024-05989-4
engineering students’ perceptions of their mathematics abil-
ities while reducing their mathematics anxiety could posi-
tively impact their mathematics course performance and
ultimately decrease attrition in engineering majors due to
poor mathematics preparation (Faulkner et al., 2020).
According to Bandura (1986), self-ecacy refers to “peo-
ple’s judgments of their capabilities to organize and execute
courses of action required to attain designated types of per-
formances” (p. 391). Richardson and Suinn (1972) dened
mathematics anxiety as “feelings of tension and anxiety that
interfere with the manipulation of numbers and the solving
of mathematical problems in a wide variety of ordinary life
and academic settings” (p. 551), while Luttenberger et al.
(2018) described math anxiety as feelings of apprehension
and increased physiological reactivity when individuals deal
with math, such as when they have to manipulate numbers
or solve mathematical problems, or when they are exposed
to an evaluative situation connected to math.
Engineering educators should understand underlying
attitudes that aect their students’ behaviors in their math-
ematics-related courses, specically their mathematics self-
ecacy and anxiety levels. Literature suggests that students
Introduction
Of the factors that may inuence student interest and per-
sistence in engineering majors, literature suggests that
mathematics self-ecacy (Morán & Benson, 2018) and
mathematics anxiety (Rozgonjuk et al., 2020) could be two
of the most relevant. Developing a better understanding of
the eects of dierent levels of mathematics self-ecacy
and mathematic anxiety on how engineering students per-
ceive mathematics-related activities could help engineering
educators design strategies that promote students’ inter-
est and persistence in engineering majors (Chang et al.,
2023). Developing learning environments that help improve
Gustavo Morán-Soto
[email protected]
Lisa Benson
[email protected]
1 Tecnológico Nacional de México, Instituto Tecnológico de
Durango, Durango, México
2 Clemson University, Clemson, SC, USA
Abstract
Mathematics self-ecacy and mathematics anxiety can inuence a student’s decision to pursue and complete an engi-
neering major, and these inuences can disproportionately aect female students. This research adapted two instruments
to collect information about the mathematics self-ecacy and mathematics anxiety of rst-year engineering students at
a Mexican university. Descriptive statistics and k-means cluster analyses were used aiming to characterize engineering
students based on their levels of mathematics self-ecacy and mathematics anxiety; and a MANOVA was used to test
for sex-based dierences. The results showed that engineering students are likely to have high levels of mathematics self-
ecacy, and they also have high levels of mathematics anxiety. Male students reported higher mathematics self-ecacy
and lower overall mathematics anxiety levels than female students, and mathematics test anxiety levels were higher than
overall mathematics anxiety for both male and female students. Reliably characterizing engineering students’ levels of
mathematics self-ecacy and anxiety can help educators better understand their students as they learn mathematics and
develop learning environments that leverage students’ condence in performing mathematic-related activities. This study
highlights the need to identify ways to ameliorate engineering students’ feelings of mathematics test anxiety.
Keywords Mathematics self-ecacy · Mathematics anxiety · Engineering education · STEM students
Accepted: 7 April 2024
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2024
Assessing engineering students’ mathematics self-ecacy and
mathematics anxiety levels in Latino contexts
GustavoMorán-Soto1· LisaBenson2
1 3
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