KKTC’ de Eğitim Gören İlköğretim İkinci Kademe Öğrencilerinin Matematik Kaygı Düzeylerinin Farklı Değişkenlere Göre İncelenmesi

This study aims to determine TRNC secondary school students’ mathematical anxiety levels, and to find out whether factors such as gender, area, grades, and class year have an effect on their anxiety. The study has been conducted during the 2015-2016 Academic year, with the secondary school students studying at TRNC. For data collection purposes, simple random sampling was employed, and the participants were chosen among 1391 (6th, 7th and 8th grade) students from 5 different districts. In addition to the students, 19 volunteering mathematics teachers also participated in this study. The quantitative data was collected by the means of an anxiety scale, consisting of 16 5 point Likert scale items, developed by Bindak (2005). The validity and reliability of the questionnaire was ensured by relevant tests. For internal consistency, the Cronbach Alpha was measured, and determined to be .914. The qualitative data on the other hand, was collected by the means of 3 semi-structured interview questions developed by the researcher and a field specialist, in light of the relevant literature. Following the data collection procedures, the quantitative data was analyzed by the means of SPSS22. The collected data was entered to the SPPS software and analyzed by employing correlation, MANOVA, ANOVA, LSD and t-test. In addition to these, to analyze the qualitative data, as suggested by other researchers such as Miles and Huberman (1994), Patton (2002), Büyüköztürk, Kılıç Çakmak, Akgün, Karadeniz and Demirel (2012), thematic analysis was employed. The results of this study reveal that: the students possess medium level of mathematical anxiety, their grades decrease when their anxiety level increases, the students studying at city centre, or near city central display lower levels of anxiety, anxiety level increase with class year, and finally, that gender does not have an effect on the level of mathematical anxiety. In addition to these, according to the teacher participants, failing to relate mathematical knowledge with real life cause the learners to regard mathematics classes as irrelevant and thus develop negative attitudes (anxiety, confusion, lack of interest). Key Words: Anxiety, Mathematical Anxiety, Secondary School