Development of a mathematics anxiety scale for parents of preschool children and its psychometric evidence

Mathematics anxiety is an important psychological factor affecting parents' influence on their children's early academic development. This study aims to develop a valid and reliable measurement tool to determine the levels of mathematics anxiety among parents with children in the preschool period. Specifically, this research is a scale development study focusing on examining the psychometric properties of the instrument. The study sample consisted of voluntary parents whose children attended 17 preschool institutions located in different socio-economic regions of Kahramanmaraş, Turkey. In total, data were collected from 1,825 parents, with 883 used for Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA), 549 for Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA), 223 for criterion validity, and 132 for test-retest reliability. All groups, except for the test-retest group, consisted of different parents. Data were collected using the Parental Math Anxiety Scale for Parents with Preschool Children, developed by the researcher. Additionally, three valid and reliable scales were utilized: the Parental Math Anxiety Scale (Mutlu et al., 2018), designed to determine parents' math anxiety levels, consisting of 16 items and three subdimensions; the Autonomy-Supportive Parenting Scale (Öz & Gürsoy, 2024), measuring parents' attitudes supporting children's autonomy, consisting of 35 items and five subdimensions; and the Early Mathematics Scale (Karakuş, 2022), structured to evaluate mathematics activities and beliefs of parents with preschool children. All scales demonstrated sufficient psychometric properties through confirmatory factor analysis and reliability studies. During the scale development process, expert opinions were qualitatively evaluated to finalize the instrument. EFA results indicated a three-factor structure explaining 41.3% of the total variance. CFA results showed acceptable model fit indices (CFI = 0.906, RMSEA = 0.069, GFI = 0.884, SRMR = 0.055), confirming the model's compatibility with the data. Criterion validity was tested through two separate applications. In the first application, the developed scale was administered alongside the Parental Math Anxiety Scale, and in the second application, it was administered with the Autonomy-Supportive Parenting Scale and the Early Mathematics Scale. Overall, moderate significant correlations were observed, supporting the scale's criterion validity. Reliability analyses indicated internal consistency coefficients of α = 0.877 for the overall scale and 0.840–0.888 for subdimensions. Test-retest reliability over a two-week interval produced correlation coefficients ranging from r = 0.761 to 0.907, demonstrating temporal stability. These findings suggest that the developed scale is a valid and reliable instrument for assessing mathematics anxiety among parents with preschool-aged children. Keywords: parental math anxiety, preschool, validity, reliability, scale development