An investigation of mathematics achievement among secondary school students

This study, which is aimed to predict the mathematics achievement of secondary school students, examined whether self-efficacy, attitude and perceived autonomy support were mediated primarily by the relationship between self-regulation and mathematics achievement. Secondly, it was aimed to investigate the moderation between attitude and self-efficacy, self-regulation and self-efficacy, and perceived autonomy and self-efficacy on mathematics achievement. The study sample included 264 female and 268 male students, in total 532 students, who were selected by purposeful sampling from three different secondary schools located in center of Kırşehir province between 2017 and 2018. The data were collected using Motivational Stategies on Learning Scale developed by Pintrich and De Groot (1990) and adapted by Üredi (2005), Learning Climate Scale developed by William and Deci (1996), translated into Turkish by Kanadlı and Bağçeci (2016) and readapted for secondary school students, and Attitude Scale About Mathematics developed by Önal (2013) and personal information form prepared by the researcher. The success of the students in the mathematics course was determined by taking the average of the grades of the students for two semesters. Multiple regression analysis and PROCESS program developed by Hayes (2018) in addition to SPSS were used to test the moderation and mediation effect of the collected data as a result of the research. .05 was considered as the significant level. According to the results of the study, self-regulation, self-efficacy, and attitude variables are significant predictors of mathematics achievement of secondary school students. In addition, the mediation effects of self-efficacy and attitude variables on the relationship between self-regulation and mathematics achievement were found to be significant. In this case, self-efficacy and attitude variables are mediation variables that increase the mathematics achievement of secondary school students. In addition, it was concluded that the effect of self-efficacy and attitude moderation on mathematics achievement of secondary school students was significant. As it is understood from this point, it has been revealed that the relationship between the secondary school students' self-efficacy and mathematics achievement may vary depending on attitude. According to the research findings, the moderation between self-regulation and self-efficacy, and perceived autonomy and self-efficacy did not have a significant effect on the mathematics achievement of secondary school students. In addition, no significant relationship between gender and mathematics achievement was found in secondary school students. As a result, the mediation effects of self-efficacy and attitude variables in the relationship between secondary school students' self-regulation and mathematics achievement were significant. This study showed that the moderation between self-efficacy and attitude significantly predicted the mathematics achievement of the secondary school students.