STUDY ON TYPE OF ATTITUDE TOWARDS LEARNINGMATHEMATICS AND ITS RELATIONSHIP WITH ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT AMONG NINTH STANDARD STUDENTS

Abstract

Learning mathematics does not only involve thinking and reasoning, it is dependent on the attitudesof  the  learners  towards  learning  and  mathematics.      The  affective  component  of  attitude  is  thefeeling  or  emotions  of  the  individual  associated  with  learning  mathematics.  Thus,  the  affectivecomponent is the source of driving the engagement of students towards mathematics. Furthermore,the  affective  aspect  is  also  influenced  by  the  belief  formed  from  the  cognitive  component  ofattitude, which creates a mindset that becomes constant over time and influences the feelings of thestudents  towards  learning  mathematics  Students  feeling  confident  in  doing  mathematics  is  linkedwith being successful in mathematics, which is regarded a s a positive behaviour. The present study intended to study the type attitude towards learning mathematics and relationshipbetween   academic  achievement  and  attitude  among  ninth  standard  students.  The  sample  of  thestudy  was  100  ninth  standard  students  from  two  schools.  A  standardized  tool  namely  Sodhi’sAttitude  Scale  was  administered  and  collected  data  was  analysed  by  statistical  techniques  namelymean, SD, ‘t’ test and Karl Pearson’s product moment correlation. The major findings of the study:14%  of  the  students  showed  positive  attitude  towards  learning  mathematics,  59%  of  the  studentsshowed neutral  attitude  and  27%  of  the  students  showed negative  attitude  towards  learningmathematics. There  is  no  significant  difference  between  the academic  achievement  of  boys  and girls  of  ninth  standard  students.  Study  also  revealed  that  there  is  a  strong  relationship  between attitude  towards  learning  mathematics  and  academic achievement  of  ninth standard  students.Implications of the study suggested in detail in the study.