The correlation between middle school 8th-grade students’ reflective thinking skill towards problem-solving and their mathematics anxieties

Abstract

This research aims to explore the potential correlation between the reflective thinking skills of 8th-grade students in secondary education and their level of math anxiety. The study also intends to investigate potential discrepancies in students' reflective thinking abilities for problem-solving and mathematics anxiety, considering factors such as gender, parental education level, and the type of games played. One of the quantitative research designs, the relational survey model, was employed in this study. There were 779 8th-grade students in the study group, comprising 415 females and 364 males. The researchers collected data using three tools: the reflective thinking skills in problem-solving scale developed by Kızılkaya and Aşkar (2009), the mathematics anxiety scale developed by Bindak (2005), and a personal information form created by the researchers. The data obtained from the scales were analyzed using statistical methods such as arithmetic mean, t-test, analysis of variance (ANOVA), and Scheffe test. A noteworthy finding is that the math anxiety scale score and the reflective thinking skills scale score for problem-solving exhibit a significant difference based on the type of game played by the students. An important finding is that the reflective thinking skill scale for problem-solving reasoning sub-dimension accounts for 10% of the total variance in mathematics anxiety, as revealed by the multiple regression analysis.