Author: Abdihakiim Ahmed Mohamed (Dawlad)
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to investigate students’ perceptions of mathematics in secondary schools in Burao city. Four subscales were identified as anxiety, Confidence, Enjoyment, and Benefit/value of mathematics. Data collected were analyzed using Means and standard deviations. T-test was also used to examine whether there was a significant difference between public and private secondary schools towards mathematics. The results found that there were no significant differences between the perceptions of both public and private secondary schools towards mathematics. The study also found a slightly high degree of confidence in favor of private students toward learning mathematics. The findings of the study in terms of gender differences towards mathematics revealed that boys and girls generally had similar attitudes towards mathematics. The questionnaire for this study was tested for its reliability with a reliability coefficient (Cronbach alpha value) of 0.83 and the data was collected from 150 students (Boys = 80, Girls = 70) from 4 public and private secondary schools in Burao city. Principal component analyses were performed using Varimax rotation to capture Eigenvalues greater than 1, eliminate factors with loadings less than 0.4, and remove items with a non-simple factor structure.
Keywords: Perception towards mathematics, Gender, Private and Public HSS, Anxiety, Confidence, Enjoyment.
