Relationships between affective constructs and mathematics achievement: A modeling approach

The objective of this study is to investigate the relationship of preservice teachers’ affective characteristics using structural equation modelling to examine the relative contributions of latent factors, and to find the strength of their impacts to mathematics achievement. Based on the presage-process-product model of student learning (Biggs, 1987), 410 first-year students in the certificate education course at Hong Kong Institute of Education are used to build a hypothesized model to investigate how preservice teachers’ mathematics self-concept, mathematics teaching self-efficacy, beliefs and attitudes towards mathematics and mathematics education, influence cognitive activities in the learning process and subsequently mathematics achievement outcomes. The result shows that mathematics teaching self-efficacy acts as the mediator of affective characteristics, learning approaches and mathematics achievement. The finding proves useful to educators in the research areas of affective domain of mathematics education. It is hopeful that the proposed model will become a useful reference for further investigations on affective domain of mathematics education