Development and Validation of the Self-Perceptions in Algebra Scales

• In Event: Roundtable Session 52
  In Roundtable Session: Students' Understanding of Functions and Algebra

Abstract

With the recent attention on college-readiness, researchers are focusing more on students’ transitions from high school to college. One current area of interest is students’ academic self-perceptions, but there are few affective instruments designed to measure college students’ self-perceptions, especially in mathematics. We have developed two scales to measure college students’ self-perceptions in algebra: one to measure self-efficacy (i.e., students' perceptions of their ability to perform specific algebraic tasks) and one to measure self-concept (i.e., perceptions of their general algebraic ability). During the development process, we worked to address validity and investigated the factor structure of our instrument using exploratory factor analysis (EFA). We found that our items loaded on two distinct factors, and both scales exhibited strong internal consistency.

Authors

• Jonathan D. Watkins, University of Louisville

• Jill L. Adelson, University of Louisville