Math anxiety, a hierarchical construct: Development and validation of the Scale for Assessing Math Anxiety in Secondary education / Ansiedad matemática, un constructo jerárquico: desarrollo y validación de la Scale for Assessing Math Anxiety in Secondary education

ABSTRACT

Secondary students' low achievement and engagement in mathematics is known to relate closely to their math anxiety. Despite the international body of research, the theoretical conceptualization of the construct math anxiety is still debated, showing strong discrepancies regarding its factor structure. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to develop and validate a new instrument, called Scale for Assessing Math Anxiety in Secondary education (SAMAS), by testing several models through confirmatory factor analysis. Data were collected from 563 secondary students, with an average age of 13.96 (SD = 1.09) years. Several models for the construct were tested through confirmatory factor analysis. The results largely confirmed that the hierarquical structure showed the best fit to the data (χ2 (166, N = 563) = 61.22; RMSEA = .046; SRMR = .045; NNFI = .94; CFI = .95), resulting in the psychometrically sound 20-item SAMAS, wherein math anxiety comprises three underlying factors

RESUMEN

El bajo rendimiento y dedicación de los estudiantes de secundaria a las matemáticas está estrechamente relacionado con la ansiedad matemática. A pesar de la investigación internacional, la conceptualización teórica del constructo ansiedad matemática es todavía debatida, mostrando fuertes discrepancias relativas a su estructura factorial. Por tanto, el objetivo de este estudio es desarrollar y validar un nuevo instrumento, denominado Scale for Assessing Math Anxiety in Secondary Education (SAMAS), para el que se analizan diferentes modelos mediante Análisis Factorial Confirmatorio. La muestra estuvo compuesta por 563 estudiantes, con una edad media de 13.96 (DE=1.09) años. Los resultados ampliamente confirmaron que la estructura jerárquica fue la que arrojó el mejor ajuste del modelo (χ2[166, N = 563] =361.22; RMSEA = .046; SRMR = .045; NNFI = .94; CFI = .95), resultando en un instrumento psicométricamente robusto de 20 items, compuesto por 3 factores subyacentes (AU)