Development and Validation of an Instrument to Measure Attitudes towards the Use of Computer in Learning Mathematics

The aim of the study was to develop and validate an instrument suitable to measure attitudes towards the use of computer in learning mathematics (ATCLM). A total of 214 (132 = males: 82 = females) teacher trainees participated in the study. Factor Analysis (FA) was performed on 47 items relating to the use of computer in learning mathematics using Principal Component Analysis with Varimax (orthogonal) rotation. With Eigen values greater than 1, FA retained 13 factors with the first accounting for 15.56% of the variability and a total of 62.39% of the variance for the entire set of variables. To examine the strength of relationship among the items, the Kaiser Meyer Olkin (KMO) and Bartlett’s test were used. The KMO measure of sampling adequacy was 0.78 whiles the Bartlett’s test of sphericity was significant with x2 = 3510.253 (p< 0.0001). A factor loading cut-off point of 0.40 was used as the inclusion criterion for factor interpretation. Based on these, seven factors namely: Confidence in Mathematics (CM), Confidence with Computer (CC), Mathematics Anxiety (MA), Computer Anxiety (CA), Value of using Computer for Learning Mathematics (VCLM), Interest in using Computer for Learning Mathematics (ICLM), and Anxiety in using Computer for Learning Mathematics (ACLM). Cronbach’s alpha values for the 7 scales ranged from .735 to .880