Developing a Questionnaire to Evaluate Turkish Students’ Mathematics Values and Preferences

The aim of this study was to construct a questionnaire: the mathematics values questionnaire (MVQ). Because a little is known about students’ mathematics values and no assessment tool is available to measure students’ mathematics values to obtain more insight into their perspectives. For this, the proportional stratified random sample of the study consisted of Grade 5 (11-12 years old) and Grade 9 (14-15 years old) students attending schools in Turkey. The data were subjected to descriptive and inferential statistical analyses by using a recently developed and validated survey instrument. The questionnaire’s structural and predictive validities were investigated using a Principal component analysis (PCA) and an item analysis (item-total correlations and comparison of differences in means for distinctly different groups). Six components were extracted: relevance (C1), practice (C2), information and communications technology (ICT) (C3), feedback (C4), learning approach (C5), and consolidating (C6). Our results showed that Grade 5 students placed more importance than Grade 9 students for all the six value components