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Ganegoda, Wickramasinghe & Appuhamy
Nakkawaththa and Pannala. The schools are order, the ordinal logistic regression model
divided into four categories. They are 1 AB was fitted to observe the relationship
Schools (Schools with Advanced Level between attitudes and Mathematics
Science stream classes), 1 C School achievements. Finally, the significance of
(Schools with Advanced Level Arts and/or the proportional odds assumption was tested.
Commerce Stream(s) but no Science stream 4 DATA COLLECTION AND
classes), Type 02 Schools (Schools with ANALYSIS
classes only up to grade 11) and Type 03
Schools (Schools with classes only up to There are 81 schools in Giriulle zone
grade 5). Type 03 schools are out of the consisting 4035 students. Among those,
scope of this study because these schools do Tamil medium schools were not considered
not have classes up to G.C.E (O/L). due to communication problems and primary
schools were removed since they are out of
There are 3334 grade 11 students in 67 the scope of study. Then the population was
schools except Muslim schools and type 3 reduced to 67 schools with 3334 students.
schools. Tamil medium schools were not As a sample from 67 schools, 13 schools
considered due to practical difficulties in were selected.
communication. Primary data was collected
with the help of a questionnaire accessing This is 20% of the total schools (67).
the students’ likeness in Mathematics, From the students 3334, 345 students were
student’s value in mathematics, student’s selected using multi stage sampling
confidence in Mathematics and some social technique. Those schools were belonged to
factors. There are 22 questions which are 5 three categories as 1AB, 1C and type 2.
points Likert type, scale ranging under There are 209 students selected from 2
liking, value and confidence from strongly schools in 1AB category, 91 students
agree to strongly disagree and 4 questions selected from 5 schools in 1C category and
are under social factors. The original 45 students selected from 6 schools in Type
questionnaire is in English and it is 2 category. The questionnaires were
translated into Sinhala in order to improve distributed among the selected students.
the response rate. The reliability of the
questionnaire was tested using Cronbach’s 5 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Alpha test. The following Table 1 shows the
In this study, Mathematics achievements results of Cronbach’s Alpha test.
of selected students were collected from Table 1: Test of reliability
their reports as secondary data. Mathematics
marks of three consecutive terms were Cronbach’s alpha No of items
collected and average of three terms was
considered as Mathematics achievement. .855 22
Then Mathematics marks were divided into
four categories as follows. Since Cronbach’s alpha is 0.855 >
0.7 the original questionnaire can be
75< Marks ≤ 100 – Grade A considered as reliable. The results of the chi
55< Marks ≤ 75 – Grade B – square test was shown in Table 2.
35< Marks ≤ 55 – Grade C According to Table 2, there is a relationship
0< Marks ≤ 35 – Grade D
between only the students’ likeness in
Chi-Square test was conducted to Mathematics and gender. There is
examine the relationship between each of significant relationship between
these attitudes with Mathematics Mathematics achievement and the students’
achievement and gender. Since the likeness mathematics and the students’
dependent variable was categorical with confidence in Mathematics separately for
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