Measuring the influence of students' attitudes on the process of acquiring knowledge in mathematics

Abstract

In this paper the authors discuss the influence of students' attitudes on the process and results of their studies. The procedure by which a grade for students' attitudes is obtained is very simple, and the results are treated in several ways. A survey has been conducted among the students in elementary school in order to establish their attitude towards Mathematics lessons. By comparing the answers of students to their knowledge, results were obtained indicating that motivation derived from enjoyment in mathematics has a much greater influence than student consciousness about the usefulness of the subject. The reason for this difference lies in the fact that the application of most mathematical areas seems abstract to learners of this age.