Measuring attitudes about mathematics: using a semantic differential

At all educational levels, students’ attitudes towards mathematics are important, including elementary and junior and senior high school preservice teachers’. In this study, a semantic differential (rating scale) was administered to four different groups of students in order to ascertain their attitudes toward mathematics. The four groups included preservice elementary and high school teachers; and liberal education college and high school students. Semantic differential enabled the researchers to distinguish diversity in groups’ attitudes. Findings in this study show that the high school students assessed exhibit the most negative attitudes towards mathematics, whereas preservice elementary teachers reported more positive attitudes towards mathematics than previous research in this area has indicated