Relations Between Mathematics Self-Efficacy and Anxiety Beliefs: When Multicollinearity Matters

This article reports on an investigation among 156 upper secondary students who self-evaluated their general mathematics self-efficacy and anxiety beliefs. After minimizing the influence of extreme multicollinearity, an exploratory factor analysis revealed a clear four-factor pattern. Two of the factors were interpreted as self-concept-like factors; one representing student's overall confidence in mathematics labeled mathematics self-concept, and the other labeled generalized mathematics self-efficacy, concerned with student's future-oriented perception of their competence in mathematics. The other two factors are students' anxiety when they give wrong answers in mathematics class (in-class anxiety), and students' anxiety and stress when they must do mathematics homework (assignment anxiety). Although no gender differences were found in previous mathematics achievement, the analyses indicated that all latent factors differed between genders. However, further analyses of logistic mixed models with all latent factors and prior mathematics achievement as predictors revealed that reported in-class anxiety was the primary discriminating factor between male and female students.