Students’ Attitude Toward Mathematics: The Use of Factor Analysis in Determining the Criteria

The purpose of this study is to determine the criteria and subcriteria that considered important in measuring students’ attitude toward mathematics. Factor analysis was carried out to identify the groups among criterion. There were 746 respondents involved in the survey at UiTM Johor. The targeted respondents are first semester diploma students taking various programs related to business studies. Finding shows that there were five criterion that influenced students attitude toward mathematics namely interest in mathematics, 6 subcriteria for anxiety toward mathematics, 5 subcriteria for self efficacy, 3 subcriteria for extrinsic motivation and 2 subcriteria for students’ self concept. From the analysis, it shows that total percentage of variation explained is 58.28% and with 0.888 Cronbach's Alpha reliability test.