Affect and Mathematics Achievement of Nontraditional College Students

It has been documented that many nontraditional students enter college with certain attitudes and beliefs that play a role in their learning experiences (Apps, 1981). For example, many adults have returned to school with low self-esteem and a lack of confidence and are self-critical (Wintersteen, 1982). For the nontraditional student, the relationships of affective constructs to mathematics achievement remain relatively unexplored. The research in the affective domain that has been done on this population has been directed toward the nontraditional students' total academic experience instead of a particular area of study. The principal purpose of this study was to determine if the relationship between selected affective variables and mathematics achievement was different for non-