Kazakh and Russian Translation of FSMAS-SF Instrument

Abstract

Abstract. Purpose of the study: The purpose of the study is to develop an instrument in both Kazakh and Russian languages that measures students’ attitudes towards mathematics through translating a widely used 51-item instrument developed by Mulhern and Rae. Methodology: This work utilized factor analysis in SPSS using Principal Component Analysis (PCA) with VARIMAX. To this end, the attitude test of Mulher and Rae consisting of 51 5-point Likert scale items in English were translated into Kazakh and Russian languages. The translated instrument is conducted amoing 378 university students in Kazakhstan. To test the internal consistency, the Cronbach alpha methodology was implemented. Main Findings: The results revealed five underlying dimensions of the instrument with 37 items in both languages. These five scales are Success, Male Domain, Parent’s Attitudes, Mathematics-Related Affect, and Usefulness scales. Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) Barlett’s test of sphericity threshold is reported to be 0.875 with chi-square 7106, degree of freedom 1275 and p-value less than 0.0001. The analysis show a very high overall Cronbach reliability coefficient of .91. Applications of this study: This study can be used in any mathematics learning descilpine in higher education institutions where medium of instruction is either Kazakh or Russian to test whether students attitudes towards mathematics is improving or not. Besides, the instrument can be used to study correlation between attitudes towards mathematics and learning outcome in the field. Novelty/Originality of this study: This is probably the first ever work done in Kazakh and Russian to develop a comprehensive instrument that measures students’ attitudes towards mathematics.