A Semantic Differential Instrument for Measuring Attitude Toward Mathematics

A semantic differential was developed to measure attitude toward mathematics. This instrument was contrasted with a Likert type attitude instrument constructed by Aiken and Dreger (1, 2). There were 68 male and female subjects, all of whom were non-mathematics majors enrolled in a required doctoral level statistics class in the College of Education of a large state university in the southwest. The correlation between the two instruments was r = .90. It was concluded that the semantic differential constructed for this study was as effective a measure of attitude toward mathematics as the Likert type instrument. Analysis of the data also indicated that people possessing favorable and unfavorable attitudes toward mathematics differed to the greatest extent on the evaluative scales of the semantic differential, thus lending construct validity to the semantic differential.