Investigation of Maths Oriented Academic Risk-Taking Behaviours of Secondary School Students by Some Variables

Abstract

In this study, secondary school students' academic risk-taking behaviours have been investigated to understand whether they vary according to some variables or not. These variables are: Gender, grade level, town, type of school, parents education level, economic status of the family, the previous year's maths scores. Survey method was used in the study. The population is students who are studying in secondary schools located in Akdeniz, Mezitli, Toroslar and Yenişehir provinces of Mersin, in the 2014 - 2015 academic year. The research sample is 1054 students who are studying at 14 of these schools. “Mathematics-oriented academic risk taking behaviors scale” was used for data collection. Data for the analysis of independent samples t-test and ANOVA were used. There is no significant variance between maths-oriented academic risk-taking behaviours of students based on variables such as gender, town, school type and economic status of the family whereas there is meaningful variance based on variables such as grade level, level of parents education and last year's mathematics score.