ANALYSING THE ATTITUDES TOWARDS MATHEMATICS OF THE UNIVERSITY STUDENTS OF PRIMARY EDUCATION IN THE CAMPUS OF CEUTA

Attitude is a key aspect in the learning process. A number of studies have proved that the students who have positive attitudes achieve better academic results than those who have not. Indeed, in some cases, negative feelings may suppose an important emotional barrier to learning. Therefore, it is important to motivate students and to instill in them good feelings towards all subjects from the earliest stages of education. Among all the subjects, mathematics is usually perceived as boring or difficult. Students associate to mathematics feelings such as anxiety, boredom or, even, fear. Primary education teachers have a major responsibility in preventing these feelings. To do so, teachers themselves must show good attitudes towards mathematics. In this work we consider the Attitudes Towards Mathematics Scale, a 25-item scale with five underlying factors: usefulness, confidence, anxiety, liking and motivation, as an instrument to collect the perceptions regarding mathematics of a group of students enrolled in the degree of Primary Education in the Campus of Ceuta of the University of Granada. Results show that the students appreciate the utility of the mathematics in their daily life and in their future career. However, an important percentage of the people surveyed claim to feel insecure, nervous or uncomfortable when they face a mathematical task. In some cases, they indicate that these feelings arose while studying mathematics in primary school. Therefore, immediate action is needed to stop this continuous and dangerous loop.