A Correlational Study on University Students' Mathematics Self Efficacy, Belief about their own ability, Gender and their Academic Achievement

Abstract

This study focused on students’ Mathematics self-efficacy, Belief about their own ability (intelligence), gender and academic achievement. Hypotheses tested for achieving the objectives of the study were: a) there is a significant correlation between students’ mathematics self-efficacy and their academic achievement; b) there is a significant correlation between students’ belief about their own ability and their academic achievement; c) there is a significant correlation between students mathematics self-efficacy and belief about their own ability; d) there is a significant gender difference in mathematics self-efficacy, belief about their own ability, and academic achievement; e) there is a significant difference in the academic achievement of students having high and low mathematics self-efficacy and students having incremental and entity ability. Four hundred and fifty 450 (302 male and 148 female) MSc students were randomly selected from the seven public sector universities as sample of the study. A Mathematics self-efficacy scale was used to measure self-efficacy, a scale was used to measure students’ belief about their own ability and students’ scores in Mathematics in the examinations for the year 2011 were used as academic achievement. Comparison of male and female students in mathematics self-efficacy, belief about their own ability and academic achievement scores revealed that male students had significantly high mathematics self-efficacy, high ability (incremental) and had higher mathematics achievement than their female counterpart. The Pearson Correlation Coefficient showed a significant relationship in students’ mathematics self-efficacy, belief about their own ability and academic achievement. Results also indicate that students having incremental (malleable) ability and high mathematics self-efficacy leads to higher academic achievement.