INVESTIGATION OF PROCEDURAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT AND PSYCHOSOCIAL FACTORS IN ALGEBRA COURSES

The aim of this study is to examine the procedural relationship between the psychosocial factors of mathematics learning such as attitudes, motivation and satisfaction and academic achievement in redesigned college-level algebra course sections. Evaluation reports on the redesigned courses show that they have achieved a level of academic achievement equivalent to and / or better than traditionally taught courses, including university-level mathematics introductory courses. However, the reasons for equal or higher academic achievement are not fully documented in the literature. In this context, the academic success of the university-level algebra course designed using the Emporium model was chosen as the focus of this research study. In this manuscript, in addition to the psychosocial factors of mathematics learning, mathematics achievement in the context of university algebra was also examined. The data related to the psychosocial variables were obtained from a likert scale developed by the researcher, and academic achievement data from the final exam grades of the algebra course. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis was used to analyze the collected data. The results of the study indicaed that satisfaction from mathematics teaching was the only significant predictor of mathematics achievement in college-level algebra; learner motivation and satisfaction were determined as important predictors of attitude towards mathematics, and attitude towards mathematics played the role of mediating variable in the relationship between student satisfaction and motivation in introductory level redesigned university algebra courses.