An Instrument to Measure Math Attitudes of Computer Science Students

Abstract

Although mathematics is one of the essential courses for students in determining college majors, for many students in postsecondary education, mathematics is seen more as a frightening ordeal than a valuable learning experience. Computer science students explicitly use mathematics in many computer science courses. This demands that computer science majors have in-depth math background to become successful in a computer science career. This paper is a report of the initial development of a new instrument to measure computer science students' attitudes towards mathematics. The reliability coefficient, Cronbach alpha value, for the instrument in our study is found to be 0.811 and coefficients for four subscales are ranged from 0.812 to 0.915. These values seem to be very promising for this study.