The Relationship Between Academic Achievement and Affective Attitudes in Math and Science Based on TIMSS Results

Abstract

For the past 20 years, Korea has shown a very low level of affective attitude in math and science despite high academic achievement scores in international academic achievement evaluations such as PISA or TIMSS. To identify patterns of affective attitudes in math and science, we compared the relationship between affective attitudes and academic achievement through comparisons of high-performing countries. Also, we conducted latent profile analysis on affective attitudes in math and science and investigated the relationship between latent profile and academic achievement. We used cohort data for 4th and 8th graders to compare changes across grades. The results are as follows. First, affective attitudes and academic achievement were positively correlated in all countries, but high-performing countries had very low affective attitudes. Second, according to the results of the latent profile on affective attitudes in math and science, the 4th graders were derived on the basis of positive attitudes, whereas the 8th graders were derived on the basis of negative attitudes. Third, students who belonged to a group with high affective attitudes showed high academic achievement for all graders in Korea. Lastly, educational implications for improving affective attitudes in math and science were proposed.