Reducing Negative Attitudes Toward the Learning of Mathematics and Increase Student Performance Through Methodology CAL

The aim of this research study is three-fold: firstly, it concerns of educational advantages of the methodology Computer Assisted Learning (CAL) in students’ outcomes; secondly, it intends to know if negative attitudes towards mathematics (ATM) influence their performance in the discipline of Quantitative Methods, at secondary school; thirdly, we want to know if using CAL at University (first year) in teaching and learning Statistics and Data Analysis can reduce the effect of negative experiences when learning mathematics, at secondary school. We used one sample of n = 758 students, obtained by a cluster sampling plan (clusters being the three courses), which used methodology CAL and other sample of n = 449 students, from the three courses which used traditional methodology pencil-and-paper. We concluded: (1) that the negative ATM (liking or disliking Math), influenced their performance in the discipline of Quantitative Methods; (2) the same not happened with their performance in the Statistics and Data Analysis at University, using CAL; (3) finally, we compared performances after using the two methodologies, with and without CAL, and we conclude that mean of students performance when use methodology CAL is higher than mean of students’ performance from methodology pencil-andpaper.