Development of a visual mathematics literacy scale and investigation of visual mathematics literacy perception according to various variables

Abstract

The aim of this study is to develop a measurement tool that determines the visual mathematics literacy perceptions of secondory school students and determine the relationship between visual mathematics literacy perceptions of students with gender, period-end math achievement level and geometry achievement score. The study group was composed of 256 (144 female, 112 male) students who were studying in the third grade of three secondary schools selected by simple random sampling method among the middle schools in Southeastern Anatolia Region. As a result of the exploratory factor analysis applied in the scale development phase, a valid and reliable “Visual Mathematics Literacy Scale” with four factors and 14 items with a Cronbach Alpha internal consistency coefficient of .88 was developed. In the study, it was found that the students' perceptions of literacy did not differ significantly in terms of gender and the level of mathematics achievement at the end of the semester. As a result of multiple regression analysis, a significant relationship was found between the geometric success of the students' literacy perceptions and the geometric sub-dimension. Also, visual mathematics literacy perception was found to be a significant predictor of geometry success. As a result of these findings, it is suggested that the researchers who will study will use the scale related to different variables or different sample groups.