Assessing engineering students’ mathematics self-efficacy and mathematics anxiety levels in Latino contexts

Mathematics self-efficacy and mathematics anxiety can influence a student’s decision to pursue and complete an engineering major, and these influences can disproportionately affect female students. This research adapted two instruments to collect information about the mathematics self-efficacy and mathematics anxiety of first-year engineering students at a Mexican university. Descriptive statistics and k -means cluster analyses were used aiming to characterize engineering students based on their levels of mathematics self-efficacy and mathematics anxiety; and a MANOVA was used to test for sex-based differences. The results showed that engineering students are likely to have high levels of mathematics self-efficacy, and they also have high levels of mathematics anxiety. Male students reported higher mathematics self-efficacy and lower overall mathematics anxiety levels than female students, and mathematics test anxiety levels were higher than overall mathematics anxiety for both male and female students. Reliably characterizing engineering students’ levels of mathematics self-efficacy and anxiety can help educators better understand their students as they learn mathematics and develop learning environments that leverage students’ confidence in performing mathematic-related activities. This study highlights the need to identify ways to ameliorate engineering students’ feelings of mathematics test anxiety.