STUDENTS, COMPUTERS AND MATHEMATICS THE GOLDEN TRILOGY IN THE TEACHING-LEARNING PROCESS

ABSTRACT

 In this paper we examine the relationships between students’ attitudes towards mathematics and technology, therefore, we take a Galbraith and Hines’ scale (1998, 2000) about mathematics confidence, computer confidence, computer and mathematics interaction, mathematics motivation, computer motivation, and mathematics engagement. 164 questionnaires were applied to undergraduate students of several profiles:  business and management, mecatronic engineering, industrial engineering, strategic system engineering and mechanic engineering all they in a study carried out at the Universidad Politécnica de Aguascalientes. The statistical procedure used was factorial analysis with an extracted principal component. The Hypothesis: Ho: ρ=0 has no correlation, while Ha: ρ ≠0 does. Statistics test to prove: Χ², Bartlett test of sphericity, KMO (Kaiser-Meyer_Olkin) Significance level: α=0.05; p<0.05 therefore reject Ho if X ² _calculated > X ² _tabulated.  The results obtained from the sphericity test of Bartlett KMO (.859), Χ²_calculated, 539.612 with 10 df > Χ²_tabulated, Sig. 0.00 < p 0.01, MSA (MATH-CONFI .853; MATH-MOTI .884; MATH-ENGA .846; COMPU-CONFI .868 and INTE-MACO .848) provide evidence to reject Ho. Thus, the variables of Galbraith and Hines’ scale help us to understand the student’s attitude toward mathematics and technology.