Attachment to parents and math anxiety in Early adolescence: Hope and perceived school climate as mediators

Abstract

This study was based on a sequential explanatory mixed method research design in order to build an understanding of the relationships among attachment to parents, hope, perceived school climate and math anxiety in early adolescents by proposing a multiple mediation model. In the quantitative part, a total of 300 secondary school students (55% girls and 44% boys) participated in the study. The mean age of the adolescents was 12.70 years (SD: 0.78). The participants were recruited from five middle schools in Turkey. In the qualitative part, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 students. The qualitative data were analyzed by content analysis. The results showed that there was a positive relationship among attachment to parents, hope, and perceived school climate, and all variables negatively correlated with math anxiety. The findings from the mediational analyses also indicated that the serial multiple mediation of hope and perceived school climate in the hypothetical model was statistically significant. Moreover, it was observed that the qualitative findings supported the established relationships among the variables and the mediational analyses.