The Role of Cognitive Styles, Advancement Goals and Mathematics Self Efficiency in the Students' Achievement in Mathematics

This research aimed at studying the roles of cognitive styles, achievement goals, and mathematics self efficiency on the students' achievement in mathematics. The participants of the research were 263 grade seven public high school students in Tabatkan district which were selected using the two stage clustering sampling method. The students received a questionnaire for the two cognitive styles of field dependence and field independence, Midglay et al's (2001) questionnaire of goal oriented, and the mathematics self efficiency questionnaire. The collected date from these questionnaires were analyzed using Pearson's correlation method, independent T test and multiple regression. The results showed that there was a positive and significant relationship between cognitive styles, achievement goals, mathematics self efficiency and mathematics achievement. Also it was revealed that self efficiency had a higher role in predicting mathematics achievement. The results also suggested that field independent students showed more mathematics self efficiency. Additionally they had high scores in mastery goals. On the other hand field dependent students had high scores in avoidance goal. Moreover the study showed that there was a significant relationship between mastery goals and mathematic self efficiency. Also there was a direct and significant relationship between the rate of self efficiency and the score of orientation goal. There was a significant indirect relationship between the rate of self efficiency and avoidance goal score. Finally the study showed that the students' performance in mathematics could be directly predicted through cognitive styles, advancement goals and mathematics self efficiency. However in step by step regression analysis it was revealed that the role of the beliefs of mathematics self efficiency was superior to the roles of the advancement goals and cognitive styles.