Abstract:

The main purpose of this study is to investigate social studies teacher candidates’ attitude levels towards mathematics. The survey model was employed in the research. The sample of the research consist of 398 social studies teacher candidates studying at different state universities in Turkey. The "Mathematics Attitude Scale" developed by Duatepe and Çilesiz (1999) was used as data collection tool. AMOS 21 and Jamovi 2 softwares were used to analyze data. Descriptive statistics was used to examine social studies teacher candidates’ attitude levels towards mathematics, and one way ANOVA was utilized to identify whether there was a significant difference between variables. As a result of the study, it was found that the social studies teacher candidates’ attitudes towards mathematics are low. Furthermore, scores of the teacher candidates showed low level at the interest and love, fear and trust, and pleasure subdimensions of Mathematics Attitude Scale. On the other hand, it was determined that the level of attitude towards profession and importance which is subdimension of the scale was high. Furthermore, it was concluded that the attitudes of social studies teacher candidates towards mathematics did not differ significantly in terms of educational status of the mother, whereas differed significantly in terms of educational status of the father. Finally, it was revealed that the attitudes of social studies teacher candidates towards mathematics differed significantly in terms of love of the mathematics teacher variable.

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