Developing and Validating an Instrument to Evaluate a Mathletes Training Program

Most of the schools underserve high- ability and highly motivated students by denying them access to high-quality mathematics and giving only opportunities for the disadvantaged students through intervention programs. Hence, a Mathletes Training Program was initially implemented in order to expose these students to advance Mathematics and to bring their mathematical knowledge alive through engaging in outside school competitions and real life activities. However, the absence of an evaluation tool discontinued the program. This prompts the researchers to design an evaluation instrument to measure the effectiveness of the mathletes program in terms of attitude towards Mathematics and self- concept of the mathletes after undergoing the training. This study then details the development and validation of the Mathletes Training Program Evaluation Instrument. Samples of 60 elementary and junior high student- respondents were randomly selected from the total population of 211 Mathletes. Using Exploratory Factor Analysis, findings revealed that the three constructs-attitude toward math(ATM), mathlete training program(MTP) and self-concept (SC) were suited for factor analysis (KMO> 0.5) and were all reliable with Cronbach’s Alpha values of 0.72, 0.73 and 0.85 respectively and overall reliability of Cronbach’s alpha of 0 .84. From 20 ATM items, 61% had good factor loadings (>.4), 3 items were dropped and 5 factors were finally identified. Twenty-one (21) out of 25 MTP items captured 63% of the variance of the program effectiveness identified 7 factors after a reduction method. For the 12-item self-concept construct (SC), 3 factors were identified and captured approximately 61% of the total variance of the program effectiveness using the 3 factors. The results show that there is adequate evidence that the program evaluation tool designed is valid and reliable.

Keywords: Factor Analysis, Mathletes, Reliability, Validity