INVESTIGATING THE CONSTRUCT-VALIDITY OF SCORES FROM A MEASURE OF STUDENT PERCEPTIONS ABOUT MATHEMATICS CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES USING MULTIDIMENSIONAL-SCALING

Interest in student affective and motivational perceptions about learn ing mathematics is growing. An instrument, the Mathematics Assessment Questionnaire, has been developed for use by classroom teachers to ass ess these perceptions. Research suggests that teachers and students ch aracterize classrooms by activity settings, and items in the Mathemati cs Assessment Questionnaire use one of three activities: teacher whole -class instruction, student problem-solving groups, and homework. The present study explores the construct validity of scores of 1,505 junio r high school students using three-way multidimensional scaling analys es. Findings are generally supportive of validity. Implications of fin dings are discussed.