Association of attitude toward mathematics with self-efficacy, causal attribution, and personality traits

983 children from Grades 1, 2, and 3 of the middle schools participated as subjects. Of these, 339 children were judged as having higher "self-efficacy" than the others. The associations of attitude toward mathematics with self-efficacy, attributions, and personality traits measured on the Shimoda Personality Inventory were investigated. Analysis showed that attitude toward mathematics had significant effects on mathematics performance. In attribution of effects to mathematics performance there were differences among the children across the grades. Among personality traits the immodithymic trait was significantly correlated with attitude toward mathematics.