One of the affective factors known to have an impact on the individual’s learning and academic success is called learned helplessness. The notion of the learned helplessnes is used for the first time by Seligman et al. in consequence of some of the studies they carried out at the University of Pennsylvania.  Learned helplessness according to Stipek (1988) is a motivational problem that causes the individual, who fails to success at work, to feel him/her inadequate in the way to improve his/her work performance (Shields, 1997). The occurrence of learned helplessness in the individual according to Abramson et al., (1978) depends on the indiviual’s way of explaining his behaviours and the results of the reasons of these behaviours. According to Peterson&Seligman (1984), there are three explanatory causality dimensions that describe learned helplessness. These are: the internal-external dimension, the stable-changeable dimension, and the global-specific dimension. Internal dimension indicates the results related to the feeling inside of the individual himself; the external dimension yet refers to a reason related to the situation and the conditions for the individual’s participation. The cause points out the stable dimension if it is a factor which continues over time or the changeable dimension if it is temporary.

Learned helplessness behaviour has a negative affect on students’ academic performance. Especially in subjects such as mathematics, disliked by many students, this effect is more than enough. If this state of desperation of students can be noticed by mathematics teachers, this will allow some of the studies, which improve the efficiency of the course, to be made.

In the study, a “Learned Helplessness in Mathematics Scale” to be developed in order to determine the levels of learned helplessness of college students in mathematics. The Learned Helplessness Scale in Mathematics consists of 34 items designed to measure the attributional internal, stable and general dimensions which show learned helplessness and also called deppressive attributional forms. In this research to develop Learned Helplessness Scale in mathematics, it is studied  with a total of 316 students that are studying in the departments of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, Environmental Engineering and Mechanical Engineering in the Faculty of Engineering and the departments of Chemistry and Physics  in the Faculty of Science in Dokuz Eylül University.

The scale has been prepared on the basis of  “Learned Helplessness Scale” which was developed by Seligman et al. (1984) with the features of structure, conformatioanal characteristics and reliability-validity determination methods. Accordingly, the scale has been prepared to measure the internal, stable and overall installation dimensions that are specific to the learned helplessness and also referred to as a form of depressive installation. A positive or negative event has been depicted on each item of the scale and two causal installing option related to thiş event are presented.

It is applied to 97 students and the reliability coefficient was found 0,82. In addition, the scale applied to 124 students two times in 4 weeks apart and a strong positive correlation is identified between applications. Expert opinions was taken for the content validity of the scale. For this purpose, opinions of 8 people who are expert on mathematical education, science and physicology fields have been consulted. Additionally, the “Math Anxiety Scale” which was developed by the researchers, applied with “Learned Helplessness in Mathematics Scale” for harmony validity and a strong positive relationship is determined between the scores of both scales. As a result of the study, “Learned Helplessness in Mathematics Scale” was determined to be a reliable and valid measurement tool. It’s believed that, this scale would eleminate the needs in the field and thus provide significiant contribution to the university mathematis education.