Abstract
The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between socio-economic background, mathematics work ethic, intentions, behavior and mathematical literacy of Taiwanese students who participated in the survey of PISA 2012. We divided students into different gender and three groups of different levels called high, middle, and low, according to the mathematical literacy scores. Statistics methods such as T Test, one-way ANOVA, and regression analysis were used. Major finding of this research are described as follows: (1) Girls’ scores on mathematics work ethic and on intentions were significantly higher than their counterparts. (2)There was no gender difference in mathematical literacy. (3) Mathematics work ethic, intentions, behavior were all positive predictors for mathematical literacy. (4) Among the socio- economic factors, family collection of books was the most significant predictor for mathematical literacy. And (5)For students with medium and high mathematical capabilities, mathematic behavior helped to predict their mathematical literacy scores. While female students with medium mathematic capabilities appeared to be beneficial from mathematics work ethic, mathematic behavior appeared to be harmful to male students with low mathematic capabilities. Overall, socio-economic background, mathematics work ethic, intentions, behavior could explain 32.3% of the variance of mathematical literacy.