In this study, I focus on the differences between countries and gender in students’ mathematics performances and four affective characteristics. My first question is that how are students’ nationalities and gender related to their mathematics performance? I hypothesized that Taiwanese students perform better than American students and that boys perform better than girls in both countries. My second question is that how are these four affective characteristics- mathematics anxiety, mathematics self-efficacy, perseverance and openness to problem solving related to their mathematics performance? I hypothesized that students with high anxiety get low performances in their mathematics learning. Students with high self-efficacy perform well in their mathematics learning. Students with high perseverance perform well in their mathematics learning. Students with high openness in problem solving perform well in their mathematics learning. My third question is how are students’ nationalities and gender related to the four affective characteristics, including mathematics anxiety, mathematics self-efficacy, perseverance and openness for problem solving? I hypothesized that: (1)Taiwanese students have higher anxiety in learning mathematics than American students. (2)Within both Taiwan and the US, girls have higher anxiety in learning mathematics than boys. (3)Taiwanese students have higher mathematics self-efficacy than American students. (4)With both Taiwan and US, boys have higher self-efficacy than girls. (5)Taiwanese students get higher perseverance than American students. (6)Within both Taiwan and US, boys get higher perseverance than girls in learning mathematics. American students get higher openness for problem solving than Taiwanese students. In both Taiwan and US, girls have lower openness in problem solving than boys.

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