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Attitude towards mathematics: a bridge between beliefs and emotions

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Abstract

Recent research in the field of affect has highlighted the need to theoretically clarify constructs such as beliefs, emotions and attitudes, and to better investigate the relationships among them. As regards the definition of attitude, in a previous study we proposed a characterization of attitude towards mathematics grounded in students’ experiences, investigating how students express their own relationship with mathematics. The data collected suggest a three-dimensional model of attitude towards mathematics that includes students’ emotional disposition, their vision of mathematics, and their perceived competence. In this paper, we discuss the relationship between beliefs and emotions, investigating the interplay among the three dimensions in the proposed model of attitude, as emerging in the students’ essays.

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Notes

  1. The classification proposed by McLeod and McLeod (2002) of the definitions present in the mathematics education literature is based on the kind of audience to which a definition is for: informal definitions, directed to a general audience; formal definitions, appropriate to a more sophisticated audience with respect to the previous one, but still relatively broad; extended definitions, directed to an audience of specialists in a particular field.

  2. In the tripartite model, instead, the implicit assumption that attitude is linked to behavior is made explicit. In the studies aimed at recognizing a relationship between attitude and behavior (like the early studies in this field), we believe that this explicit reference to behavior in the assumed (and possibly implicit) definition of attitude increases the risk of circularity already described for research on beliefs (see Lester, 2002).

  3. The collected essays constitute a convenience sample, i.e. not fixed on a statistical basis but obtained through collaboration with teachers who accepted to participate in our research.

  4. Referring to McLeod’s (1992) categorization, the construct attitude is therefore seen to be composed by emotions (associated to mathematics) and beliefs (about self and about mathematics).

  5. The essays were translated by a bilingual expert, who tried to keep the sense of jargon terms and expressions as closer as possible to the original one. In the excerpts, the first number refers to the class level, the letter refers to the school level (Primary/Middle/High), the last number indicates the progressive numbering of the essay within the category.

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Correspondence to Rosetta Zan.

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Di Martino, P., Zan, R. Attitude towards mathematics: a bridge between beliefs and emotions. ZDM Mathematics Education 43, 471–482 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11858-011-0309-6

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