Abstract:McLeod (1992) wrote in his survey paper, “Research on Affect in Mathematics Education: Reconceptualization”, that beliefs, attitudes and emotions are used in mathematics education research to describe...McLeod (1992) wrote in his survey paper, “Research on Affect in Mathematics Education: Reconceptualization”, that beliefs, attitudes and emotions are used in mathematics education research to describe a wide range of affective responses to mathematics. Although terms and concepts are often transferred from psychology to mathematics education, McLeod points out why such a transfer to the affective domain can be problematic: Terms sometimes have different meanings in psychology than they do in mathematics education and even within a given field, studies that use the same terminology are often not studying the same phenomenon.... Clarification of terminology for the affective domain remains a major task for researchers in both psychology and mathematics education. (McLeod, 1992; 576) There have been efforts to clarify the meanings of these concepts, particularly with respect to beliefs and attitudes. In a paper appearing in the collection, “Beliefs: A Hidden Variable in Mathematics Education”, Furinghetti and Pehkonen (2002) describe a process that clarifies some shared core elements commonly mentioned in characterizations of beliefs: Using an international panel we looked for common background suitable in describing the characteristics of the concept of beliefs and the mutual relationship in the critical triad “beliefs – conceptions – knowledge”. (Furinghetti and Pehkonen, 2002; 46) Even if it were not possible to reach a common shared definition of beliefs, the paper clarifies some of the common and contrasting meanings of this concept. With respect to the problem of definition in the case of “attitude toward mathematics”, we find a situation analogous to the one described by Di Martino and Zan (Di Martino and Zan, 2001; Zan and Di Martino, 2008); namely, a ...lack of clarity that characterizes research on attitude and the inadequacy of most measurement. (Di Martino and Zan, 2008; 197) In their analysis of academic papers, Di Martino and Zan found three types of definition of attitude toward mathematics: a “simple” definition where attitude toward mathematics is seen as being either a positive or negative emotional disposition toward mathematics; a multidimensional definition where three components constitute attitude – emotional response, beliefs regarding the subject WORKING GROUP 1Read More
Publication Year: 2010
Publication Date: 2010-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
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Cited By Count: 1
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