Developing research conceptions of emotion among adult learners of mathematics.

The growing emphasis on affect and emotion in studies of adults learning mathematics reflects, and is supported by, increasing attention from social science and educational researchers to the influence of culture, society and language. The work reported here uses a discursive perspective to study the role of emotion in adults’ mathematical thinking. I consider emotion to be distinct from thinking, but not separable from it. Further, given that much of our evidence about emotions comes from the use of language and discourse in transcripts of interviews and group interaction, I adopt a provisional characterisation of affect and emotion as ‘charges’ on ideas (or on the terms in which they are expressed). In this study, I use the idea of ‘positioning’ in social practices to analyse the context of a person’s thinking and emotional experience during problem solving, and I suggest several types of indicator for emotion to be found in transcripts (or videotapes). Illustrations are given from an interview with a mature student studying mathematics at the beginning of her social science degree.

With thanks to University of Technology Sydney.