Affective Constructs in Mathematics Education

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Background

Over the last few decades, research on affective constructs in mathematics education has been gaining more prominence among mathematics education researchers in the international context. This rejuvenated interest in the affective constructs may be ascribed to the critical roles of these constructs not only to the teachers’ and students’ well-being but also to effective teaching and productive learning of the students. In the context of the present Research Topic, affect in mathematics education is conceptualized as a general concept that encapsulates factors, other than purely cognitive ones, such as attitude, beliefs, emotions, feelings, goals, moods, motivation, norms, values, and self-efficacy. Thus, each factor that constitutes a unit of a mathematics-related affective construct is regarded as an overlap between cognition, emotion, and motivation of varying stability with psychological, physiological, and social dimensions.

Despite the prominence and the increased interests of mathematics education researchers in the affective constructs, there are some conflicting theoretical perspectives on some of these constructs, multiple and/or overlapping conceptualizations of some of them, and inconclusive findings on the relationships within and between the affective constructs and other factors such as gender, teachers’ instructional practices, and students’ performance in mathematics. The goal of this Research Topic is, therefore, to provide a platform through which mathematics education researchers can express their current thoughts on theoretical foundations of the affective constructs as well as their measurements in mathematics education, and provide state-of-the-art evidence of the relationships within and between the constructs and other factors that are of great relevance to the teaching and learning of mathematics at all levels of education.

As such, this Research Topic welcomes original empirical and theoretical research papers (quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods) as well as reviews on constructs such as attitudes toward mathematics, mathematics anxiety, mathematics conceptions, mathematics self-concept, mathematics self-efficacy, beliefs in mathematics, motivation, emotions, and values in mathematics with or without relation to teachers’ factors, instructional task designs, and students’ performance in mathematics. This Research Topic also welcomes original research papers on affective constructs in mathematics education that are not listed in this call. The subject(s) of the research could be teachers in training, practising teachers, and students in primary schools, secondary schools, and higher institutions across the world. We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Keywords: mathematics education, mathematics self-efficacy, attitudes toward mathematics, mathematics self-concept, mathematics anxiety

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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