Definition
The construct of attitude has its roots in the context of social psychology in the early part of the twentieth century. In this context, attitude is considered as a state of readiness that exerts a dynamic influence upon an individual’s response (Allport 1935).
In the field of mathematics education, early studies about attitude towards mathematics already appeared in 1950, but in many of these studies the construct is used without a proper definition.
In 1992, McLeod includes attitude among the three factors that identify affect (the others are emotions and beliefs), describing it as characterized by moderate intensity and reasonable stability. But the definition of the construct remains one of the major issues in the recent research on attitude: as a matter of fact, there is no general agreement among scholars about the very nature of attitude.
Therefore, in this entry, the issue of the definition of attitude towards mathematics (and also of the consequent characterization...
References
Adams V, McLeod D (1989) Affect and mathematical problem solving: a new perspective. Springer, New-York
Aiken L (1970) Attitudes toward mathematics. Rev Educ Res 40:551–596
Aiken L, Dreger R (1961) The effect of attitudes on performance in mathematics. J Educ Psychol 52:19–24
Allport G (1935) Attitudes. In: Murchinson C (ed) Handbook of social psychology. Clark University Press, Worcester, pp 798–844
Daskalogianni K, Simpson A (2000) Towards a definition of attitude: the relationship between the affective and the cognitive in pre-university students. In: Nakahara T, Koyama M (eds) Proceedings of the 24th conference of the international group for the psychology of mathematics education 3. PME, Hiroshima, pp 217–224
Di Martino P, Zan R (2001) Attitude toward mathematics: some theoretical issues. In: van den Heuvel-Panhuizen M (ed) Proceedings of the 25th conference of the international group for the psychology of mathematics education 3. PME, Utrecht, pp 351–358
Di Martino P, Zan R (2010) ‘Me and maths’: towards a definition of attitude grounded on students’ narratives. J Math Teach Educ 13:27–48
Di Martino P, Zan R (2011) Attitude towards mathematics: a bridge between beliefs and emotions. ZDM Int J Math Educ 43:471–482
Dutton W (1951) Attitudes of prospective teachers toward arithmetic. Elem Sch J 42:84–90
Hannula M (2002) Attitude toward mathematics: emotions, expectations and values. Educ Stud Math 49:25–46
Kulm G (1980) Research on mathematics attitude. In: Shumway R (ed) Research in mathematics education. National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, Reston, pp 356–387
Leder G (1985) Measurement of attitude to mathematics. Learn Math 34:18–21
Ma X, Kishor N (1997) Assessing the relationship between attitude toward mathematics and achievement in mathematics, a meta-analysis. J Res Math Educ 28:26–47
McLeod D (1992) Research on affect in mathematics education: a reconceptualization. In: Grouws D (ed) Handbook of research on mathematics teaching and learning: a project of the NCTM. Macmillan, New York, pp 575–596
Middleton J, Spanias P (1999) Motivation for achievement in mathematics: findings, generalizations, and criticism of the research. J Res Math Educ 30:65–88
Neale D (1969) The role of attitudes in learning mathematics. Arith Teach 16:631–641
Pepin B (2011) Pupils’ attitudes towards mathematics: a comparative study of Norwegian and English secondary students. ZDM Int J Math Educ 43:535–546
Polo M, Zan R (2006) Teachers’ use of the construct ‘attitude’. Preliminary research findings. In: Bosch M (ed) Proceedings of the fourth congress of the European Research in Mathematics Education. FundEmi, Barcelona. [CD ROM]. http://ermeweb.free.fr/CERME4/CERME4_WG2.pdf. Accessed 1 Aug 2012
Ruffell M, Mason J, Allen B (1998) Studying attitude to mathematics. Educ Stud Math 35:1–18
Schoenfeld A (1987) What’s all the fuss about metacognition? In: Schoenfeld A (ed) Cognitive science and mathematics education. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Hillsdale, pp 189–216
Sherman J, Fennema E (1977) The study of mathematics by high school girls and boys: related variables. Am Educ Res J 14:159–168
Zan R, Di Martino P (2007) Attitudes towards mathematics: overcoming positive/negative dichotomy. Mont Math Enthus Monogr 3:157–168
Zan R, Brown L, Evans J, Hannula M (2006) Affect in mathematics education: an introduction. Educ Stud Math 63:113–121
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Section Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this entry
Cite this entry
Zan, R., Di Martino, P. (2019). Students’ Attitude in Mathematics Education. In: Lerman, S. (eds) Encyclopedia of Mathematics Education. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77487-9_146-4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77487-9_146-4
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-77487-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-77487-9
eBook Packages: Springer Reference EducationReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Education