Attitudes, beliefs, and emotions in problems involving graph theory

Claudia Vargas Díaz ; Victoria Nuñez Henríquez

Didactica Mathematicae, Tome 44 (2022), pp. 107-146.

Résumé

This article is motivated by the relationship between attitudes, beliefs and emotions and mathematics education. In the search for tools to help dissipate students’ aversion of mathematics, work with the theory of graphs is suggested as an option through classroom work, providing benefits in several aspects. We seek to answer the question: How does work with graph theory influence the attitudes and beliefs of secondary school students? To this end, an extra-curricular workshop was implemented for 13 students at different levels of the Liceo Bicentenario secondary school located in the district of Santiago, Chile where problems arising were addressed through graph theory. The general objective was to understand whether a workshop with problems involving graph theory led to changes in attitudes and beliefs toward mathematics. The research was mixed (quantitative and qualitative). In order to obtain information concerning the affective domain before and after the execution of the workshop, the questionnaire “Self-assessment questionnaire of attitudes and beliefs toward mathematics” was adapted and applied. The questionnaire allowed to identify favorable changes toward affective mastery (due to learning mathematics), especially in the assessment of problem solving. Interviews were designed and applied for greater insight into the reasons for these changes. The simplicity of the essence of graphs, along with the structure of challenging games are the main agents of change. Studying the possibility of developing this with groups of more students and its impact on the performance of the subject of mathematics is a subject for further research.

Détail

DOI : 10.14708/dm.v44i1.7183

Mots-clés : attitudes, beliefs, emotions, graph theory