Motivational Classroom Climate for Learning Mathematics: A Reversal Theory Perspective.

For the Learning of Mathematics 35, 3 (November, 2015) FLM Publishing Association, Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada The 2011 TIMSS report provides evidence for a relationship between negative affect and achievement in mathematics (Mullis, Martin, Foy & Arora, 2012). It notes a continuing trend for measures of affect to consistently decline between the ages of 9 and 13 years. The report documents the large numbers of pupils who do not like mathematics, are not confident in their ability, and do not engage with the subject. The problem of students’ disaffection with school mathematics is unsustainable in economic, social and personal terms. It is a key factor in disengagement from school mathematics, lack of participation, progression and attainment. In this way, large numbers of students are effectively becoming “lost” to mathematics, with the result that too many are leaving education without the competence in mathematics that they require for a successful career, or the personal competences needed to function as citizens. In looking at the influence of aspects of affect on learning and achievement in mathematics, a range of constructs has been proposed. Examples include anxiety (Hembree, 1990), attitude (Zan & Di Martino, 2007), motivation (Patrick, Ryan & Kaplan, 2007) and goal orientation (Dweck, 2000). Much of this work has provided evidence of the multi-directional relationships between affect, cognition and learning. However, despite its importance, and with some notable exceptions (see Hidi & Harackiewicz, 2000; Nardi & Steward, 2003; Skinner et al., 2008), disaffection has been too little studied. Much of the research on disaffection, and on affect generally, is dominated by the quantitative study of cognitively focussed constructs such as attitudes and beliefs. While such studies have made important contributions to our understanding of the incidence of negative affect, the limitations of these constructs have been widely noted (Ruffell, Mason & Allen, 1998; Zan & Di Martino, 2007; Hannula, 2012). Hannula (2012), in a review of theoretical approaches in mathematics education research, for example, has commented “Almost all work on attitudes missed important distinctions regarding its quality, simply focussing on the direction and magnitude of attitude” (p. 141). Indeed, as Turner, Meyer & Schweinle (2003) have pointed out, cognitive conceptions of affective constructs (including motivation) represent a “dominant paradigm”, which has led to emotion, in particular, being backgrounded. As Turner, Meyer & Schweinle (2003) state, “Comprehensive theoretical work that articulates how emotion, motivation, and cognition interact within classroom contexts is needed if understanding learning is to move forward” (p. 112). The centrality of motivation and emotion, together with cognition, in the learning process is also reflected in the work of Schutz and DeCuir (2002) and Hannula (2012), and is an emerging theme in mathematics education research. In this article, I show how reversal theory (Apter, 2001), and particularly its taxonomy of motivations and emotions, provides a basis for a thick description of students’ experiences of learning in a mathematics classroom. Using data from an earlier ethnographic study (Lewis, 2013), I show how reversal theory can be used to examine the landscape of disaffection from the point of view of students’ subjective experience of mathematics in school. This approach highlights the significance of classroom climate in students’ experience of disaffection.