List of Participants

This article is a case study of the dynamics of attitudes of one seventh-grader. First I present her negative attitude towards mathematics ("stupid", "You don't need math in life"), then how a negative emotion develops in a problem solving situation. From insecure beginning it changes through frustration to rejection. She works in a group and this emotional process is connected with a social process. I suggest that "I don't need this" is her defence strategy, and that similar emotional experiences are a reason for her negative attitude. Previous research and theoretical background Mathematics is a school subject that many pupils have quite emotional relation with. Satisfaction and joy often accompany a successful solution of a problem (McLeod, 1988). The dynamics of attitudes are not well understood. Attitudes tend to become more negative as pupils move from elementary school to secondary school. Efforts to promote desired affects of students have usually induced only slight changes and sometimes even contrary to expectations. (McLeod, 1994) McLeod (1988) sketched a theory of affective issues in a problem solving situation. He suggested the following aspects to be studied: the magnitude, direction, duration, level of awareness and level of control of the emotion. The short term emotions that usually are intense are called local affects. The relatively stable, but less intense attitudes and beliefs are called global affects. Goldin (1988) presented "affective pathways" as a structure for the dynamics of affective domain in mathematics. These pathways are established sequences of states of feelings that interact with cognition and suggest strategies during a problem solving process. Affects are not 'noise' of human behaviour in problem solving, but a representational system parallel to and crucial for cognitive processing. Later (DeBellis and Goldin, 1997) this affective representational system has been refined into a model, where four components interact on individual level: emotional states, attitudes, beliefs, and values/morals/ethics. Interaction with environment is also included in the model. Research project and the focus of this report The research project explores changing beliefs about and attitudes towards mathematics through the grades 7 to 9. A type of action research is fitted to the project, in which the author acts as a teacher-researcher. A description of the