Attitudes towards Mathematics. A descriptive analysis of an exploratory case study focused in Mathematic Education with parents

We draw on prior researches on attitudes towards mathematics in adult education. Data presented comes from a study with adult people that mainly have children either in an elementary school near Barcelona or in a high school from Barcelona. We assume that emotions are an important part of mathematics teaching and learning. Previous studies were focused on the analysis of sophisticated statistical models, grounded mainly on psychometric approaches. In the 80s researchers proposed to look at believes towards mathematics, thus affect became an issue of interest in terms of research since 90s. In adult education some studies were looking at topics such as mathematics anxiety, following this line of research. This article discusses the relationship between affective and cognitive dimensions from three different focuses: the relationship between age and attitude towards mathematics, level of studies and feelings towards mathematics and finally the relationship between emotions and cognition in the learning of mathematics.