Students' emotional experiences in high school mathematics classroom

Overview & Synopsis

The aim of this qualitative research is to identify Mexican high school students' emotional experiences in the mathematics classroom. In order to obtain data, focus group interviews were carried out with 53 students. Data analysis is based on the theory of cognitive structure of emotions (Ortony, Clore, & Collins, 1988), which specifies eliciting conditions for each type of emotion and the variables that affect intensity. The participants' emotional experiences are: satisfaction, disappointment , hope, fear, joy, distress, boredom, interest, pride, reproach, self-reproach, like and dislike with different eliciting conditions. These results show that all students' emotional experiences are based on their appraisal in terms of a goal structure present in the mathematics classroom and in the school setting.