ABSTRACT
In the 1960s, research on affect typically focused on the relationship between students’ attitudes toward mathematics and their achievement in mathematics (for a review see Aiken, 1970, 1976). Most of these studies were carried out separately from research on mathematics learning by researchers in differential and social psychology; they used a psychometric approach and the main data-collection technique consisted of administering questionnaires to large groups of students (McLeod, 1994). Only small effects were found (correlations ranging from .20 to .40), and meta-analyses, including also more recent studies in this tradition, emphasize that a more differentiated perspective on the relation between attitudes and achievement in mathematics is necessary, taking into account such variables as, for example, gender, grade level, and ethnic background (e.g., Ma & Kishor, 1997). A major criticism of these older studies was also that they lacked a strong theoretical foundation (McLeod, 1992).
