The Influence of the Teacher’s Attitude over the Students’ Commitment
Davide Antognazza, Silvia Sbaragli
The article presents a research realized in Canton Ticino (Switzerland), designed to verify how behaviors and attitudes assumed by teachers during a mathematics activity affect students’ perseverance during the resolution of the task. The results show that a more warm and assertive attitude, and instructions that also consider the emotional experience of the students, corresponds to a greater perseverance in the performance of the task, while a more neutral teachers’ attitude and exclusive cognitive instructions produce a quieter work climate, but with fewer attempts of resolution by students. Finally, the importance of recognizing not only the quality of information provided to students is discussed, but also the climate established in class that influences the way students approach, emotionally perceive and attempt to solve a mathematical problem.
Keywords
Students’ emotions, Instructions, Teacher attitude, Perseverance, Mathematical tasks.