Effective communication and affective domain in the learning of mathematics

Abstract

Mathematics has been and will continue to be a rigorous and unavoidable foundation in a large number of disciplines and specialties, which shows the need for its inclusion and its potential in many curricular proposals within academic training at all levels. However, various authors refer to it as the least popular of the disciplines in almost any curriculum. This lack of popularity and, consequently, the difficulties that arise both in their learning and in their teaching, has multiple reasons. The truth is that there is a significant student aversion to mathematics, thus generating low levels of performance in this area of ​​knowledge. In this article, two elements considered decisive for the learning of mathematics will be exposed. First, effective communication and language as the focus for teachers and students to reach agreements on the meanings of shared mathematical objects and, second, the affective domain, related to beliefs, attitudes, and emotions, which they determine the subjective assessment that each individual shows when faced with learning processes related to mathematics and that they are precisely responsible for the reactions, more negative than positive, that they express.