Affect and Aesthetics in Mathematical Problem-Solving: New Trends, Methodologies, Results and Critical Aspects

Since the end of the Eighties, the researchers in mathematics education stressed the need to go beyond a purely cognitive approach for the analysis of the students’ performance in problem solving activities. The main reason for the emersion of this need was the difficulty in the interpretation of the failure of students who seemed to have the required cognitive resources. In this frame, the role of affective constructs (emotions, beliefs, attitudes and values) and aesthetic con-siderations in students’ decisions during problem solving was analysed, described and stressed. In a certain sense, we can affirm that: on the one hand, the studies about problem solving are at the origins of the appearance of the specific field of research on affect; on the other hand, the development of the studies about affec-tive constructs and aesthetics competencies have shed light on several phenome-non emerged in problem solving activities. So there is an indissoluble link be-tween affect, aesthetic and problem solving. This book offers several and interesting new reflections about this close relationship.