The Nature of Young Children's Attitudes towards Mathematics

This paper contributes to the Symposium: "Research methods involving children's drawings in mathematical contexts" by providing insight into young children's attitudes towards mathematics through the use of drawings. Children in Years 2 and 3 (n=25) participated in this study which aimed to identify a range of attitudes towards mathematics using the Three-dimensional Model of Attitude (Zan & Di Martino, 2007). The analyses illustrate drawings in conjunction with written responses, interviews and classroom observations offers authentic evidence of young children's attitudes towards mathematics. Further, findings indicate that children's Vision of Mathematics contributes significantly to their overall attitude. [This paper is the third in a symposium of four papers. For the first paper, "Using the Drawing-Telling Approach to Reveal Young Children's Mathematical Knowledge," see ED604537. For the second paper, "Capturing the Mathematical Drawing Process Using a Digital Pen," see ED604538. For the fourth paper, "Coding Young Learners' Pictorial Responses to an Open-Ended Assessment Task," see ED604540.]