Proceedings of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education · Volume 1
Margarita Trifonov, Jason Cooper, Boris Koichu
Weizmann Institute of Science
⬇ Download PDFCuriosity is central to meaningful mathematics learning. This study examines the emergence of situational curiosity in middle-school students during mathematics lessons, using an emoji-based questionnaire (five time points, seven emotions) alongside analysis of classroom events and interactions. Across a lesson co-designed with the researcher, taught by a teacher in a Grade 7 class, we identified “curiosity windows”: episodes where curiosity intensifies in relation to specific classroom events. In a lesson analysed, curiosity rose during open inquiry, peaked when students’ propositions were tested and formalized into a canonical formulation of the Pythagorean theorem, and remained high when the theorem was framed historically. The study offers a new method for capturing curiosity in situ as a dynamic emotion.
Mathematical curiosityemotional trajectoriesmiddle-school geometrycritical events at mathematics lessons.