Linking the Cognitive and the Affective in Educational Research: cognitivist, psychoanalytic and post‐structuralist models

Abstract

Abstract This paper considers four different types of model for relating the affective and the cognitive in the study of mathematical performance and problem‐solving. The first two models are based on assumptions coming from a cognitivist framework. These are: A — ‘individual‐differential’ models, aiming to explain individual differences in, for example, performance scores or participation; and B — ‘constructivist’ models focusing on an individual's problem‐solving episodes. Models C and D are more innovative: C works with a psychoanalytic frame of analysis, and D draws on both psychoanalytic and post‐structuralist insights. These are compared in terms of: theorisation of the affective and the cognitive, methodology used to study the relationship, and recommendations for practice and pedagogy. Illustrations are drawn largely from mathematics education research, in particular from a study of adults’ numerate problem‐solving.