Audience interrogator: constructing meaning about mathematical learning experience in filmed research

ABSTRACT

This paper argues that an Arts-Based Research (ABR) methodology, drawing on the Ethnofiction work of filmmaker Jean Rouch, can facilitate new ways of researching mathematics, science and education more generally by: (i) making past learning experiences more accessible and (ii) considering the affective engagement of the audience as interrogator of research to open up myriad understandings of research data. Here, dissemination and impact are positioned as ‘inside’ the research process, rather than ‘informed by’ or directed by the outcome of research. The paper discusses the research film Performatics: Performing stories of mathematical identity through filmed drama Performatics https://vimeo.com/147449932, and a scene which shows Claire (a postgraduate student studying quantitative analysis), in a scene entitled ‘Sum Anxiety’, as she dramatizes an experience from the secondary school mathematics classroom. A moment, which Claire expresses as pivotal in negatively affecting her as a mathematics learner; an experience still viscerally felt.

KEYWORDS:

• Arts-Based Research
• film
• Jean Rouch
• mathematics

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 See Dowker, Sarkar, and Looi (2016) for a review of 60 years of mathematics anxiety research. They report a great deal of quantitative research on social influences of anxiety, including gender stereotypes and recommend more investigation on other influences such as parents and teachers.

2 The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Research Committee reported in the Journal for Research in Mathematics Education (2016), Vol. 47, No. 2, 102–117 commentated that key influences on mathematics education were outside the academic domain and instead identified policy makers and the media as influential. Engagement with media was viewed as key to raising the profile of the field. Two key examples cited included Jo Boaler’s blog (see http://joboaler.com/blog/) and Samuel Otten’s Math Ed Podcast (see http://mathed.podomatic.com/).

3 For a wider discussion on the variety of Arts Based Educational Research, of which discussion in this paper could not hope to attend to, please see the work of Barone and Eisner (2012) who discuss why ABER should be undertaken, a variety of ABER approaches, how ABER makes claims to knowledge, as well as critiques of the approach.

4 ‘Jaguar’ (1968) is an Ethnofication, whereby Rouch tapped into the dreams of his actors, considering those dreams as part of their lived reality. ‘Chronicle of a Summer’ (1961) as ‘cinema-verite (cinema of truth) captured testimonies of working class Parisians in the 1960’s as they discuss society and happiness and make those testimonies into fictional moments. Later in the film we see the Parisians discuss those fictionalized accounts.