THE PREDICTIVE POWER OF CLASSROOM EMOTIONAL CLIMATE ON HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS' VAN HIELE LEVELS OF GEOMETRIC THOUGHT

This study investigates the predictive influence of the classroom emotional climate on high school students' Van Hiele Levels of Geometric Thought, addressing persistent low mathematics achievement in Turkey from an affective viewpoint. Employing a predictive correlational design with 374 students and 33 teachers, the research analyzed how teachers' instructional emotions and students' achievement emotions impact geometric reasoning. The findings revealed that a teacher's pride significantly predicts higher student achievement levels, while teacher anxiety is a negative predictor. Among students, positive emotions experienced after a class correlated with higher Van Hiele levels. Counterintuitively, positive emotions during study sessions and before exams were negative predictors of success. This suggests that the "cognitive struggle" essential for deep geometric learning is not always an emotionally comfortable process. The research concludes that the classroom's affective ecosystem, shaped primarily by the teacher, is a central mechanism in students' cognitive development. It underscores the need to integrate affective goals into mathematics curricula, acknowledging that the path to geometric abstraction is profoundly shaped by the interplay of human emotions.