Occasioning flow in the mathematics classroom: optimal experiences in common places

This research looks at several mathematics high-school classrooms through the lens of Csíkszentmihályi’s flow theory: optimal matching of skills and challenge, clear goals and feedback, loss of temporal awareness, intense concentration, a sense of control, merging of action and awareness, loss of self-consciousness and autotelic experience. The study focuses on creating and maintaining the flow experience in students. In order to uncover successful pedagogical interventions, the students are surveyed through questionnaires and interviews. The study discusses the crucial role of collaboration and of mathematical tasks in occasioning the flow experience, how students differ in experiencing flow, and how they learn to seek and re-create the flow experience. The study also examines the students’ unfavourable perception of textbooks, the students’ negative experiences of boredom and apathy, and the precarious relationship between teacher flow and student flow.