The IRAMUTEQ software and the analysis of autobiographical narratives in the field of Mathematics Education

Abstract

This article aims at highlighting the contributions of using the IRAMUTEQ software as a tool for analyzing (auto)biographical narratives in the field of mathematics education. To this end, we opted for selecting discussions about the initial course of teachers education who will teach mathematics in the early years of elementary school. The resulting corpus of analysis contained 34 narratives, written by future pedagogues from University of Ouro Preto, in which they narrate their trajectories with mathematics, from early childhood education to higher education. Such narratives were produced in a course that discussed the processes of teaching and learning mathematics. We chose word cloud and similarity analysis as a strategy for the analyses. The use of these analytical resources enabled a more encompassing examination of the narratives features, through the creation of categories and subcategories, which emerged from the links between the most frequently used words. We concluded that the use of a software such as IRAMUTEQ should be expanded and discussed within the scope of mathematical education, especially in research with (auto)biographical sources.