EMOTION, ANXIETY AND PHYSICS LEARNING: A CRITICAL NARRATIVE REVIEW

Abstract

The affective dimension is usually treated as a pedagogical accessory in Physics education, while academic failure is attributed to cognitive deficits or to a weak mathematical foundation. This article examines the extent to which empirical literature supports the hypothesis that emotional processes participate in the cognitive mechanisms of Physics learning. A critical narrative review was conducted, with thematic searches across six axes and verification of each source, on a purposive, non-representative corpus of 28 works published between 2004 and 2024. Only 11 address Physics teaching directly; the rest, from Mathematics and Psychology, is transferred under a declared criterion. The association between math anxiety and performance is consistent but modest, with small partial mediation by working memory. The effect of stress on cognition is non-linear and time-dependent, rather than a general blockade. Stereotype threat remains controversial, with publication bias and null results within the corpus itself. It is concluded that the affective dimension is not a residual variable: it is consistently associated with performance in Mathematics, although direct evidence in Physics is still scarce. This justifies its explicit treatment in assessment and in Physics teacher education.