Thematic issue on ‘Values in East Asian Mathematics Education—The Third Wave’

Abstract

In some ways, conducting (mathematics) education research is like the situation of having a few persons trying to describe an elephant in the dark. Depending on the approach taken by each person, a different part of the huge animal is felt. Inferences about what the animal looks like were thus made based on these incomplete ‘views’ of the animal. Likewise, in looking for more effective ways of understanding and facilitating the learning and teaching of mathematics in school, we adopt a variety of approaches. The cognitive and affective approaches have been two dominant ones. A third, volitional approach may also be utilised. This approach focuses on an individual’s motivation and will to act in particular ways. Its relation to cognition and affect can be seen in Andrew Tallon’s (1997) book title ‘Affection, cognition, volition as triune consciousness’, and is reflected in Benjamin Bloom’s wellknown three taxonomies of educational objectives, namely cognitive, affective and psychomotor. This third approach to educational research thus emphasises teachers’ and learners’ motivations and dispositions to teach and learn, respectively. The construct of the socioculturally-based values in mathematics education, first proposed by Alan Bishop (1988), reflects this approach. This ZDM issue has the theme, ‘Values in East Asian Mathematics Education—The Third Wave’. The wave metaphor not only encapsulates the energy for change that is generated by the values approach, but it also implies the ongoing relevance of the previous two waves (i.e. cognition and affect) since waves overlap. Collectively, the articles in this issue present the reader with a complementary approach to understanding the dominance of East Asian education systems in the various international comparative studies of student achievement in mathematics. The first article by Bishop traces the growth of the values construct in mathematics education. It sets the scene for this issue through telling a personal story that began some 20 years ago with the introduction of the values construct to the mathematics education research and professional communities. In the next article, Wong, Wong and Wong describe how the values embedded in the major Chinese schools of thought (namely, Confucianism, Daoism and Buddhism) have impacted on school mathematics pedagogy in the Chinese culture. We will also be looking at the relevant Japanese values, as Baba et al. trace the development of these values in a historical context. Seah and Wong’s article then provides an overview of the Third Wave project, an international consortium of research teams which undertake studies relating to the harnessing of relevant values in mathematics pedagogy. This is followed by two country reports of a study undertaken by the Third Wave project. Law, Wong and Lee identify and discuss the values espoused by students and their teachers when mathematics was learnt particularly effectively (from the students’ perspectives) in Hong Kong classrooms. Lim and Kor, on the other hand, report on the values underlying effective mathematics lessons as espoused and enacted by teachers who had been professionally recognised as excellent in Malaysia. Seah and Peng’s article which follows these country reports is aimed at better situating the values that would have been reported in the East Asian mathematics classrooms. It W. T. Seah (&) Monash University, Melbourne, Australia e-mail: WeeTiong.Seah@monash.edu