Online Math Research Articles

Explaining technical, social, and discursive participation in online mathematical discussions

Participating in online mathematical discussions is a beneficial strategy to improve online math learning. Research has examined online mathematical discussions from various aspects, focusing on the content discussed, student interaction, and the technical tools facilitating student participation, but few studies have investigated the interplay among these aspects. This study draws on Communicative Ecology Theory (CET, Foth & Hearn, 2007), which conceptualizes the sustainability of online communities as influenced by discursive, social, and technical factors, to explore how students’ discursive, social, and technical participation behaviors on an online mathematical discussion board are interacted. Leveraging a dataset including more than 90,000 students and two million online discussion interactions, this study indicated that students’ engagement with technical functions, especially a communication tool and a motivation system, within the discussion board significantly facilitated their social interactions and enhanced their demonstration of mathematical knowledge, mathematical literacy, and affective control in the discussions. These findings provide insights for educators and designers of educational applications to enhance student participation in online discussions thereby improving the effectiveness of these discussions in online learning.

Articulation Between a Technological Model and an Educational Model to Deepen the Reflection of Prospective Mathematics Teachers

<p style="text-align:justify"><span style="font-size:9.0pt"><span style="color:black">This article is aimed at integrating the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) system with the Didactic Suitability Criteria (DSC) of the Didactic-Mathematical Knowledge and Competences (DMKC) system to improve the reflection of prospective mathematics teachers on online classes. Thirteen prospective teachers, divided into two subgroups, participated in a training cycle that addressed both models. Each participant used and created indicators of reflection of the assigned model to analyze an online class on functions, and subgroups exchanged reflections to examine the class from the other model’s perspective. It was noted that the DMKC model allows for a broad analysis of the class but has limitations in assessing technology and the teacher's technological knowledge, while TPACK’s emphasis is on technology and teacher knowledge but does not explicitly address mathematical interaction or affective aspects. It is concluded that combining the TPACK model and the DSC of the DMKC model can generate more complete tools to reflect on online math classes and consequently allow for a comprehensive evaluation that covers both the mathematical content and the technological and pedagogical skills of the teacher.</span></span></p>

Gender differences in online education

Online learning resources have become extremely popular, particularly after the restrictions caused by the Covid-19 outbreak. In this paper, we use data for Spain at the individual level from an online math learning platform which is used by children from over 100 countries, to document the gender differences in the context of online learning. We quantify the gender gaps in effort and relative performance outcomes and analyze whether the gaps differ by the gender of the parent who mainly supervises the children. Our main results point toward significant gender gaps in the relative performance outcomes in favor of boys, while the evidence for the effort gender gaps is only significant when we compare the siblings of the opposite gender (controlling for parent fixed effects). Further, we find that living in municipalities with more egalitarian gender norms is associated with narrower or positive gender gaps in effort outcomes, while we do not find such differences in the relative performance outcomes. Taking into account the increase in the use of online learning tools and their progressive integration into the regular educational system, our results provide important information to minimize gender biases in these new settings.

Students attitudes on STACK content: A pilot study at the university of Trieste, Italy

Background: Online examinations are increasingly prevalent in educational settings, offering innovative assessment methods. Understanding student perceptions and experiences with such systems is essential for enhancing their effectiveness and acceptance in educational practice.Aims: This pilot study aimed to examine the impact of STACK-based online exams on various facets such as student comfort, perceived value for learning and exam preparation, preferences between pen-and-paper versus STACK formats, confidence in online math tests, readiness to adopt online assessment platforms, and overall perspectives on online evaluations.Method: An experimental within-subjects design and convenience sampling were used to involve 117 first-year biology students enrolled in a Probability and Statistics course, who were already familiar with the STACK system. Data were collected using pre- and post-exam online surveys featuring five-point Likert scale questions and an open-ended query.Results: The findings indicate that students felt more comfortable using the STACK system after the study and preferred it over traditional exams. Nevertheless, some students expressed uncertainty about using STACK content for final exams due to concerns about its effectiveness in evaluating critical thinking and potential technical difficulties. However, concerns regarding technical challenges decreased significantly post-exam, with no technical issues reported during the exam. Positive feedback highlighted STACK's benefits for formative assessment, easier learning, immediate feedback, and its practicality and innovation. Some students even suggested incorporating STACK into final exams for convenience and advocated for further investment in the STACK system, possibly with improved content. Conclusion: In summary, students preferred using STACK for exams, though concerns about technical glitches and the need to refine content for assessing critical thinking persist. Future efforts should focus on enhancing content quality, starting this summer.

Navigating the Digital Landscape: Challenges, Best Practices and Innovative Solutions in Online Math Braille Learning

Purpose: Math Braille is a difficult subject to teach online to students with visual impairment. Students with visual impairment are also supposed to have mastery of math braille to accomplish their academic goals. Design/Methodology/Approach: This study was based on a qualitative approach. This study's population consisted of all braille math teachers from the school level in Lahore. Data from 15 respondents including braille math teachers (N= 15) of different grades were taken as a sample by using the purposive sampling technique. The instrument of this study was an interview protocol for teachers. The data was collected through interviews. Qualitative data were analyzed through coding & thematic analysis. Findings: The findings of the study revealed that there are many visually impaired students who have difficulty in applying braille math rules. It was also found that teachers experienced many problems while teaching braille math to students with visual impairments through online mode. Additionally, an assistive device should be used, and the availability at the school level should be ensured & challenges and innovations for instructing braille math in online mode were also part of the findings. Implications/Originality/Value: So it is concluded that teacher training and conceptual learning of braille math for students with visual impairment in online educational setting that must be provided for better teaching & learning process.

Facilitating Student Learning With a Chatbot in an Online Math Learning Platform

Chatbots represent a promising technology for engaging students in math learning. Guided by Jerome Bruner’s constructivism and Lev Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development, we designed and developed a chatbot that incorporates scaffolding strategies and social-emotional considerations, and we integrated it into ASSISTments, an online math learning platform. We conducted an experimental study to examine the influence of learning math with the chatbot compared to traditional learning with hints. This study involved 85 middle and high school students from three diverse school settings in the United States. The results revealed no significant differences in students' math learning performance and perceived helpfulness and interest between the chatbot and traditional hints conditions. However, students in the chatbot condition displayed significantly lower confidence in solving a similar problem after the intervention, likely due to the removal of the high level of support provided by the chatbot. Despite this, students’ open responses indicated that a significantly higher number of students had positive attitudes towards chatbots. They appreciated the chatting feature, breaking down a problem into steps, and real-time support. The study concludes with a discussion of the findings and implications for chatbot designers and developers and presents avenues for future research and practice in chatbot-assisted learning. In support of Open Science, this study has been preregistered and both the data and the analysis code used in this study are publicly available at https://osf.io/am3p8/ .

Correction to: Designing for Learning: Key Decisions for an Open Online Math Tutor for Elementary Students

Correction to: Designing for Learning: Key Decisions for an Open Online Math Tutor for Elementary Students

From the Peripheral to the Transboundary: Documenting the Lived Experiences of Students and Parents with Online Math Tutoring Services

Despite the growing prevalence of tutoring services in Canada, and a corpus of studies focusing on its overall implementation, research on the tutoring experience of Canadian students is lacking. This article reports findings from a study that responds to this gap through interviews with three high school students receiving online tutoring services in math, and two parents of children receiving online tutoring services. Specifically, the study responds to three questions: (1) What are the lived experiences of high school students receiving math tutoring from a private tutoring service in Ontario, Canada?; (2) What are parents’ motives for seeking private tutoring services?; and (3) How do participants perceive the learning taking place in different environments (e.g., tutoring vs. school)? In response to these questions, this article outlines the extent to which student participation in online tutoring demonstrates “transboundary learning”, responding to earlier claims arguing that tutoring services are considered to be more like “peripheral” learning environments as opposed to an important context for student learning. Findings show a distinct shift in the relationship between tutoring and schooling, where learning is more transboundary in nature and boundaries between schooling and tutoring are blurred. Discussion of findings elaborates on evidence of this transformation as aligning with central characteristics of transboundary learning. The increasing role of tutoring in families' learning and schooling experiences could signal the potential for more inequalities in education, which are discussed in detail.

Teacher Positioning, Student Engagement, and Mathematics Identity Development in Online Mathematics Classrooms

ABSTRACT This mixed-methods study explores power dynamics, student engagement, and mathematics identity in online mathematics classrooms. Teacher positioning plays a crucial role in shaping these dynamics, yet research on power dynamics in online math classrooms is limited. The study employs classroom observations, survey questions, and interviews to gather data. Ten teachers were observed, and data from 60 students were included in the analysis. The findings inform instructional strategies that foster engagement, empowerment, and positive mathematics identities, intending to create inclusive online environments that support students’ mathematical growth and identity formation. The study reveals a moderate power imbalance and teacher authority, highlighting the need for equitable power distribution. Teachers’ dominant roles may hinder student autonomy and active engagement. Strengthening collaborative and empowerment strategies holds the potential to cultivate student participation and agency. This research contributes to the existing knowledge on power dynamics, student engagement, and mathematics identity in online classrooms, addressing a significant research gap. Recommendations include involving students in decision-making processes, implementing collaborative strategies, raising awareness of power dynamics, and providing professional development for teachers.

Measuring the Efficacy of Zearn Math in Louisiana

This study examines the impact of an online math learning program on third through fifth grade math achievement in Louisiana. Employing Zearn Math usage metrics and administrative data from the Louisiana Department of Education, the results indicate that grade levels that programmatically used Zearn Math scored, on average, about .03 standard deviation units higher on Louisiana’s statewide math assessment. A placebo test using English-language arts scores and several robustness checks suggests that this may be an underestimate of the true effect. These findings come at a crucial time because pandemic-related school closures have led to a 20-fold increase in public school spending on Zearn-related materials between July 2019 and July 2021, and its presence continues to expand across the nation.

Fidgety Speech Emotion Recognition for Learning Process Modeling

In this paper, the recognition of fidgety speech emotion is studied, and real-world speech emotions are collected to enhance emotion recognition in practical scenarios, especially for cognitive tasks. We first focused on eliciting fidgety emotions and data acquisition for general math learning. Students practice mathematics by performing operations, solving problems, and orally responding to questions, all of which are recorded as audio data. Subsequently, the teacher evaluates the accuracy of these mathematical exercises by scoring, which reflects the cognitive outcomes of the students. Secondly, we propose an end-to-end speech emotion model based on a multi-scale one-dimensional (1-D) residual convolutional neural network. Finally, we conducted an experiment to recognize fidgety speech emotions by testing various classifiers, including SVM, LSTM, 1-D CNN, and the proposed multi-scale 1-D CNN. The experimental results show that the classifier we constructed can identify fidgety emotion well. After conducting a thorough analysis of fidgety emotions and their influence on the learning process, a clear relationship between the two was apparent. The automatic recognition of fidgety emotions is valuable for assisting on-line math teaching.

Math anxiety and math motivation in online learning during stress: The role of fearful and avoidance temperament and implications for STEM education

Students’ math motivation can predict engagement, achievement, and career interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). However, it is not well understood how personality traits and math anxiety may be linked to different types or qualities of math motivation, particularly during high-stress times such as the COVID-19 pandemic. In this study, we examined how fearful or avoidant temperaments contribute to math anxiety and math motivations for college students during the COVID-19 pandemic. Ninety-six undergraduate students from a large public university were assessed on temperamental fear, math anxiety, and math motivation in an online math course. Results showed that higher levels of temperamental fear are directly linked to higher levels of math anxiety. In addition, temperamental fear is indirectly linked to higher levels of autonomous motivation (i.e., intrinsic motivation and identified regulation) and lower levels of controlled motivation (i.e., external regulation) through math anxiety. Results have implications for helping students at high risk for both high math anxiety and for low motivation to engage in math learning.

The Voices of College Students in Learning Math Online, During the Covid Pandemic: The Hurdles, Upper Hands, and Takeaways

<p style="text-align:justify">This descriptive phenomenological study looks into the lived experiences of teacher education college students on what it is like to learn math online during the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to the pandemic, online math learning may pose even more significant challenges. Hence, the researchers conducted the study to better understand and support the students in these challenging times. They interviewed 16 college student participants, who consented to participate in the study, to share their actual experiences - the challenges, struggles, and opportunities – in learning math online during the pandemic. The interview transcripts were analyzed following Colaizzi's method. Results revealed the following themes: (a) The hurdles: poor internet connection, unconducive learning space, difficulty in understanding the topics, financial problems, and health problems; (b) The upper hands: ease of access to varied resources, staying at home, and flexibility of the teaching and learning process; (c) The key takeaways: improved time management, self-discipline, resourcefulness, and growth mindset. The researchers recommend that the management of educational institutions consider the students' demographic data, financial level, available resources, and mental and emotional health while designing and implementing online programs. Further, future research may be conducted on the teachers' concerns that may influence students' online learning experiences with Math and other disciplines.</p>

Designing for Learning: Key Decisions for an Open Online Math Tutor for Elementary Students

Usable Math available at https://usablemath.org/ is being designed as an open online tutor for elementary school math students and teachers in the USA. It provides interactive problem solving for 3rd through 6th grade students who are learning mathematical reasoning and computation skills through word problems. Using the system, students and teachers access standardized test questions and then receive math learning strategies from four virtual coaches — Estella Explainer, Chef Math Bear, How-to Hound, and Visual Vicuna — who offer words, images, pictures, charts, graphs, animations, and gifs to support students to read, compute, and think strategically and visually as math problem solvers. This paper describes six key decisions influencing the design and development of the system: (1) four coaches, each with a different approach to math problem solving; (2) Google Slides as an online platform for the system; (3) a click-to-see method for students’ and teachers’ control of the system; (4) growth mindset feedback statements after every problem; (5) invitations for students to write their own math problems and problem solving strategies; and (6) ways for teachers to utilize the system for classroom learning.

Combination of Ispring Suite and Chamilo in Creating Online Math Assessments

Technology in learning is developing very rapidly regarding material delivery and assessment or evaluation. An educator needs to possess the ability to compose good assessments to measure the success of students' understanding of the material. With the development of technology, educators should be able to transform conventional assessments into digital assessments to support the digitalization process in education. The main objective of this research is to create an assessment tool for mathematics courses using the Ispring Quiz Maker and then integrate it into Chamilo. The combination of quiz maker software and LMS will add insight to readers, especially teachers and lecturers, in making online mathematics assessments. A modified development method from ADDIE, 4D, and Plomp was used to achieve this goal. The several stages passed resulted in an assessment prototype for the Differential Calculus course. The resulting assessment instrument has gone through the item and material validation processes to obtain a good instrument that is suitable for use. This instrument can later be used for the Final Semester and Midterm examinations for Differential Calculus courses.

ATL-BP: A Student Engagement Dataset and Model for Affect Transfer Learning for Behavior Prediction

We propose a video-based transfer learning approach for predicting problem outcomes of students working with an intelligent tutoring system (ITS) by analyzing their faces and gestures. The ability to predict such outcomes enables tutoring systems to adjust interventions and ultimately yield improved student learning. We collected and released a labeled dataset of 2,749 problem-solving interaction samples of 54 students working with an intelligent online math tutor. Our transfer-learning challenge was then to design a representation in the source domain of images obtained from the Internet for facial expression analysis, and transfer this learned representation for human behavior prediction in the domain of webcam videos of students in a classroom environment. We developed a novel facial affect representation and a user-personalized training scheme that unlocks the potential of this representation. We designed several variants of a recurrent neural network that models the temporal structure of video sequences. Our final model, named ATL-BP for Affect Transfer Learning for Behavior Prediction, achieves a relative increase in the mean F-score of 50% over the state-of-the-art method on this new dataset. We also propose an additional set of annotations to predict students’ engagement while solving a specific problem, and present models that can predict such engagement.

ANALISIS PEMANFAATAN MEDIA MATH PLAYGROUND DALAM PEMBELAJARAN MATEMATIKA KELAS 1 MATERI PENGURANGAN

The progress of science and technology has an impact on various things in human life, one of which has an impact on the world of education. Education in the 21st century has taken advantage of existing technological advances by utilizing interactive learning media and in accordance with student characteristics. Today's students are students who are technologically literate and very familiar with the digital world. Therefore learning media must be interesting, fun and in accordance with the characteristics of students to increase student interest in learning. One of them is by utilizing educational game media in learning. Math Playground is one of the online math games that contains self-evaluation and feedback which can be accessed on the website mathplayground.com which is a free educational game site. This study aims to determine the benefits of Math Playground as a game-based learning medium for learning mathematics in elementary schools. This study used descriptive qualitative method. The subjects of this study were grade 1 students at SD Negeri Petompon 02 Semarang. Sources of data obtained from interviews and observations. The results of this study show that Math Playground has the potential to have a positive impact as an educational game-based learning medium in learning mathematics in elementary schools.

Changeable Tangram and Sphinx Puzzles as Online Math Teaching Tools

Changeable Tangram and Sphinx Puzzles as Online Math Teaching Tools

Does question order matter on online math assessments? A big data analysis of undergraduate mathematics final exams

AbstractBackgroundThe sudden growth in online instruction due to COVID‐19 restrictions has given renewed urgency to questions about remote learning that have remained unresolved. Web‐based assessment software provides instructors an array of options for varying testing parameters, but the pedagogical impacts of some of these variations has yet to be examined.ObjectivesThe current study examines whether question order affects student performance on online college math assessments. Drawing on the literature of testing and math anxiety, we hypothesized that difficult questions near the beginning of an assessment would have a destructive effect on student confidence, which would in turn have a deleterious effect on their performance.MethodsWe employed an observational ‘big data’ methodology, analysing 23,468 final exams completed by students in 10 different courses over eight semesters at a Math Emporium in a large technical university in the eastern United States. Students were freshmen and sophomores enrolled in non‐engineering math courses. We regressed the final score on the difficulty level of the first and second questions, controlling for several other factors.Results and ConclusionsWe found that several factors—day of the week, amount of time before the deadline, number of minutes spent on the exam—have more of an impact on score than question order. This pattern was consistent across sexes.TakeawaysOur findings contradict some previous studies, which have found that difficult early questions degrade student performance, and that this affect is more pronounced in females. This work enriches our understanding of how students respond to online assessment.

Students’ perceptions in undergraduate online math courses

The purpose of this qualitative study was to understand how undergraduate math students perceive their learning in an online learning environment. A review of the literature revealed a need for additional qualitative research on the perceptions of students in the online learning environment. The specific elements of interest were technology, communication, and assessment. The study used a qualitative descriptive case study design. Purposive sampling was used to sample six online undergraduate math students. Online questionnaires and follow-up interviews provided data for analysis. Interpretive analysis highlighted emergent themes to form a true representation of students’ perceptions. The results revealed that students perceived technology as a supportive tool that could not replace the need for teacher–student interaction and engagement. In addition, online students perceived communication as an essential classroom element. Participants considered online assessment measures ineffective without useful feedback. Educational stakeholders could use the study’s findings to make informed instructional design decisions that could increase student success rates in undergraduate online math courses. Also, researchers might use the study findings to identify instructional elements that could potentially lead to increased learning gains.