Mathematics Education Research Research Articles

Trend Publication of Computational Thinking in Mathematics Education: Bibliometric Review

Computational thinking and mathematics are closely related, namely mathematics plays a role in overcoming challenges and understanding concepts in computational thinking, while computational thinking ultimately simplifies and abstracts situations by formulating and presenting problems in mathematical form. The purpose of this study is to identify trends and research patterns with the topic of computational thinking in mathematics education using bibliometric analysis. Data is obtained from the dimensions database which has been refined through 4 stages (identification, screening, eligibility, and inclusion). The results showed that the peak of publications related to computational thinking in mathematics education research occurred in 2022. The Journal of Science of Education and Technology became the most influential journal with the most citations, namely 877 citations even though it only with 7 publications. The United States is the most influential country in this field because of the good number of publications, the number of citations is the highest of any other country. There are three research focuses related to computational thinking in mathematics education research on the dimensions database from 2013-2023, namely, 1) mathematics, study, teacher; 2) problem, child, learning; 3) student, steam, CT skill

Is theoretical topic-specific research “old fashioned”? An epistemological inquiry about the ontological creativity of Mathematics Education Research

AbstractIn Mathematics Education (ME), research dealing with topic-specific (TS) issues (e.g., what levels of development exist in learning fractions) produces usually local results and is considered less fashionable and attractive for innovative research projects than research dealing with context-specific (CS) issues that have more general and abstract scopes (e.g., what is mathematical instruction? what is the field of ME?) and produces middle-range or grand theories. TS- and CS-research run along separate tracks with little or no crossover, at least from the beginning of the socio-political-turn in ME, but connecting them could help to single out hidden variables in CS-research. This paper shows that TS-research creates specific mathematical objects that allow us to reduce the distance between these two lines of research. Mathematical objects specific to ME research are shown to be both a technical link between the two lines of research because they allow topic-specificity to access more abstract and general realms of research, as well as factor at stake when aspects related to the social, political, and ethical implications of the ontological creativity of TS-research are discussed in a critical postmodern approach. Discussing its impact on textbooks, teacher-training, teaching practices, further TS-research-practices, as well as on the researcher’s epistemological empowerment and on the self-referentiality of ME research, TS-research moves from the periphery to the heart of CS-research.

A Systematic Review of Literature on Mathematical Problem Posing in Korea

In this systematic literature review, we reviewed 48 original empirical papers focusing on Korean students’ and teachers’ mathematical problem-posing (MPP) in classrooms. All the included papers were published in peer-reviewed mathematics education research journals and located through comprehensive database searches and individual journal searches involving Korean students and teachers. We categorized the papers into two main groups based on the type of participants: 34 students’ MPP papers and 14 teachers’ MPP papers. We further categorized the papers based on the characterization of MPP used: MPP as a construct, intervention, or variable. For students’ MPP papers, most were identified as intervention papers that examined the impacts of MPP interventions on students’ cognitive domains (e.g., problem posing, creativity, problem solving) or affective domains (e.g., attitude, interest). For teachers’ MPP papers, more than half of the papers were identified as documenting teachers’ various types of knowledge related to MPP. This systematic literature review will shed light on the research evidence found by these Korean researchers and how their empirical studies were conducted. It will also help disseminate research evidence regarding Korean students’ and teachers’ MPP internationally.

Proof and proving in school and university mathematics education research: a systematic review

This systematic review aims to provide a complementary to existing synopses of the state-of-the-art of mathematics education research on proof and proving in both school and university mathematics. As an organizing framework, we used Cohen et al.’s triadic conceptualization of instruction, which draws attention not only to the main actors of the didactical process (i.e., the Teacher and Students) and the Content around which the actors’ work is organized (herein, content related to proof and proving), but also to the relationships among the actors and the content. Out of the 103 papers we reviewed, almost half fell in the Student-Content category, which is consistent with the existence of a substantial number of frameworks, methods, and research findings related to students’ engagement with proof and proving. About a quarter of the papers fell in the Student–Teacher-Content category, which reflects an emphasis on viewing instructional practice in proof and proving in a holistic, systemic way. Only few papers fell in the categories that did not include Content in them, namely, the categories of Student, Teacher, and Student–Teacher; this suggests mathematics education research on proof and proving has a strong disciplinary identity, which potentially differentiates it from other mathematics education research strands. About a fifth of the papers were oriented towards ‘breaking ground’ through making an explicit theoretical and/or methodological contribution (Student–Teacher-Content and Content were the main categories where such contributions appeared), whilst the majority of the papers were focused on ‘building ground’ through elaborating or employing existing methodological and/or theoretical approaches.

Prospective Teachers’ Reflections on the Inclusion of Mathematical Modelling During the Transition Period Between the Face-to-Face and Virtual Teaching Contexts

Research in mathematics education highlights the importance of including modelling for the teaching of this subject. In 2020, this trend coexisted with a grave contingency situation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic but which, despite its negative aspects, provided a realistic and authentic context for modelling. Given this situation, it is relevant to study which aspects of the teaching and learning process prospective teachers related to mathematical modelling in their reflections on its inclusion during the transition period between the face-to-face and virtual teaching contexts. To this end, we used the didactic suitability criteria construct, proposed by the onto-semiotic approach, as a theoretical reference. This is qualitative research of a naturalistic type, since we did not interfere in the Master’s Programme in Mathematics Teacher Education studied. We conducted a content analysis on 122 master’s degree final projects written during the 2019–2020 course and implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic. We highlight the following results: (a) about 40% of the prospective teachers stated that they implemented modelling in their didactic units and reflected on its inclusion; (b) in their reflections, the prospective teachers positively assessed the inclusion of modelling mainly based on the epistemic, affective and ecological suitability criteria; and (c) 60% of the prospective teachers did not implement modelling, and we rule out that it was due to a lack of knowledge about this process or of a favourable context for modelling, but because they prioritised other aspects of the mathematical teaching and learning process, given the grave contingency situation.

Analysis of similarity concept presented in textbooks in Brazil and the United States

This paper is a product of a research that investigates the presence of Geometry in textbooks, that is part of project of a Theorem – Reflection on Geometry and Mathematics Education research group. The focus here is to present results of the international study: how textbooks present the concept of similarity? For this, a qualitative research were developed and textbooks of three collections from Brazil and three from United States were examined. A synthesis of the literature related to the search for textbooks and the teaching and learning of the concept of similarity is presented, and the theoretical framework explores similarity as positioned at the crossroads of geometry and number to describe the ways in which different textbooks approach it. Sequence of topics and tasks presented in each textbook are described and then comparisons are made. There were theorems and problem types that were presented consistently across all textbooks, but differences in expectations related to proof and the use of coordinates and geometric transformations were identified. Only textbooks in the US included the use of transformations and coordinates and placed more emphasis on formal proof. Implications for the teaching and learning of similarity are provided

SAARMSTE’s role in building and connecting Early Grade Mathematics research: A review of SAARMSTE Proceedings 2003–2022

This paper focuses on the Southern African Association for Research in Mathematics, Science and Technology Education’s (SAARMSTE’s) role as a platform supporting research dissemination and connecting researchers in early grades mathematics (EGM) in the Southern African region. A review of the Long Papers in SAARMSTE over the last 20 years supports the finding of the other review papers in this Special Issue: that there has been substantial growth of attention to EGM since 2013. However, two distinctions are marked when looking at conference papers rather than journal papers. Firstly, there is a particularly large expansion of work in the last 5 years, with a broadening base of participation in this work. Second, looking across all the formats of conference presentations indicates SAARMSTE’s role in supporting and building EGM as a key focus of research attention, and bringing together regional and international groups with interests in this area. Given that conference proceedings usually offer a broader picture of emerging interests than journal papers, we reflect on the range of foci of attention within EGM in the SAARMSTE Proceedings, and trends within this. These trends also help us to point to areas that are likely to be of key interest in the next decade.

Tren Penelitian Pendidikan Matematika di Jurnal Mosharafa: Jurnal Pendidikan Matematika Tahun 2021-2022


 
 
 
 The publication of the results of mathematics education research has increased and developed from time to time, especially in accredited national journals. This study aims to provide an overview of research trends in mathematics education published in Mosharafa : Jurnal Pendidikan Matematika which accredited on grade Sinta 2 and to identify opportunities for future mathematics education research. This research is a scoping literature review using the five-stage framework of Arksey & O'Malley. A review was conducted of 90 articles in the field of mathematics education published in Mosharafa : Jurnal Pendidikan Matematika in 2021-2022 period. Based on the results and discussion, it shows that the trend of mathematics education journals (2021-2022) in Mosharafa : Jurnal Pendidikan Matematika is the dominant research topic used, namely regarding the ability to think mathematically, while research topics that are minimally used include book analysis. The dominant research subjects used were junior high school students, while the minimum was the general public. The dominant research methods used are qualitative research and quantitative research. While the recommendations that the dominant researcher suggests are regarding further researchers being able to apply, develop and examine more deeply the research that has been carried out and the next researcher should apply new and interesting variations to the research that will be carried out.
 
 
 
 

The sustainable development of mathematics subject: An empirical analysis based on the academic attention and literature research

The exploration of the correlation between subject network attention and literature research in China can aid in comprehending the development trend of Chinese scientific and technological journals. Currently, many scholars have done a lot of research based on the network media index, but the relationship between the discipline attention represented by it and literature research has not been fully verified. This paper used CNKI and Baidu Index as data sources to establish a RAPF experimental framework based on relationship analysis and prediction, and selected high school mathematics subjects in China for effective demonstration. First, RAPF extracted core keywords using text tools and word frequency statistics. Second, it constructed a relationship model between subject attention and literature research based on Spearman and LOOCV. Finally, it made predictions through time series and regression analysis. The results showed a correlation between subject attention and literature research, and the model fit R2 was 0.774, with a relative error of less than 2%. Short-term predictions found that some keywords received less online attention, and 2022–2024 may be the crucial development period for mathematical education research, with an annual literature research volume of approximately 380 articles. This paper summarized the mathematical subject themes centered on content, culture, literacy, and integration, and also provided a reference for the development of the subject through experimental prediction. In the next two years, China's mathematics literature research still needs to delve deeper, broaden its breadth, enhance its height, and ensure a steady improvement in the quality and quantity of literature research.

Calling for critical interrogations of white supremacy and settler colonialism in mathematics education research

In this essay, we contextualize a call for strengthening equity and social justice research in mathematics education by inserting the mathematics education enterprise into two world events of 2020: the global COVID-19 pandemic and the global resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement. We do so to underscore how white colonialism is forever present everywhere in structures and institutions around the globe, including those of the mathematics education enterprise. We briefly describe the logics of white supremacy and settler colonialism and then combined them into a compounding scheme of colonizing white supremacist logics. Next, we feature recent USA-based mathematics education research to illustrate some different possibilities when equity and social justice research is indeed strengthened through critical interrogations of white supremacy and settler colonialism. We conclude the essay with a justification for getting in good trouble, necessary trouble.

From gazing to understanding

As a mathematics education researcher from India, I try to capture glimpses of a messy terrain named education— or maybe field-notes from experiential tours, humbly inviting the MES community to engage and together become more reflexive towards our collective practices and baggage. This paper would, nonetheless, ask questions pertaining to mathematics education. However, it would not start with asking them, marking them as research questions. In this paper, I would rather try to trace the birthmarks of certain research questions; to show how this endeavour brings us to certain existential methodological issues in conducting and reporting mathematics education research.

Being inclusive or reinforcing of social stereotypes

Textbooks function as an important resource for teaching and learning of mathematics at the school level across the world. At least at the primary grades the contents of textbooks are situated in the larger society around the learners, in order that the learners can relate to what is taught to them. This opens the possibility for textbooks to uncritically reinforce the prevailing stereotypes or use the opportunity textbook provide to creatively break the stereotypes. Mathematics education research has engaged with the question of gender stereotypes in mathematics textbooks which has had an impact how gender figures in textbooks. However, gender is neither a binary nor monolithic. In the Indian context, gender is not the only social hierarchy that operates. The National Curriculum Framework 2005(hence forth referred to as NCF 2005) addresses the question of prevailing stereotypes about children from social margins and says care must be taken to ensure that the curriculum, textbooks and classroom interaction do not reinforce the stereotypes. Moreover, in the last two decades transgender people have been able to demand recognition and acceptance at least in the higher educational spaces as transgender people. Given these, it would be important to understand how textbooks reflect the changes and demands. This paper analyses the content of the mathematics textbooks developed by the State Council of Education Research and Training (SCERT) of one Indian state, namely Kerala, to understand how they represent gender, caste, class and religious differences and to investigate if the textbooks are inclusive of the disabled learners. Based on the content analysis of the textbooks the paper argues that even as the textbooks try to ensure representation of both girls and boys in the pictures and word problems and make an attempt to be inclusive of different religions and marginalised cultures ( for example by incorporating the picture of Theyyam, which uses an art form of the marginalised people in Kerala) in a textbook, they end up strengthening the existing gender, class, religious stereotypes. It also draws attention to the complete absence of disabled children in the textbooks.

Foregrounding black African immigrants in mathematics education research

Generally, research with Black youth/population in mathematics education have largely focused on their mathematics experiences in the context of United States with a special focus on issues of race/racism, equity, and social justice. While these studies are important and have informed our understanding of the schooling experiences of Black youth, there is a dearth of research with specificity on the mathematics learning experiences of Black African immigrant youth. In this paper, using duoethnography, we analyze our previous projects with Black African immigrant youth/families to argue for more nuances in the theoretical and methodological lenses when engaging with this population.

(Re)production of knowledge within mathematics education

This paper aims to discuss the production and reproduction of knowledge —such categories, notions, theories, and methodologies that are part of mathematics education research— drawn from an epistemic approach that pursues to disturb the supposed neutrality, objectivity, and order of our field. The paper's premise is shaped by the idea that searching for new ways of doing is plausible to make visible conditions of possibilities, in which new ways of thinking are traced to what we can and can't do in mathematics education. Premise framed in epistemological anarchism, here it argues that scientific progress could be restricted due to prescriptive scientific methods, as well as fixed and universal norms. The acknowledgment of diverse action flows and tools able to mould in order to respond to reality and context, it is understood as potency to think of new possibilities; along with this, to unpack and read the network rhizomatic entangled to look into teaching and learning of mathematics beyond the didactic triangle. In this fashion, diverse authors assert that the research is a political and power issue. The (re)production of knowledge is not neutral or innocent. The non-neutrality and innocent become possible since an aesthetic that circulates and normalizes what is considered as —valid and valuable— research, as well as the ways of doing and producing —valid and valuable— knowledge. This normalization generates events of violence, particularly against —epistemic or ontological— minorities.

How to use Zoom to collect data in mathematics educational research: A case study in assessing students’ online mathematics learning

During the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers faced challenges conducting data collection. However, emerging communication technologies, such as web-conferencing platforms, provided an alternative mode of data collection. Among these platforms, Zoom stands out for its functional affordances and unique features that support data collection methods, including screen-capturing, digital photography, drawing, polling, and artifact-based interviews, which attempt to reveal a child's viewpoint and ability. In this article, we explore the feasibility of using Zoom to conduct educational research by investigating the mathematical learning experience among 26 primary 1 and 2 students in Hong Kong on two topics—understanding time and addition and subtraction. Five mathematics teachers were recruited to participate in 2-month online workshops with assessments among three groups of students to understand the suitability for data collection. Based on teachers’ observations and students’ responses, our findings suggest that Zoom is a viable and effective tool for qualitative data collection. It offers a cost-effective method for researchers and educators to examine students’ mathematical performance in an online environment. We also investigate students’ perceptions of online assessment strategies, perceived usefulness of various Zoom functions, and explore the benefits and challenges teachers and students perceived throughout mathematical education using Zoom. However, several technical difficulties were encountered, such as the digital literacy gap and privacy concerns. Therefore, improving students’ digital literacy for remote learning and triangulation is important for online mathematical data collection and assessments.

An Unplugged Didactical Situation on Cryptography between Informatics and Mathematics

In this paper, we present an activity to introduce the idea of public-key cryptography and to make pre-service STEM teachers explore fundamental informatics and mathematical concepts and methods. We follow the Theory of Didactical Situations within the Didactical Engineering methodology (both widely used in mathematics education research) to design and analyse a didactical situation about asymmetric cryptography using graphs. Following the phases of Didactical Engineering, after the preliminary analysis of the content, the constraints and conditions of the teaching context, we conceived and analysed the situation a priori, with a particular focus on the milieu (the set of elements students can interact with) and on the choices for the didactical variables. We discuss their impact on the problem-solving strategies the participants need to elaborate to decrypt an encrypted message. We implemented our situation and collected qualitative data. We then analysed a posteriori the different stategies that participants used. The comparison of the a posteriori analysis with the a priori analysis showed the learning potential of the activity. To elaborate on different problem-solving strategies, the participants need to explore and understand several concepts and methods from mathematics, informatics, and the frontier of the two disciplines, also moving between different semiotic registers.

Inquiry-based mathematics education and attitudes towards mathematics: tracking profiles for teaching

Research on the relationships between the main constructs underlying inquiry-based learning is rarely reported in mathematics education research. Considering this as a complex problem which is worth to be investigated, the present study aims to provide some empirical evidences that might serve as an insight to support further investigations on the relationships between attitudes towards mathematics and inquiry-based learning approaches. Thus, this study adopts a descriptive research design where no variables are manipulated but observed and measured in order to identify changes depicted in data collection. An instructional design focusing on the nature of mathematical inquiry is carried out with the participation of 304 secondary and high school students, and a clustering approach is used to look at how participants are grouped around certain attitudinal profiles before and after such mathematical practice. The results show how the heterogeneity of attitudinal profiles present in the classroom evolves positively in terms of perceived usefulness of mathematics and mathematical self-concept as perception of competence in mathematics. This fact provides some basis that might be used for further research on the idea that certain forms of development in inquiry-based mathematics education (IBME) based on greater immersion in the nature and culture of mathematics can help students to improve their attitudes towards mathematics.

An Investigation of Mathematics Education Studies Conducted with Turkish Primary Teachers

The studies conducted with in-service and preservice primary teachers in the field of mathematics teaching are among the research areas that are important and will not lose their importance soon as the outcomes of these research areas are critical for teaching mathematics in primary education and restructuring teacher education programs. As the number of studies in this field conducted in recent years increases, the necessity of reference research that will guide future studies and evaluate the status of current ones comes to the front. Using the method of systematic reviewing, research studies on mathematics education, which are published in the journals indexed in ULAKBİM, conducted between 2010-2021 years, and conducted with in-service and preservice primary teachers in Turkey, were examined. A total of 100 research studies were analyzed by using content analysis. All the studies were examined focusing on their research area, learning area, research method, data collection tools, sample and sample size, and data analysis methods. This study aimed to reveal the research trends in Turkey first. The secondary goal of the study is to guide future research studies by revealing what is highlighted and missing in the field. Considering research results, researchers can expand and improve research in primary mathematics education.

Scratch as an Environment for Learning the Coordinate System by Elementary School Students

The focal point of mathematics education research is to comprehend how students develop and consolidate their abstract mathematical knowledge. As goal of this research, the focus was on exploring the processes that sixth-grade students used to construct mathematical concepts linked to the coordinate system. In this study, a group of eight students was selected for research purposes. Video recordings were used to collect data through observations. The Abstraction in Context (AiC) framework was utilized to analyze the students’ processes that took place within the Scratch environment. The research findings suggested that the grade six students successfully constructed most of the anticipated knowledge components, consolidated their previous knowledge related to the zero concept, and began to develop new ones. Specifically, the students were able to construct the concept of zero as a number that is neither positive nor negative, as well as comprehend the X and Y axes.

International comparisons of the home mathematics environment and relations with children's mathematical achievement.

Home mathematics environment (HME) research has focused on parent-child interactions surrounding numerical activities as measured by the frequency of engaging in such activities. However, HME survey questions have been developed from limited perspectives (e.g., Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 27, 2012, 231; Journal of Social Issues, 64, 2008, 95; Early childhood mathematics education research: Learning trajectories for young children, Routledge, New York, 2009), by researchers from a small subset of countries (15; Psychological Bulletin, 147, 2020, 565), which may skew our interpretations. This study broadened international representation by leveraging secondary data from the 2019 TIMSS to examine the variation of the frequency and reliability of the HME scale and its relation to children's mathematical achievement. Across 54 countries, 231,138 parents and children (Mage = 10.22 years; 51% male) participated in the larger study. Parents completed a retrospective home environment survey and children were assessed on mathematics skills. Basic frequency descriptive statistics, Cronbach's alpha reliability coefficients, and Pearson's r correlation coefficients were used to assess variability across countries. Findings suggested that families in certain countries engaged in home mathematics activities more frequently than families in other countries; however, the HME scale demonstrated acceptable internal consistency across families in all countries (M α = .79; range = [.73, .89]). Further, the average relation between HME and mathematical achievement was r = .15 with a range between r = .02 to r = .41. Our results indicate substantial variation across countries in the HME-mathematical achievement association. These findings underscore the importance of international representation in advancing research on the diversity of a child's home environment.