EARCOME8ProceedingsVolume2 PDF

See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.
net/publication/325110490
Reviewing the Effect in the Practice of Lesson Study: Opportunities for

Teaching Development
Conference Paper · May 2018
CITATIONS READS
0 398
1 author:
Sommay Shingphachanh
Hiroshima University
6 PUBLICATIONS 3 CITATIONS
SEE PROFILE
Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:
Lesson Study View project
All content following this page was uploaded by Sommay Shingphachanh on 09 February 2019.
The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

ICMI-EARCOME8
Taipei, Taiwan, May 7-11, 2018
Proceedings
EARCOME8
TAIWAN / 2018
of the 8th ICMI-East Asia Regional
Conference on Mathematics Education
Editor: Feng-Jui Hsieh
Volume 2
Organizers
Taiwan Association for

Mathematics Education
Department of Mathematics
National Taiwan Normal
University
Shi-da Institute for

Mathematics Education
Flexibility in Mathematics Education
Taipei, Taiwan May 7-11, 2018
Cite as:
Hsieh, F.-J. (Ed.), (2018). Proceedings of the 8th ICMI-East Asia Regional Conference
on Mathematics Education, Vol 2, Taipei, Taiwan: EARCOME.
Website: http://earcome8.math.ntnu.edu.tw
The proceedings are also available online
Copyrights© 2018 left to the authors
All rights reserved
ISBN 978-986-05-5784-8
Cover design: Chia-Hsin Lin

PREFACE
EARCOME is an ICMI regional conference with an aim to help the growth of research
communities in mathematics education for countries in and nearby the East Asian region.
EARCOME 8 convenes in Taipei, Taiwan from May 7 to May 11 in 2018. This conference
welcomes participants not only from the East Asian region but also from around the globe,
especially scholars who have interests in finding collaborative partners or special works to
share with East Asian scholars. On behalf of the conference Local Organizing Committee I
am very excited to welcome you to Taipei. More than 350 people will attend the conference,
representing about 40 countries.
EARCOME 8 is a collaborative effort of teams from the Department of Mathematics of
National Taiwan Normal University, the Taiwan Association for Mathematics Education,
and the Shi-Da Institute for Mathematics Education. The conference is possible only with
the time and energy put in by three committees: the International Program Committee (IPC),
the Advisory Committee (AC), and the Local Organizing Committee (LOC). I acknowledge
the enormous efforts of these committees. I especially address my thanks to the conference
secretary, Ms. Shiau-Huei Li. Without of her, EARCOME 8 will not be possible. She has
devoted all her time to bringing the conference to practice. I especially want to give my
special thanks to each of you. Thank you for contributing to the conference and making
your journey to EARCOME8 in Taipei.
“Flexibility in Mathematics Education” has been chosen as the theme of the conference. The
completion of the EARCOME 8 conference proceedings shows a best example of flexibility
in mathematics education. Reviewers, and many authors, from various countries who
worked on flexibility reviewed one another’s papers with a mind of flexibility. The decision
group implemented a sense of flexibility to accept not only research papers, but also those
embodied descriptive, analytic, or persuasive natures, if they contained significant
educational viewpoints. Authors whose papers were accepted to publish in the conference
proceedings were allowed to select either to publish the abstracts only or the full papers as
you might see in the conference proceedings.
Papers in the EARCOME 8 proceedings deliberate their points relating to flexibilities in
mathematics education, explicitly or implicitly from different dimensions in various
contexts. Some attempted to conceptualize flexibility in mathematics education and to
clarify the attributes, connotation, and denotation of it. Others address it by the types, phases,
degrees, and ranges. Flexibility in mathematics education has also been allied to
epistemology, philology, psychology, science, and technology. There are terms often
associated with it such as creativity, multiplicity, variation, connection, thinking,
changeable, transferable, and adaptation in the conference proceedings.
I-II EARCOME 8—2018

Papers focused on the student’s and the teacher’s sides embrace the areas of learning
materials (such as using comics in textbooks), activities (in and out of the classroom),
problem solving (using alternative ways or in different formats), evaluation (measuring
flexible competences), modelling (integrating and switching among different domains), and
curriculum (reforming and transforming). Papers focused on the teacher education side
consider lesson plans, teaching competences, and professional development in many areas
such as in modelling or in ICT activities.
The conference proceedings includes some renowned educational trends, such as the STEM
and STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics) curriculums and
the Big Data concept; these enterprises inherit a requirement of flexibility in the design,
generation, or construction processes, and in the collaborative nature of these processes. The
proceedings also includes some initiative educational trends, such as the MGA
(mathematics grounding activities) which implements investigation, creation, and
gamification in the levels of learners, teachers and teacher educators at the outside and
inside of school settings.
The Local Organizing Committee of ICMI-EARCOME 8 brought the concept of flexibility
in mathematics education to front by choosing it as the theme of the conference. The
reasons for the choice are posted in the conference website: “Flexibility is highly related to
creativity, multiplicity, and adaptation. In the current era, rapid changes in economy,
environment and society have been facilitated by the rapid development of technology and
engineering. Flexibility in mathematical thinking, problem solving, teaching methods,
evaluation, teacher education and mathematics education research is a key to empowering
learners, teachers, educators and researchers to tackle the complexity and uncertainty, and to
giving them the capacity and motive to change in the innovative era.” The conference ended
up with a fruitful production about flexibility in mathematics education that you can find by
reading through the two volumes of this conference proceedings.
I thank all our colleagues and friends who chose to present their work and send their papers
for the proceedings to materialize. I commend the invited speakers for their enthusiasm in
sharing their ideas, even if it meant they took the extra time to write when they could have
easily declined the request to do so. I am also grateful to the TSG presenters who eagerly
sent their full paper for review. Blind reviews were implemented; I thank all the reviewes,
without of them, the book will not be able to complete in this quality.
I hope you take the chance to read each and every paper. I assure you that they are worth
your time.
ICMI-EARCOME 8 Conference Chair
EARCOME 8—2018 I-III

Table of Contents
Volume 2
PREFACE ............................................................................................................................................................... II
TOPIC STUDY GROUPS
MATHEMATICS LEARNING STRATEGIES OF PRIMARY SCHOOL STUDENTS ....................... 1

Bishnu Khanal
SOLVING WORD PROBLEMS OF DIVISION WITH DECIMAL FRACTIONS: FOCUS ON
RELATIONSHIP OF PROPORTIONAL REASONING.............................................................................. 8
Tadayuki Kishimoto
DEDUCTIVE REASONING ABILITY OF PROSPECTIVE MATHEMATICS TEACHERS IN
BASIC MATHEMATICS AND DISCRETE MATHEMATICS COURSES...........................................18
Yaya S. Kusumah
MATHEMATICS LEARNING THROUGH ARTS, TECHNOLOGY AND ROBOTICS: MULTI-
AND TRANSDISCPILINARY STEAM APPROACHES ..........................................................................28
Zsolt Lavicza, Kristof Fenyvesi, Diego Lieban, Hogul Park, Markus Hohenwarter, Jose Diego
Mantecon, Theodosia Prodromou
HIGH SCHOOL TEACHERS’ ATTITUDES TOWARD STATISTICS IN SOUTH KOREA ...........30
Bongju Lee, Xiaohui Wang, Hyung Won Kim
DESIGNING PRACTICE EXAMPLES TO SUPPORT MATHEMATICS REASONING ................38
Leong Yew Hoong, Cheng Lu Pien, Toh Wei Yeng Karen
MATHEMATICAL MODELLING SKILLS OF SECONDARY STUDENTS ......................................46
Kwan Eu Leong
CLASSICAL GEOMETRIC CONSTRUCTION MEETS 3D PRINTING.............................................47
Hua-lun Li
HISTORY OF MATHEMATICS AND CONNECTED MATHEMATICS IDEAS FOR
PRE-SERVICE MATHEMATICS TEACHERS ............................................................................................57
Su Liang
STUDY ON THE DESIGN AND PROPERTIES OF AUTOMATICALLY GENERATED ITEMS:
FOCUSING ON POLYNOMIAL FACTORIZATION.................................................................................63
Hyeongjun Lim, Yun Joo Yoo
MODIFIED RECIPROCAL TEACHING AND PROBLEM-SOLVING ABILITY IN
MATHEMATICS ..................................................................................................................................................70
Rachel Dorcas A. Lim, Ma. Nympha Beltran - Joaquin
THE NORMS OF ARGUMENTATION IN A PRIMARY CLASSROOM .............................................83
Pi-Jen Lin
ARE DRAWINGS BETTER THAN QUESTIONNAIRES? COMPARING TWO METHODS OF
STUDYING MATHEMATICS TEACHERS’ BELIEFS .............................................................................93
Yung-Chi Lin
I-IV EARCOME 8—2018

CLUSTERING ASSESSMENT ON STATISTICAL LITERACY PERFORMANCE OF
PRIMARY SCHOOL STUDENTS ................................................................................................................101
Yuan-Horng Lin, Sz-Pei Wu
ANALYSIS OF PROBLEM POSING PERFORMANCE OF A GIFTED STUDENT IN THE
ELEMENTARY SCHOOL ...............................................................................................................................103
Shiang-Tung Liu, Chi-Jen Huang, Ming-Chung Chen
WHAT ARE IMPORTANT FOR BEING A COMPETENT OR EXPERT MATHEMATICS
TEACHERS IN MAINLAND CHINA: PERCEPTIONS OF TEACHER EDUCATORS ................112
Xiaoli Lu, Jiansheng Bao
A MID-CAREER TEACHER’S LEARNING FROM STUDENTS’ THINKING AND
ACTIONS: A LESSON STUDY.....................................................................................................................114
Tomohiko Makino, Keiko Hino
VIETNAMESE PROSPECTIVE MATHEMATICS TEACHERS’ MATHEMATICAL
KNOWLEDGE FOR TEACHING THE DERIVATIVE AND IMPLICATIONS FOR
TEACHER PREPARATION PROGRAMS .................................................................................................124
Tran Kiem Minh, Le Thi Bach Lien
STRENGTHS OF “LESSON DESIGNING MAP”: FROM AN ANALYSIS OF DESCRIPTIONS
WRITTEN BY PRESERVICE TEACHERS WHO LEARNED HOW TO DRAW THE MAP .......134
Tadashi Misono, Yuki Watanabe
A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF MATHEMATICS CURRICULUM: THE CASE OF THE
TRIANGLE SUM THEOREM .......................................................................................................................140
Shogo Murata
THE EFFECT OF DAILY-TIME PRESSURED TEST ON STUDENTS’ ACHIEVEMENT
AND FLUID INTELLIGENCE DEVELOPMENT ...................................................................................148
Wenie L. Nahial, Laila S. Lomibao, Charita A. Luna
A CROSS-TOOLS PIRIE-KIEREN MODEL FOR VISUALIZING THE PROCESS OF
MATHEMATICAL UNDERSTANDING .....................................................................................................154
Go Nakamura, Masataka Koyama
USING THE CO-CONSTRUCTION APPROACH TO IMPROVE THE QUALITY OF
MATHEMATICS LEARNING THROUGH PLAY IN JAPANESE PRESCHOOLS: A CASE
STUDY .................................................................................................................................................................166
Nagisa Nakawa
HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS’ COVARIATIONAL REASONING IN INTERPRETING
DYNAMIC SITUATIONS ...............................................................................................................................174
Duyen Thi Nguyen, Nhung Thi Dang, An Thi Tan Nguyen, Nhu Thi Quynh Nguyen, Dung
Tran
ENJOYABLE LESSONS .................................................................................................................................182
Tdashi Nomachi, Hisakazu Katou
THE CASE METHOD ON PROSPECTIVE ARITHMETIC TEACHER'S VIEW OF
ASSESSMENT IN ACTION ...........................................................................................................................196
Yutaka Ohara
EARCOME 8—2018 I-V

THE INVESTIGATION OF THAI SECONDARY STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS OF
INFINITY ............................................................................................................................................................204
Cherdsak Pakdeeviroch, Artorn Nokkaew, Wararat Wongkia
INTERVIEWS REVEAL YEAR 8 STUDENTS’ STRUGGLE TO GENERALISE SOLUTIONS
TO REVERSE FRACTION TASKS ..............................................................................................................215
Catherine Pearn, Max Stephens, Robyn Pierce
ERROR ANALYSIS WITH ACTION-PROCESS-OBJECT-SCHEMA (APOS) THEORY AND
LEARNING STYLE: THEIR EFFECTS ON STUDENTS’ MATHEMATICS
PERFORMANCE ..............................................................................................................................................227
Rejohn M. Peligro, Laila S. Lomibao, Charita A. Luna
WORD PROBLEM DIFFICULTY AND ITS TREATMENT USING ETHNOMATHEMATICS
APPROACH ........................................................................................................................................................228
Nur Robiah Nofikusumawati Peni
RELATING FLEXIBILITY IN CONCEPT IMAGE AND UNDERSTANDING OF
LIMITS AND DERIVATIVES ........................................................................................................................239
Robyn Reaburn, Greg Oates, Kumudini Dharmadasa, Michael Brideson
IMPACT OF EDUCATION REFORM INTO MATHEMATICS EDUCATION IN
CAMBODIA SINCE 2014 ...............................................................................................................................248
Chan Roath
WHICH ASSESSMENT MATTERS? THE IMPACT OF FORMATIVE ASSESSMENTS ON
STUDENTS’ SUMMATIVE ASSESSMENT PERFORMANCE IN INTEGRAL CALCULUS ....249
Dennis B. Roble, Charita A. Luna
TAILORING INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS TO STUDENTS’ CONTEXTS USING
CONTEXTUAL MATHEMATICS STORIES .............................................................................................256
Cherel Marrie A. Romulo, Catherine P. Vistro-Yu
LENGTH MEASUREMENT AND ESTIMATION IN PRIMARY SCHOOL – A COMPARISON
OF THE CURRICULA OF TAIWAN AND GERMANY .........................................................................269
Silke Ruwisch, Hsin-Mei E. Huang
ONLINE HOMEWORK IN A FINANCE COURSE: INFLUENCE ON STUDENTS’
PERFORMANCE ..............................................................................................................................................281
Celina P. Sarmiento, Maricar S. Prudente, Minie Rose C. Lapinid
LOGARITHMS: TEACHING MATERIALS FOR THE FUTURE AND AN INTRODUCTION TO
POWER FUNCTIONS......................................................................................................................................283
Hajime Sato
TRACKING THE STUDENTS’ MOVEMENTS BETWEEN DECIMAL CODES: THE ISSUE OF
REGRESSION ....................................................................................................................................................296
Masitah Shahrill
IDENTIFYING A HYPOTHETICAL LEARNING TRAJECTORY FOR CARTESIAN
COORDINATE SYSTEM BASED ON A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF CURRICULUM
STANDARDS .....................................................................................................................................................297
Ming-Yu Shao, Jia-Lu Wang
I-VI EARCOME 8—2018

COMPARISON OF STUDENTS’ VALUES AND MATHEMATICAL MODELS IN THE
PROCESS OF SOLVING A SOCIALLY OPEN- ENDED PROBLEM: FOCUSING ON A
COMPARISON BETWEEN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL STUDENTS AND JUNIOR HIGH
SCHOOL STUDENTS ......................................................................................................................................298
Isao Shimada ,Takuya Baba
STUDENTS’ EXPLANATIONS ABOUT THE AREA PROBLEM IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL:
ASSESSMENT FRAMEWORK ....................................................................................................................306
Taketo Shimomura, Yutaka Kondo
REVIEWING THE EFFECTS IN THE PRACTICE OF LESSON STUDY: OPPORTUNITIES
FOR TEACHING DEVELOPMENT ............................................................................................................313
Sommay Shingphachanh
AN INNOVATIVE TRAINING MODEL FOR SUPPORTING IN-SERVICE TEACHERS’
UNDERSTANDING ON PROBLEM-SOLVING KNOWLEDGE FOR TEACHING ......................321
Tatag Yuli Eko Siswono, Ahmad Wachidul Kohar, Sugi Hartono, Abdul Haris Rosyidi
GRADE FIVE PUPILS’ READINESS TO WORK WITH UNKNOWN..............................................333
Piriya Somasundram, Sharifah Norul Akmar Bt Syed Zamri,Leong Kwan Eu
FLEXIBILITY IN MATHEMATICS EDUCATION: AN ENACTIVISTIC AND METAPHORIC
PERSPECTIVE. .................................................................................................................................................341
Jorge Soto-Andrade, May Garces-Ocares, Alexandra Yañez-Aburto
DEVELOPING ALGORITHMIC THINKING IN THE PRIMARY AND JUNIOR
SECONDARY YEARS .....................................................................................................................................350
Max Stephens
MEASURING THE MATHEMATICAL CREATIVITY OF MIDDLE SCHOOL STUDENTS IN
SHANGHAI BY OPEN-ENDED PROBLEMS ..........................................................................................363
Sun Siyu
GEOMETRICAL REASONING WITH DYNAMIC MATHEMATICAL SOFTWARE: METHOD
BY GEROLAMO CARDANO WITH GEOGEBRA AND ITS EXPLANATIONS WITH
CODES .................................................................................................................................................................370
Taiki Suzuki, Akio Matsuzaki
AIRPLANES AND MATHEMATICS ...........................................................................................................379
Masahiro Takizawa
TEACHING MATHEMATICS WITH QUESTION-CHAIN IN SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL ...........381
Hengjun Tang, Bifen Chen, Weizhong Zhang, Hazel Tan, Wee Tiong Seah
FACTORS AFFECTING HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS’ MATHEMATICAL REASONING
ABILITIES ..........................................................................................................................................................391
Kiew Nee Tee, Kwan Eu Leong, Suzieleez Syrene Abdul Rahim
ILLUSTRATING A MODEL OF TASK-BASED LEARNING FOR INSTRUCTOR
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT ............................................................................................................392
JenqJong Tsay, Shandy Hauk, Billy Jackson
OF LANGUAGE AND MATHEMATICS: A QUASI-EXPERIMENTAL STUDY ON THE USE
OF PUTONGHUA AND MINNANHUA IN TEACHING MATHEMATICS .....................................405
Jacqueline Villamora, Ryan Li Fong,Cassandra Lim, Aileen Sy, Lester Hao, Dory Poa
EARCOME 8—2018 I-VII

A STUDY OF GRADE 10 INDONESIAN MATHEMATICS TEXTBOOKS .....................................413
Teresa Oktaviani Wijaya, Berinderjeet Kaur
DEVELOPING IN-SERVICE MATHEMATICS TEACHER PRACTICE THROUGH A
COLLABORATIVE AND REFLECTIVE APPROACH ..........................................................................425
Wong Lai Fong, Berinderjeet Kaur
EFFECTS OF DIFFERENT ADAPTIVE METHODS ON MATH ACHIEVEMENT, COGNITIVE
LOAD AND TIME ALLOCATION IN AN EXAMPLE-BASED LEARNING SYSTEM ...............436
Huei-min Wu, Hui-chuan Huang, Chi-Jen Lin, Yu-Kai Chu
WHETHER HIGH SCHOOL MATH CURRICULUM HELP UNDERSTAND COLLEGE MATH
FOCUSING ON MATHEMATICAL THINKING AND REASONING COMPETENCIES ............445
Pei-Chen Wu, Feng-Jui Hsieh
REGULATION STRATEGIES FOR COMPLETELY FLIPPED CLASSROOM ...............................446
Ching-Ching Yang, Yuh-Yih Chen, Tzu-Chun Lin
THE TENSION BETWEEN VISION AND CONTEXT IN PROFESSIONAL LEARNING
COMMUNITIES ................................................................................................................................................447
Romina Ann Yap
UNDERSTANDING STUDENTS’ TYPOLOGY OF MATH ANXIETY AND ITS ERRORS IN
SIMPLIFYING POLYNOMIAL EXPRESSIONS......................................................................................454
Dennis Lee Jarvis B. Ybañez, Angela Fatima H. Guzon, Maria Alva Q. Aberin
AIDS AND OBSTACLES IN THE USE OF ICT - TWO SURVEYS AMONGST MCM USERS .463
Iwan Gurjanow, Matthias Ludwig, Joerg Zender
ENHANCING STUDENTS’ STRATEGY FLEXIBILITY IN LEARNING MATHEMATICS
THROUGH SCHOOL-BASED PICTURE BOOKS .................................................................................472
Zhang Qiaoping, Yeung Wing Ying, Cheung Shuk Ping
MEASURING PRIMARY MATHEMATICS TEACHER’S PROFESSIONAL
COMPETENCIES IN MAINLAND OF CHINA .......................................................................................484
Qinqiong Zhang, Xiaoying Chen
GENDER EQUITY IN MATHEMATICS LEARNING: THE CASE OF SHANGHAI ....................486
Yan Zhu, Jiansheng Bao
SPECIAL SHARING GROUPS
WRITING FOR PUBLICATION IN MATHEMATICS EDUCATION RESEARCH

JOURNALS (I) ...................................................................................................................................................489
Merrilyn Goos, Luis Radford
WRITING FOR PUBLICATION IN MATHEMATICS EDUCATION RESEARCH
JOURNALS (II) ..................................................................................................................................................490
Merrilyn Goos, Luis Radford
PRACTICE AND RESEARCH ON ENGLAND-SHANGHAI MATHEMATICS TEACHER
EXCHANGE PROGRAMME .........................................................................................................................491
Huang Xingfeng, Lin Xumai, Zhang Rongxi, Zhu Youqin
I-VIII EARCOME 8—2018

DESIGNING AND EVALUATING TEACHERS’ PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
WORKSHOPS: THE CASE OF JUST-DO-MATH PROGRAM .............................................................492
Yuan-Shun Lee, Ying-Hao Cheng, Jian-Cheng Chen
DOING MATH MODELLING OUTDOORS – A SPECIAL CLASSROOM ACTIVITY
DESIGNED WITH MATHCITYMAP ...........................................................................................................494
Matthias Ludwig, Iwan Gurjanow, Joerg Zender
MULTIPLE MEANINGS OF MATHEMATICAL PLAYING IN EARLY CHILDHOOD
MATHEMATICS EDUCATION.....................................................................................................................496
Nagisa Nakawa, Masato Kosaka
FACILITATE MATHEMATICS TEACHING AND LEARNING THROUGH DEEPENING
UNDERSTANDING OF THE CORE IDEAS OF CONCEPTS..............................................................498
Haw-Yaw Shy, Ting-Ying Wang, Yan-Ting Chen
DESIGNING AND EVALUATING MATH-GROUNDING ACTIVITY TO DEVELOP
STUDENTS’ REASONING COMPETENCE: THE JUST-DO-MATH PROJECT ............................500
Kai-Lin Yang, Hui-Yu Hsu
WORKING GROUPS
INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES ON USING VIDEO IN PROFESSIONAL

DEVELOPMENT ..............................................................................................................................................504
Kim Beswick, Greg Oates, Tracey Muir, Tanya Evans, Mary Beisiegel
LEADING MATHEMATICS EDUCATION ...............................................................................................506
Peter Grootenboer, Catherine Attard
FACILITATE TEACHER LEARNING THROUGH DESIGN-BASED MATHEMATICS
TEACHER PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT ACTIVITIES ............................................................507
Dong-Won Kim, Ting-Ying Wang
CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY ON LESSON STUDY ..............................................................................509
Tatsuya Mizoguchi, Maitree Inprasitha
BIG DATA IN EDUCATIONAL SETTINGS ..............................................................................................511
Theodosia Prodromou, Zsolt Lavicza
EARCOME 8—2018 I-IX

TOPIC STUDY GROUPS
Khanal 1
MATHEMATICS LEARNING STRATEGIES OF PRIMARY

SCHOOL STUDENTS
Bishnu Khanal, Tribhuvan University, Nepal
Background of the Study

The Nepalese curriculum of mathematics for primary school has emphasized on teaching
and learning activities though the output is less satisfactory. Mismatching between teaching
strategies and learning strategies; lack of teacher’s awareness on students’ use of learning
strategies and limited academic exposure in the field of learning strategies of Nepalese
primary school children in mathematics can be the reasons. It becomes relevant to explore
the learning strategies used by the students in mathematics.
Learning strategies are an individual’s approach to a task. They are how a student organizes
and uses a set of skills to learn content to accomplish a particular task more effectively and
efficiently either in or out of school (Schumaker & Deshler, 1984). Effective learning
requires students control in their learning process and know how, when, and where to use
various learning strategies. Schumaker and Deshler (2006) define learning strategies as the
way a learner engages in a task, including how an individual plans and regulates his or her
performance. According to Riding and Rayner (1998, p. 80), “A learning strategy is a set of
one or more procedures that an individual acquires to facilitate the performance on a
learning task.” Riding further stated that one may use different strategies to tackle
different tasks. Pintrich, Smith and Mckeachie (1989) classified learning strategies into two
different categories, which are cognitive strategies (rehearsal, elaboration, organization,
critical thinking, and metacognition) and resource management strategies (effort
management, time and study management, peer learning and help seeking).
Without understanding the children’ learning strategies, the improvement of mathematics
education is hardly possible. Hence, the present study aims to address this issue and thereby
contribute to the advancement of quality mathematics education in primary schools in Nepal.
The above mentioned practical experiences and theoretical backgrounds as well as the
national context of mathematics education have inspired the author to investigate the
learning strategies of Nepalese primary school children in learning mathematics.
Research Questions
This study aims to answer the following two questions related to the learning strategies of
Nepalese primary school students in mathematics:
1. What learning strategies do primary school students use most in learning
mathematics?
2. Are there any differences between high achiever and low achiever in their
preferred learning strategies? If so, what kinds of differences could be found?
8th ICMI-East Asia Regional Conference on Mathematics Education

7-11 May 2018, Taipei, Taiwan
2 Mathematics Learning Strategies of Primary School Students
Procedures
Two schools of Kathmandu district in Nepal (one English medium private school and
another Nepali medium community school) were selected as study sites through convenient
sampling procedure to observe class regularly. There were 37 students of grade V in English
medium private school and 54 students in Nepali medium community school. After the
observation of their behavior, attitude, score and performance, 24 students of the selected
schools with equal number including high and low achievers were purposively selected as
key informants. Mathematics achievement of key informants was collected to categorize
them as high and low achievers from the records of respective schools. Those students, who
scored 80 and more out of 100 in mathematics, were considered as high achiever and those
who scored 40 and below 40 were considered as low achiever. Among various methods of
qualitative research open ended interview and close observation were used to collect
information from the key informants. The learning strategies classified by Pintrich, Smith,
& McKeachie (1989) were adapted to develop interview and observation guidelines.
Observation guidelines were prepared prior to the observation; and accordingly 30 lessons
were observed in two schools. The guidelines included issues of learning strategies used,
teacher’s instruction, and interaction between teachers and students as well as among
students during classroom learning, assessment practices, contents coverage and clarity. All
the activities done in the class by teachers and students, class management, sitting
arrangement, materials used were registered on the note. Besides, the researcher’s
reflections on the classroom activities were noted down in remark section. The mathematics
problems related to the study area were given to the key students through teacher to observe
their solving techniques for finding their learning strategies. In interview guidelines,
problems in learning mathematics, strategies used in learning mathematics, causes of lower
scores and higher scores in mathematics were the questions to the students. Besides, the
researcher developed interview guidelines for learning strategies developed by just
modifying the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire developed by Chen, 2008
(as cited in Chang, 2010) and translated into Nepali language. While modifying the
questionnaire into interview guidelines, the researcher consulted with senior professor as
well as language expert. The respondents were interviewed individually and both video and
audio recorded. The re-interviews in the interval of 15 days were also taken and recorded to
obtain the missing information and triangulate them with the information obtained from
initial interviews and class observation. The collected qualitative information from
observation and interview were ‘transcribed’ and ‘translated’ into English, ‘encoded’ and
‘categorized thematically’ (Creswell, 2014). The thematic categories were based on the
learning strategies of rehearsal, elaboration, organization, critical thinking, metacognition,
effort management, time and study management, peer learning, and help seeking – taking
ability difference into account every time. The information was critically analyzed
substantiating with theory and the results of the previous studies. The information obtained
from different sources such as observation, interview and re-interview were cross-checked
and triangulated to maintain reliability, validity and trustworthiness of the data.

Khanal 3
Results and Discussion

It was seen in the observation that one of the students solved the problem of exercise
himself by looking example from the book before the teacher started to teach. It was the
self-effort of the student using his meta-cognition. The high achiever used his brain and
developed his own learning style. The similar expression was found in the interview with
another student. A girl admitted, “At home I often practise what madam teaches at school”.
One of the boy from the respondents admitted, “Sometimes I practise myself looking
examples from the book to do homework at home before the teacher teaches the lesson.”
The respondent also stated, “When I was in grade three, my brother told me to practise
looking at example first and if I did not know I should ask with my teacher.”
The observations and the opinions of the students supported that the high achiever students
use the effort management and somehow their metacognition. It was also found that both
the high achiever and low achiever used to ask the teachers frequently. They were always
seeking help from the teacher. The high achiever student and some low achievers were
asking the questions to the teacher. A low achiever interviewee admitted, “If I don’t
understand myself, I ask my teacher, the teacher solves the problems on whiteboard and I
understand looking it.” This is the example that the students used help-seeking strategies in
mathematics learning. In the words of O’Malley’s (1985), it is socio-affective strategies. In
words of Chang (2010), it is help seeking strategies i.e. resource management strategies.
The students mostly got help from their teachers and friends at school as well as from their
family members at home. Students even got help from their tuition teacher. Mostly the low
achievers sought more help than the high achievers as their understandings in the class
differ.
Students increase their understanding and learn through socio-affective strategies as claimed
by O’Malley (1985). Social constructivists feel that students construct knowledge through a
social setting. They learn from peers and share ideas with them. Students of group four or
five were found discussing about solving problems. In another case students discussed and
shared ideas generally with co- sitters and sometimes with other friends of the class. One of
the interviewee students admitted, “When I’m confused I ask my friends, I even teach my
friends.” He stated that he also would discuss with his friends. Another student claimed
during face to face with the author, “I share with friends and sometimes we also have debate
regarding the way of solving problems.” This showed that students sharing as a strategy in
learning. In the interview, the students also opened that they copy notes from their friends if
they’re absent or confused.
It was found that one of the teachers was teaching the lesson “simplify”. The teacher
described the rule for simplification as: B- Brackets, O- Off, D- Division, M- Multiplication,
A- Addition, S- Subtraction. The teacher pronounced the rule as BODMAS. Then the
students started to read as BODMAS and pointed their friend bodmas (in Nepali language
students with bad manner). Another day in the same lesson students used to read the rule
BODMAS and applied to solve the problems. That was one example of mnemonic
(cognitive) strategy found in the class observation.

Meta-cognitive strategies were also used by the students in learning mathematics.

Metacognitive strategies are simply memorable plans or approaches that students use to
solve problems. These strategies include the students thinking as well as their physical
actions (Lenz, Ellis, & Scanlon, 1996). One of the common meta-cognitive strategies found
in the class observation was in the form of mnemonic, which are meaningful words where
the letters in the word each stand for a step in a problem solving process or for important
pieces of information about a particular topic of interest. Similarly, students were found
learning the order of simplification through the strategy phrase. For instance, “Please
Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally” where parentheses, exponents, multiplication/division,
addition/subtraction are step order. The students asserted that they also use finger- counting
strategy to learn mathematical calculation. One of the students in interview answered the
question ‘How do you know 12x6=72?’ in the following way ‘I know 12x5=60, then I
counted more 12 and it is 72, therefore, 12 x 6=72. It was found that students were using
other meta-cognitive strategies such as finger-counting strategy in mathematic learning.
High achievers and low achievers were found with different attitude, motivation and
self-regulation, which affected their use of learning strategies in mathematics greatly. The
first and the foremost difference in their strategies was ‘interaction’. The high achievers
were found more interactive than the low- achievers. The reasons for being less interactive
were feeling embarrassed, feeling frustrated at their interactions, not being acknowledged by
the teachers, lacking confidence, concerned about being wrong, getting teased by other
students, just not want to be involved, being uncertain of the answer and hesitating to be the
only person initiating an interaction. Lacking confidence is at the second level. It was
because of the result of lack of self-esteem and negative self-conception formed from other
students, or being unsuccessful in classroom tasks or efficiency tests that have caused
feelings of shame and failure. High-achievers were commonly found interacting with
teachers and asking questions and answer.
But the low-achievers, who were termed as ‘weak’, hardly asked any question and felt
ashamed that their friends might tease them saying ‘ignorant’. A respondent girl from class
five accepted, “I feel ashamed to ask questions to my teacher and friends”. She said, “They
later tease me, saying ‘Kehi pani najanne’ (knowing nothing)”. Another student asserted, “I
want to ask my teacher but I feel shy.” The narratives clearly showed that the low-achievers
have low self- esteem, and they do not interact with the teachers and friends. Low achievers
had low academic self-perception, lower self-motivation and self-regulation and less goal
directed behavior as “negative attitude towards school and teachers than high achievers”
(Reis & Mc coach, 2000 as cited in McCoach & Siegle, 2001). Low achievers are the
students who lack self-confidence. Factors commonly associated with low achiever
includes low academic self-concept (Schunk, 1998, Supple, 1990, Whitmore, 1980 as cited
in McCoach & Siegle, 2001), low self- motivation (Weiner, 1992 as cited in McCoach &
Siegle, 2001), low goal- valuation (Mccall, Evahn & K razer, 1992 as cited in McCoach &
Siegle, 2001) and negative attitude towards school and teachers (Colangelo, Kerr,
Christensen & Maxey, 1993; Ford,1996; Rimm, 1995 as cited in McCoach & Siegle, 2001).

Khanal 5
The low achievers lack self – regulation, but the high achievers have extreme self-regulation.
Self- regulation comprises the process by which students are “meta-cognitively,
motivationally and behaviourly active participants in their own learning” (Zimmerman,
1994 as cited in McCoach & Siegle, 2001).
The difference also lied in the note taking between high achievers and low achievers. One of
the high achievers boy admitted “I keep notes after teacher checks my homework, class
works and exam papers. I practise looking the notes.” Nonetheless, the low- achievers
hardly kept any notes during their lessons. They lacked the practice materials. At the exam
time, either they practised less or they had malpractice, and became low achievers. One of
the low achievers admitted “I don’t take notes; I practise from book in exam time”. It was
seen that when they practised from book, they focused on the answer, and they were
mistaken in the steps in process of solving the particular problem.
8 out of 12 high achievers practised mathematics repeatedly and remained up to date but the
9 out of 12 low achievers practised mathematics less. They felt difficult in remembering
formulas/ tricks also. The low achievers were found absent in the class tests. The next day,
they were asked the cause of becoming absent. They replied, “I think I fail in mathematics
so I don’t like to participate.” Some of them said, “Mathematics is difficult subject; I fear I
may fail.” They remained passive whereas high-achievers were mathematically active and
cheerful. They felt mathematics an enjoyable subject. High achievers enjoyed with
mathematical formulas and / tricks; however the low achievers feared it. It was seen that
low achievers were giving less time to solve mathematical problems. They did not manage
time and study environment whereas high achievers were giving more time and managed
the study environment in learning mathematics. High achiever students were found
up-to-date to prepare notes and organize learning materials.
The primary school students in Grade V used cognitive strategies, meta-cognitive strategies
and socio-affective strategies as described by O’Malley (1985). They used all nine learning
strategies of cognitive and resource management strategies as described by Pintrich, Smith
and Mckeachie (1989) to help them perform learning tasks in mathematics courses. Among
the nine learning strategies scales, the results showed that the students exhibited greater use
of three learning strategies: help-seeking, peer learning and effort management. Among
these three strategies, the students preferred help seeking very often. The differences
between high achievers and low achievers in the use of learning strategies were found from
the class observation and the narratives of the respondents. Both Help-seeking and peer
learning strategies were used more by low achievers while Effort Management was used
more by high achievers.
Conclusion
From the discussion of the results, it seems that students tend to use learning strategies to
facilitate and fulfill their learning goals. Effective learning requires students to take control
over their learning process and know how, when and where to use various learning
strategies. They prefer to seek assistance from their teachers or classmates when difficulties
occur. Asking for help can be a good strategy since it allows a student to learn from others.

The students of different ability group have different use of learning strategies. High
achiever students exhibit more use of effort management and then help-seeking and peer
learning strategies whereas low achiever students exhibit more use of help-seeking, peer
learning and then effort management strategies instead of applying other strategies to
appropriate learning activities. They may not possess a wide array of learning strategies and
use only few strategies, even though these cannot address all kinds of learning problems.
Furthermore, the content of mathematics courses may be mainly involved with application
of rules and memorization of formula. So, the results are likely to be influenced by the
learning area of the students. This study can be one of the reference materials in the case of
primary mathematics education. The application of students’ learning strategies in teachers’
instructional design should be incorporated in the school education, especially in
mathematics education for matching between teaching styles and learning strategies. It has
simply opened up a grey area for further research, which needs to be continued in the future.
However, it would be relevant to suggest that, in order to improve performance in
mathematics in Nepalese context, high achievers need to think critically and participate
more in group activities and practices. In the same way, low achievers need to concentrate
more in critical thinking, effort management, organization of learning materials and practice
to promote their learning achievement in mathematics.
References
Chang, Y. –C. (2010). Students’ perceptions of teaching styles and use of learning strategies.
Masteral Thesis, University of Tennessee.
Creswell, J. W. (2014). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods.
approaches. New Delhi: SAGE Publications India Pvt. Ltd.
Lenz, B. K., Ellis, E. S.. & Scanlon, D. (1996). Teaching learning strategies to adolescents
and adults with learning disabilities. Austin, TX: Pro-ed.
McCoach, D. B., & Siegle, D. (2001). A comparison of high achievers” and low
achievers” attitudes, perceptions, and motivations, a paper presented in Academic
Exchange-Summer 2001, University of Connecticut.
O'Malley et .al. (1985). "Learning Strategies Application with Students of English as a
Secondary Language" TESOL Quarterly 19: p.557-584.
Pintrich, P. R., Smith, D. A. F., & Mckeachie, W. J. (1989). A Manual for the use of the
Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ). Mich: National center for
Research to improve Postsecondary Teaching and Learning (NCRIPTAL), School of
Education, The University of Michigan.
Riding, R. J., & Rayner, S. G. (1998). Cognitive styles and learning strategies: Understanding
style differences in learning and behaviour. London: David Fulton.
Schumaker, J. B., & Deshler, D. D. (1984). Setting demand variables: A major factor in
program planning for LD adolescents. Topics in language disorders, 4, 22-44.

Khanal 7
Schumaker, J. B., & Deshler, D. D. (2006). Teaching adolescents to be strategic learners. In

Deshler, D. D. & Schumaker, J. B. (n. d.), Teaching adolescents with disabilities:
Accessing the general education curriculum (pp. 121-156). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin
Press.
Bishnu Khanal, PhD

Tribhuvan University
Mahendra Ratna Campus, Kathmandu, Nepal
bkhanal1974@gmail.com
bishnu@mrctuktm.edu.np

8 Solving Word Problems of Division with Decimal Fractions: Focus on Relationship of Proportional
Reasoning
SOLVING WORD PROBLEMS OF DIVISION WITH DECIMAL

FRACTIONS: FOCUS ON RELATIONSHIP OF PROPORTIONAL
REASONING
Tadayuki Kishimoto, University of Toyama, Japan
Introduction
When students use operations from whole numbers to fractions and decimals, they are
also encouraged to extend their understanding for multiplication and division (Greer, 1994).
On these operations, division has been discussed on their importance in the middle grade
school mathematics.
The conception of division with decimal fractions is one of the subject areas in
mathematics education where many students often feel to have difficulty. In particular, they
have difficulty to solve division word problems with decimal fractions. For example, if
students have misconceptions such as “multiplication makes bigger, division makes
smaller”, they could not give an appropriate operation in word problems (Bell, Fischbein,
and Greer, 1984; Greer, 1987).
To give an appropriate operation in division word problems, they need not only to
understand conceptions of division, but also to develop other conceptions or skills. Dole
(2008) said that understanding of multiplication and division is needed for proportional
reasoning which is further developed along with understanding of fractions, decimals, scale
drawing and ratio. Greer (1992) also said that there is a need for synthesis of hitherto rather
separated bodies of research on multiplication and division word problems, proportional
reasoning, and rational number concepts. This paper focuses on proportional reasoning as
significant factors in solving word problems of division with decimal fractions. The purpose
in this paper is to investigate the relationship between student’s proportional reasoning
and success in division word problems in the stage of upper elementary school level.
Framework
Proportional reasoning is at the heart of elementary school mathematics. And it is also an
important ability to build a foundation in mathematics and science education from
elementary school to university. Hence, it is a prerequisite for further studies in mathematics
and science, as multiplicative relations underpin all number-related concepts learned in
elementary school level. Despite a matter of great importance throughout school years, it is
well known that many students have considerable difficulty to understand proportional
reasoning.
According to Inhelder and Piaget (1958), proportional reasoning is a second-order
relationship that involves an equivalent relationship between two ratios rather than simply a
relationship between two concrete objects. They propose that children are incapable of
proportional reasoning until about eleven years old. It is a hallmark of formal operations.

Kishimoto 9
Karplus, Pulos, and Stage (1983) defined the proportional reasoning as “a term that
denotes reasoning in a system of two variables between which there exists a linear
functional relationship.”(p.219) Lesh et al. (1988) also defined that “proportional reasoning
is a form of mathematical reasoning that involves a sense of co-variation and of multiple
comparisons, and the ability to mentally store and process several pieces of information.
Proportional reasoning is very much concerned with inference and prediction and involves
both qualitative and quantitative methods of thought.”(p.93) Ben-Chaim et al. (1998)
express proportion as “a statement of the equality of two ratios, i.e. a/b=c/d.”(p.249)
While the proportional reasoning of Inhelder and Piaget (1958) is a global cognitive
index, the definitions given by Karplus, Pulos, and Stage (1983) or Lesh et al. (1988) are a
part of mathematical reasoning, recognizing the expressions such as f (x)=kx(k≠0) or
a/b=c/d. This means that the relationship between the two entities is conceptualized as a
multiplicative relationship. Although understanding of ratio or proportion is intertwined
with many mathematical topics, the essence of proportional reasoning is the understanding
of the multiplicative structure of proportional situations.
Method
Subjects
The sample of this study consisted of 256 students of Grades 4−6 (10−12 years old) form
three elementary schools in Japan: 81 were Grade 4, 83 were Grade 5, and 90 were Grade 6.
In Japan, teaching materials of division with decimal fraction have been taught in Grade 5
and proportional reasoning in Grade 6. Subjects in this study had been learned division with
decimal fraction, but did not do the proportion.
Instruments
The items used in this study addressed four proportional reasoning problems and four
division word problems with decimal fractions (See Table. 1)
Proportional reasoning problems
The context of a problem has influenced students’ solution strategies and success rates.
All proportion problems can be characterized as either comparison problems or missing
value problems. The first of these involves numerical comparison in which four values are
given and the relation between them is to be determined. The second category involves
missing-value problems, which provide three of four values and the proportional
relationship between the four values.
According to Tournaire and Pulos (1985) and Singh (2000), comparison problems are
more difficult than missing value problems. Tournaire and Pulos (1985) said that
“comparing ratios is an advanced method, and the ability to choose the arithmetically easier
comparison is acquired long after the proportional techniques are mastered.”(p.188) In this
study, comparison problems are selected to investigate students’ proportional reasoning
strategy.

Reasoning
Lamon (1993) identified four semantic proportional problem types as follows;

well-chunked measures, part-part-whole, associated sets, and stretchers and shrinkers. In
this study proportional reasoning problems were taken based on her classification.
Division word problems with decimal fraction
Bell, Fischbein, and Greer (1984) have shown a number of factors relating to the number
size, structure, and context of division word problems. Division word problems in this study
were constructed under following conditions according to their findings. The first condition
was the difference of the number involved in word problems such as whole number, mixed
number, and pure decimal fraction. Secondly although there were two types such as partitive
and quotative division, all problems were restricted in the only partitive division situation.
Thirdly the appearance of numbers in word problems was the same order. Four problems of
addition and subtraction were also included so that students could not assume that division
was always the correct operation. Students were not asked to carry out any computation but
only had to indicate which arithmetic operation with the two given numbers would yield the
correct answer.
Table1.Proportional reasoning and division problems
Division Problems
(1) 3.5m of tape cost 630 yen. What is the cost of 1m? (630÷3.5)
(2) One uses 8.28 deciliters of paint to draw the line on the road by 3.6m. How many
deciliters of paint does one use to draw the line by 1 m? (8.28÷3.6)
(3) 0.4 litter of paint costs 260 yen. What is the cost of 1 litter? (260÷0.4)
(4) 2.5m of iron wire weigh 0.4 kg. How much does 1 m of iron wire weigh? (2.5÷0.4)
Proportional Reasoning Problems
(1) The student is shown a subscription card from a popular magazine. It offers three
plans: 1) A 6-month subscription for 3 payments of 4000 yen each; 2) A 9-month
subscription for 3 payments of 6000 yen each; 3) A 12-month subscription for 3
payments of 8000 yen each. Do you get a better deal if you buy the magazine for a
longer period of time? (well-chunked measures)
(2) The student is shown pictures of two egg cartons, one containing a dozen eggs (8
white eggs and 4 brown eggs) and the other containing 1 1/2 dozen eggs (10 white
eggs and 8 brown eggs). Which carton contains more brown eggs? (part- part-whole)
(3) The student is shown a picture of 7 girls with 3 pizzas and 3 boys with 1 pizza. Who
gets more pizza, the girls or the boys? (associated set)
(4) The student is shown a picture of two trees. Tree A is 8 feet high and tree B is 10 feet
high. This picture was taken 5 years ago. Today, tree A is 14 feet high and tree B is
16 feet high. Over the last five years, which tree’s height has increased more?
(stretchers and shrinkers)

Kishimoto 11
Procedure
The test was administered to each of subjects late in November 2013. They were as much
time as needed to complete the test. The average time to complete was about 50 minutes.
Their responses were processed in two ways. At first, we gave a score of 1 for a correct
answer and 0 for a wrong answer. The analysis of variance and correlation analysis were
statistically conducted for these responses. Secondly, their descriptive responses of each
item were analyzed with respect to problem solving strategies.
Results
Correct responses
Table 2 shows mean scores of correct responses proportional reasoning and division
problems in each grade. The mean number of correct responses to proportional reasoning
problems was 0.41 in Grade 4, 1.66 in Grade 5, and 1.96 in Grade 6. The mean number of
correct responses to division problems was 1.48 in Grade 4, 3.00 in Grade 5, and 3.16 in
Grade 6.
At first, each of proportional reasoning and division problems were analyzed by analysis
of variance. F value (F (2,253)=53.55, p<.001) of proportional reasoning problems was
statistically significant. F value (F (2,253)=58.47, p<.001) of division problems was also
significant.
Secondly, the multiple comparison by Ryan’s method was done for proportional
reasoning and division factors. In proportional reasoning factor, it was significant between
Grade 4 and 5 (t (253)=7.81, p<.001) and between Grade 4 and 6 (t (253)=9.83, p<.001). In
division factor, it was also a significant between Grade 4 and 5 (t (253)=8.80, p<.001) and
between Grade 4 and 6 (t (253)=9.90, p<.001).
Table 2.Correct responses of proportional reasoning and division problems
Grade 4 Grade 5 Grade 6
F
Mean (SD) Mean (SD) Mean (SD)
Division 1.48(1.19) 3.00(1.04) 3.16(1.10) 58.47***
Proportional 0.41(0.61) 1.66(1.15) 1.96(1.22) 53.55***
reasoning
***p<.001
Correlation coefficient
Table 3 shows the Pearson’s correlation coefficient between and proportional reasoning
and division word problems in each grade. The correlation coefficient between proportional
reasoning and division was 0.196 in Grade 4, 0.368 in Grade 5, and 0.592 in Grade 6. It was
a significant in Grade 5 and 6(p<0.01).

Reasoning
Table 3.Correlation coefficient of division problems and proportional reasoning

Grade 4 Grade 5 Grade 6
R 0.196 0.368** 0.592**
** p<0.01
Solving strategy
The problem (2)(egg task) and (3)(pizza task) were selected for a qualitative analysis.
There were some remarkable characteristics in student’s solving strategies. In the left
column in each tables, the number from 0 to 4 mean the number of correct answer in
division word problems.
Table 3 shows a typical responses and Table 4-6 does the distribution of their solving
strategies in each Grade. In problem (2), many students (83.1%) in Grade 4 used an additive
comparison strategy. Students (26.5%) in Grade 5 used a part-whole strategy and they
(23.3%) in Grade 6 did a part-part strategy.
Table 3.Typical examples of strategies in proportion problem (2)

Types Strategy
Additive comparison Finding differences between two quantities. A. 8-4=4,
(difference) B. 10-8=2
Unit Finding a unit. A.4÷12=0.33..., B.8÷18=0.44...
Equivalent of part-whole Making an equivalent ratio of part-whole.
A.12:4=36:12, B.18:8=36:16
Equivalent of part-part Making an equivalent ratio of part-part. A.8:4=40:20,
B.10:8=40:32
Others No response or inappropriate answer.
Table 4.Strategies used by Grade 4
Additive Unit Part-whole Part-part Others
0 Correct 15.7%(13) 8.4%(7)
1 Correct 25.3%(21) 1.2%(1) 3.6%(3)
2 Correct 24.1%(20) 2.4%(2)
3 Correct 10.8%(9) 1.2%(1)
4 Correct 7.2%(6)
Total 83.1%(69) 1.2%(1) 15.7%(13)

Kishimoto 13

0 Correct 1.2%(1) 2.4%(2)
1 Correct 1.2%(1) 1.2%(1) 1.2%(1)
2 Correct 12.0%(10) 2.4%(2) 1.2%(1) 4.8%(4)
3 Correct 19.3%(16) 1.2%(1) 3.6%(3) 3.6%(3) 6.0%(5)
4 Correct 9.6%(8) 1.2%(1) 19.3%(16) 6.0%(5) 2.4%(2)
Total 43.4%(36) 2.4%(2) 26.5%(22) 10.8%(9) 16.9%(14)

0 Correct 2.2%(2) 2.2%(2)
1 Correct 1.1%(1) 1.1%(1) 1.1%(1)
2 Correct 5.6%(5) 1.1%(1) 5.6%(5) 2.2%(2) 2.2%(2)
3 Correct 6.7%(6) 2.2%(2) 7.8%(7) 6.7%(6)
4 Correct 10.0%(9) 7.8%(7) 20.0%(18) 13.3%(12) 1.1%(1)
Total 25.6%(23) 8.9%(8) 28.9%(26) 23.3%(21) 13.3%(12)
In this problem (3), the correct operation is ‘(pizza)÷(man)’. But this expression would
be the form as ‘(small)÷(large)’, which violates the statement as ‘the dividend must be
larger than the divisor’. Students (18.1%) in Grade 4 use the operation such as 7÷3.
However students (36.1%) in Grade 5 used the operation such as 3÷7. Students (25.6%) in
Grade 6 used the operation such as 3÷7 and the others (13.3%) did the operation such as 7÷
3. In particular, students (36.7%) used the equivalent strategy.
Table 7.Typical examples of strategies in proportion problem (3)

Types Strategy
Additive comparison Using additive strategy such as diving 1/3 to each other.
At first, we divide 1/3 for each other. A.(1/3,1/3,1/3),
(1/3,1/3,1/3), (1/3,2/3), B.(1/3,1/3,1/3).
Unit(small)÷(large) Finding a unit such as a divisor bigger than a dividend.

Reasoning
A. 3÷7=0.43..., B.1÷3=0.33....
Unit(large)÷(small) Finding a unit such as a dividend bigger than a divisor.
A. 7÷3=2.33..., B.3÷1=3....
Equivalent Making equivalent ratio. A.7:3=21:9, B.3:1=21:7.
Others No response or inappropriate answer. A.7×3=21, B.3×
1=3

Additive Unit Unit Equivalent Others
(small)÷(large) (large)÷(small)
0 Correct 2.4%(2) 1.2%(1) 2.4%(2) 18.1%(15)
1 Correct 3.6%(3) 6.0%(5) 20.5%(17)
2 Correct 7.2%(6) 2.4%(2) 4.8%(4) 2.4%(2) 9.6%(8)
3 Correct 2.4%(2) 2.4%(2) 7.2%(6)
4 Correct 3.6%(3) 2.4%(2) 1.2%(1)
Total 19.3%(16) 3.6%(3) 18.1%(15) 2.4%(2) 56.6%(47)

0 1.2%(1) 2.4%(2)
Correct
1 1.2%(1) 1.2%(1) 1.2%(1)
Correct
2 2.4%(2) 7.2%(6) 6.0%(5) 1.2%(1) 3.6%(3)
Correct
3 4.8%(4) 7.2%(6) 6.0%(5) 1.2%(1) 14.5%(12)
Correct
4 2.4%(2) 21.7%(18) 6.0%(5) 7.2%(6) 1.2%(1)
Correct
Total 10.8%(9) 36.1%(30) 18.1%(15) 10.8%(9) 21.7%(18)

Kishimoto 15
Table 10. Strategies used by Grade 6

0 Correct 4.4%(4)
1 Correct 1.1%(1) 2.2%(2)
2 Correct 1.1%(1) 4.4%(4) 4.4%(4) 3.3%(3) 3.3%(3)
3 Correct 2.2%(2) 4.4%(4) 3.3%(3) 7.8%(7) 5.6%(5)
4 Correct 3.3%(3) 16.7%(15) 5.6%(5) 25.6%(23) 1.1%(1)
Total 7.8%(7) 25.6%(23) 13.3%(12) 36.7%(33) 16.7%(15)
Discussion
Correlation of proportional reasoning and division
As the progress of Grades, the correct answer rate of proportional reasoning and division
word problems increases. Although the correlation coefficient for Grade 4 is low, the
correlation coefficient for Grade 5 and 6 is higher. In this study, there is a gap between
Grade 4 and Grade 5. About this result, proportional reasoning ability has developed in
Grade 5 and 6. The success rate of division word problems has also increases at the same
time. This perspective consists of the assertion of Inhelder and Piaget (1958).
Solving strategy
Previous studies have shown that additive strategy is the most frequently used error
strategy in solving proportional problems. In this study, students in Grade 4 often used the
additive strategy. Van Dooren, de Bock, and Verschaffel (2010) note that until student’s
proportional reasoning is stable, they often simultaneously apply additive strategies to
proportional problems. But students in Grade 5 and 6 would be able to use unit and
equivalence strategies.
Many conclusions of previous studies that have examined the development of
proportional reasoning is said that young children are not able to go beyond the parts of the
proportion to represent part-whole relations (Clark, Berenson, and Cavey, 2003; Lamon,
1999; Singer and Resnick, 1992; Sophian and Wood, 1997). However, in the problem (2),
students in Grade 5 and 6 have used more part-whole strategy than part-part strategy. For
this reason, it is conjectures that the total amount is indicated in the problem sentence.
Students could use the part-whole strategy under this condition. The number of students
using the part-whole strategy in Grade 6 is about same rate with this of them in Grade 5.
The number of them using part-part strategy have increased from Grade 5 to Grade 6. In
Grade 6, students giving many correct answers for division problems in Grade 6 could often
use the part-part strategy.

Reasoning
In the problem (3), many students have used a strategy such as dividing large numbers by
small numbers. This is influenced by the misconception such as ‘the dividend must be larger
than the divisor’ (Fischbein et al., 1985). The implicit model has also affected the choice of
operation for division word problems.
Although there is no difference in the mean score of test items in Grade 5 and 6, it is very
different in the solving strategy. Many students in Grade 5 used the unit strategy and they in
Grade 6 did the equivalent strategy. It is conjectured that before they understand the
equivalent strategy, they use the unit strategy in a transition period. The equivalent strategy
means more sophisticated strategy with respect to the development stage of proportional
reasoning.
References
Bell,A.,Fischbein,E., and Greer,B.(1984). Choice of operation in verbal arithmetic problems:
The effects of number size, problem structure and content. Educational Studies in
Mathematics, 15,129-147.
Ben-Chaim,D.,Fey,J.T.,Fitzgerald,W.,Benedetto,C., and Miller,J.(1998). Proportional
reasoning among 7th grade students with different curricular experiences. Educational
Studies in Mathematics,36(3),247-273.
Clark,M.R., Berenson,S.B., and Cavey,L.O.(2003). A comparison of ratios and fractions
and their roles as tools in proportional reasoning. Journal of Mathematical
Behavior,22(3),297-317.
Dole,S.(2008). Ratio tables to promote proportional reasoning in the primary classroom.
Australian Primary Mathematics Classroom,13,18–22.
Fischbein,E.,Deri,M.,Nello,M., and Marino,M.S.(1985). The role of implicit models in
solving problems in multiplication and division. Journal for Research in Mathematics
Education,16,3-17.
Greer,B.(1987). Nonconservation of multiplication and division involving decimals. Journal
for Research on Mathematics Education,18,pp.37-45.
Greer,B.(1992). Multiplication and division as models of situations. In D.Grouws(Ed.),
Handbook of Research on Mathematics Teaching and Learning(pp.276-295). New York:
Macmillan.
Greer,B.(1994). Extending the meaning of multiplication and division. In G.Harel and
J.Confrey(Eds.), The Development of Multiplicative Reasoning in the Learning of
Mathematics(pp.61–85). Albany,NY: SUNY Press.
Inhelder,B. and Piaget,J.(1958). The growth of logical thinking from childhood to
adolescence. New York: Basic Books.
Karplus,R.,Pulos,S., and Stage,E.(1983). Early adolescents’ proportional reasoning on rate
problems. Educational Studies in Mathematics,14(3),219-233.
Lamon, S.J.(1993). Ratio and proportion: Connecting content and children’s thinking.
Journal for Research in Mathematics Education,24(1),41–61.

Kishimoto 17
Lamon,S.(1999). Teaching fractions and ratios for understanding: Essential content

knowledge and instructional strategies for teachers. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum
Associates.
Lesh,R.,Post,T., and Behr,M.(1988). Proportional Reasoning. In J.Hiebert and M.Behr(Eds.)
Number Concepts and Operations in the Middle Grades (pp.93-118). Reston, VA:
Lawrence Erlbaum and National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.
Singer,J.A. and Resnick,L.B.(1992). Representations of proportional relationships: Are
children part-part or part-whole reasoners? Educational Studies in
Mathematics,23,231-246.1992.
Singh,P.(2000). Understanding the concept of proportion and ratio constructed by two grade
six students. Educational Studies in Mathematics,43(3),271-292.
Sophian,C. and Wood.A.(1997). Proportional reasoning in young children: The parts and the
whole of it. Journal of Educational Psychology,89,309–317.
Tourniaire,F., and Pulos,S.(1985). Proportional reasoning: A review of the literature.
Educational Studies in Mathematics,16(2),181-204.
Van Dooren,W.,De Bock,D.,Verschaffel,L.(2010). From Addition to Multiplication … and
Back: The Development of Students’ Additive and Multiplicative Reasoning Skills.
Cognition and Instruction,28(3),360-381.
Tadayuki Kishimoto
University of Toyama
Faculty of Human Development
3190 Gofuku, Toyama, Japan, 930-8555
kisimoto@edu.u-toyama.ac.jp

18 Deductive Reasoning Ability of Prospective Mathematics Teachers in Basic Mathematics and Discrete
Mathematics Courses
DEDUCTIVE REASONING ABILITY OF PROSPECTIVE

MATHEMATICS TEACHERS IN BASIC MATHEMATICS AND
DISCRETE MATHEMATICS COURSES
Yaya S. Kusumah, Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia, Indonesia
A. Introduction
Life challenges in the global world are much harder than ever before. In the modern world,
the demand to be able to participate actively in any event is much heavier, and almost all
activities need high skills with high quality. Without well prepared programs, it will be
difficult to cope with problems arising in the 21st century.
One of the characteristics of the 21st century is that the world is now much more global,
interconnected one and another, and borderless due to the easiness of information flow.
Competency development in the 21st century requires some skills which contain
interdisciplinary theme, including global awareness, financial literacy, civic literacy, and
environment literacy. To fulfil this demand, some skills are definitely required: (1) Learning
skills and Innovation; (2) Information and Media/Technology Skills, (3) Life Skills and
Career (Toh & Kaur, 2016). This means that in facing the demand, we need to strengthen
our ability in logical thinking, critical thinking, creative thinking, problem solving,
communication, representation, and connection.
Searching and browsing for gaining information, which is almost unlimited, require
high competency in selecting and accessing information resources, and the ability in
analyzing, and drawing a conclusion. All these skills can be obtained by developing critical,
logical, creative and productive thinking.
The enhancement of high-order mathematical thinking, particularly critical thinking in
mathematics in formal education can be developed through teaching activities, emphasized
in the system, structures, concepts, principles, and strong connections between one element
and another. These efforts need deductive thinking pattern in logic, where its application is
required in daily life. Logic concept can explain and simplify situation by using abstraction
or generalization (Kusumah, 1986). Some deductive principles which cover the rules of
inference and the rules of replacement can be found in Copi (1973) dan Suppes (1992).
Based on the above mentioned description, logical and critical thinking ability play
important role in shaping students’ uderstanding on mathematics concepts. Triggered by this
situation, in this research the following problems are formulated and analyzed in: (1)
Students’ logical thinking ability; (2) Students’ critical thinking ability.
B. Theoretical Framework
1. Logic as the Science of Reasoning
Logic, which can be considered as the science of reasoning, is the study of strategies
and principles used to distinguish correct reasoning from incorrect ones. It is expected that

Kusumah 19
someone who has studied logic at school has better reasoning than the one who has never
learned and analyzed principles and strategies of logic in their school time.
Logic is very important for some reasons: (1) Logic, like science or art, can be applied in
mathematics and other areas as well as in real world; (2) When logic is treated as a theory, its
application in any other field will make the practice even much better; (3) Logic helps anyone who
would like to test their way of thinking, whether it is correct or contains mistakes/fallacies; (4)
Logic gives techniques or strategies for correct thinking (reasoning) by providing rules which can
be used in testing or proving the validity of argument we have; and (5) Logic strengthens someone
in conducting debate or discussion which need deep analysis and strong evidence by a number of
rules.
Copy (1994) stated that “Logic has frequently been defined as the science of the laws of
thought”. Although thinking is the area of psychology, logic cannot be considered as the
science of the law of thought, as psychology is also a science that deals with law of thought.
Different from psychology, logic is not part of psychology, as it has its own field of analysis
and discussion.
When people think about something, they may or may not do reasoning, as thought is
related to the mental process in their minds. Logic does not always treat thought as an object
as there are many thought which are out of reasoning, or at least different from reasoning.
People can do thinking without reasoning, when they attempt to remember or forget
something, they are thinking, but they are not doing reasoning, because there are kinds of
thought which are not included in reasoning area.
Logic is concerned primarily with the correctness of the completed process of reasoning.
So, it should be clear whether a conclusion is obtained from the preceeding statements
(premisses), and the conclusion is the result or impact of the situation happens in the
premisses. It should be made clear whether the premisses make all corrects facts and
information available to be inferred into a conclusion, and we can prove that all the true
premisses will produce true statements (conclusion), then we can claim that our reasoning is
definitely correct. So, the focus of logic is how to obtain correct reasoning, and how to see
the difference between the correct reasoning from the incorrect ones. Yet we have to
guarantee that our inference is equipped with correct principles, methods and strategies
which have been developed under correct procedures as well.
2. Logical Thinking in Mathematics

Thinking is a mental activity which is experienced by someone who faces a problem
which needs to be solved as soon as possible. Thinking is considered as mental ability
which can be classified into several types: logical, analytic, systematic, critical, and creative
thinking.
Logical thinking is ability in identifying and analyzing facts and information in
mathematical concepts; finding the connection between two or more concepts; drawing
temporary conclusions until a final conclusion is obtained. This means, logical thinking

Mathematics Courses
ability contains reasoning, i.e. drawing conclusion derived from some known premisses
(Kusumah, 2014).
Logical thinking ability can be defined as thinking ability for drawing valid conclusion
based on rules in Logic, and the conclusion can be proved by using rules or principles which
have been proved (Copi, 1973; Kusumah, 1986; Suppes, 1992; Nickerson, 1999).
Poor understanding and lack of sufficient skills in reasoning are problems complained
by lecturers in the courses they carry out. When their students attempt to understand
concepts of mathematics, analyzing the concepts by using some deduction step, some
students find many difficulties. These problems indicate students’ poor competency in
applying logical thinking for solving mathematical problems. The difficulties they have
which can be observed from their mistakes in understanding the problems and the way they
conduct reasoning shows that they have not reached sufficient understanding in procedure
of inferences.
3. Critical Thinking Ability in Mathematics

The process of mathematical thinking is started from finding, processing, recording,
and retreiving information. Viewed from the complexity of involved activities,
mathematical thinking can be grouped into low-order thinking and high-order thinking
(Webb dan Coxford, 1993), and high-order mathematical thinking skills consists of 4 groups
of skills: problem solving, decision making, critical thinking, and creative thinking
(Presseisen, 1985).
Critical thinking, as one of mathematical thinking abilities is very important, since this
ability contains giving argumentation, using syllogisms, doing inferences, conducting
evaluation, and creating new or original products/knowledge. This means to gain critical
thinking ability, students need to master the system of thinking in mathematical deduction
which can explain and simplify a situation by abstraction and generalization.
Critical thinking is used to evaluate an activity or program under logical reason, using
evaluation standard in decision making, applying a number of strategies and giving reasoning,
collecting data and information as evidence which support the evaluation. Based on Shlecht and
Ennis argumentation (in Splitter, 1992: 123), critical thinking skill can be viewed from 2 different
perspectives: psychological and philosophical view. In psychological view, critical thinking
contains all required skills to identify, analyze, and evaluate argument; reasoning skills and
reflective thinking focused on decision making, mental processes, strategies, representation, which
enables to solve problem, making decision and learning new concepts. In philosophical point of
view, critical thinking is focused on the objective which connects cognitive area to outer world,
so decision, consideration, action an belief can be constructed.
Ennis (1996) expresses the indicator of critical thinking ability in 5 groups: (1) Elementary
clarification), (2) Basic support, (3) Inferring, (4) Advanced clarification), (5) Strategies and tactics.
What follows are some indicators for evaluating the existence of critical thinking ability in this
research: (1) Understanding the problem; (2) finding the reason; (3) understanding the information;

Kusumah 21
(4) using credible information resources; (5) considering the whole situation and condition; (6)
being consistent with the main and relevant idea; (7) considering basic and original interest; (8)
finding alternative solution; (9) open thinking; and (10) and taking stance when sufficient evidence
is at hand.
C. Research Methods
Time, Place, and the Method of the Research
This research was conducted in the School of Postgraduate Studies, Universitas
Pendidikan Indonesia, March-October, 2017. This research is descriptive naturalistic, based
on document analysis, survey, interview and analysis of students’ work.
The subject of the research were selected based on the objective of this research with
respect to the characteristics of the students (prospective mathematics teachers). They are
students in mathematics education, enrolling in Basic mathematics and Discrete
Mathematics Course in School of Postgraduate. The sample consists of 100 prospective
teachers, most of them are master students.
The data were collected by using participant observation, in-depth interview,
documentation analysis, and triangulation technique. The data of logical thinking ability in
mathematics were obtained from the test given to the students, and interview was carried out
for a number of students.
D. The Technique of Data Analysis
The nature of this research is theoretical descriptive, naturalistic descriptive, and

documentation analysis, whereas the techniques of data collection is participant observation,
in-depth interview, documentation, and triangulation. Students’ thinking ability during their
presence in the courses was analyzed, using qualitative, descriptive, empirical-theoretical,
continuous, inductive, and structured approach.
Students’ weaknesses in mathematical connections, relational understanding,
deductive reasoning, and critical-mathematical thinking are analyzed, based on theoretical
concepts and compared to the result of some relevant research. The analysis is focused on
students’ ability in applying the concepts of conditional statements in multi contexts; direct
and indirect rule of proof; quantified arguments, and sylogisms. Further, students’ ablity in
representing English sentences into symbolic statements, the way they interpret the
statements and manipulate them were analyzed.
This research is descriptive in nature, so the data analysis is also descriptive. Data
coding is conducted, and the data are classified and analyzed to answer the formulated
problem. Several phases in this research are: (1) Selecting the subject of the research; (2)
Developing instruments; (3) Collecting data; (4) Analizing data; and (5) Writing conclusion.

Mathematics Courses
E. Research Finding
Students’ Logical and Critical Thinking Ability in Mathematics
In brief, the students’ ability in logical and critical thinking ability of mathematics
students are described as follows:
Table 1. Students’ Logical and Critical Thinking Ability
CONCEPTS IN LOGICAL THINKING AVERAGE OF

NO ABILITY (%)
AND CRITICAL THINKING ABILITY
1 Statements and Truth Values 92.4
2 Negation of Single Statements 78.2
3 Truth Tables 84.0
4 Abbreviated Truth Tables 82.3
5 Onjunction Operations 85.5
6 Disjunction Operations 86.5
7 Implication Operations 82.1
8 Biimplication Operations 81.0
9 Conditional Statements 82.5
10 Converse 80.5
11 Inverse 80.2
12 Contrapositive 81.4
13 Negation of Conditional Statements 55.5
14 Application of Logic in Algebra 60.5
15 The Validity of Arguments 58.5
16 Symbolic Representation of Arguments 45.0
17 Direct Proof of Arguments by Using Rules of 55.5
Inferences
Replacements
Tautology
20 Diriect Proof of Arguments by Using Rules of 55.2
Conditional Proof
21 Indirect Proof of Arguments 52.4
22 The Invalidity of Arguments 57.2
23 Universal Quantifier 55.5
24 Existential Quantifier 55.2
25 Proving Quantified Arguments 50.5
26 Syllogisms 52.5
27 The Algebra of Logic 55.1
F. Analysis
1. Logical and Critical Thinking Ability in Mathematics

Kusumah 23
In dealing with the solution of logical question in mathematics, there are some
phenomena which depict students’ difficulty in several aspects. The following are some of
them:
Write the negation of the statement
“If Hilda becomes a student with the highest rank in the classroom; she will get a
barbie doll as a reward from her mother, only if she is happy to give a pinokio doll to her
little sister.”
More than 78% of the students have difficulties in answering all these questions. The
difficulty of finding the negation from this complicated conditional statement is due to the
students’ difficulties in converting the statements into symbols. Out of this number (78%),
more than 65% of the students could represent the statement symbollically:
Suppose that
J : Hilda becomes a student with the highest rank in the classrom;
H : Hilda gets a barbie doll as a reward from her mother;
B : Hilda is happy to give a pinokio doll to her little sister.
So far, up to this step, the students were able to do it. However, when they attempted to
represent the given statements based on the above symbols, more than 65% of the students
wrote
a. (J  H) B,
b. (H  J)  B,
c. J  (H  B,
where the correct symbolic statement is J  (B  H).
Out of the 65% students, there were about 22% students who were able to reach this
result, and there were less than 15% of the students who were able to to convert the above
statement in inclusive disjunction form  J  (B  H) into  J  ( B  H).
From this result, the negation of the statement is then obtained:
 ( J  ( B  H))
=   J   ( B v H)
= J    B   H.
= J  B   H.
Among the 22% of students who were able to express the statement in inclusive
disjunctive form, there were less than 5% who were able to get J  B and  H and only
about 3% who reach the interpretation of the symbolic statement J  B   H, which can be
narrated as “Hilda becomes a students with the highest rank in the classrom and she is
happy to give a pinokio doll to her little sister, but she does not get a barbie doll from her
mother”.

Mathematics Courses
It seems that this narative statement is logical and easy to understand for common
people, as the negation of “If Hilda becomes a student with the highest rank in the classrom,
she will get a barbie doll from her mother, if she is happy to give the pinokio doll to her
little sister”.
From the interview result, the students admitted that they could not reach the idea that
an implication form can be expressed in disjunction form under the Rule of Replacement.
This situation indicates that although the rule has been presented and discussed in the
classroom, the students were not so sensitive when the rules should be applied. This means,
students do not have mathematical connection.
The construction of the above conditional statement are incorrectly expressed, since the
students thought that the partial statement,
“she will get a barbie doll from her mother only if she gives a pinokio doll to her little
sister”.
The other factor which intervenes this situation is that the students did not think that the
conditional form pq is logically equivalent to  p  q, although some examples have been
given.
a. Direct Proof in Symbolic Logic

There were 82% of students who were not able to write proof deductively for the
following argument, by using Rules of Inference.
GH
H  (L  R)
(L  G)  J
/J.
Some students understood that to reach the statement in the conclusion, i.e. J, they
need to obtain LG in order that by using modus ponen, the statement (LG)  J
together with J produces the statement J. The problem is that the students were not aware of
thinking of finding the statement LG. There are 10% of students who have tried, all failed.
All students have no idea to reach the following:
 H  (L  R)
 (H  L)  ( H  R).
 HL
 HL
The statement GH (logically equivalent to the statement G H), together with
HL (which can be represented by HL) results in GL, which is logically
equivalent to GL (based on the principle of material implication in the Rule of
Replacements).

Kusumah 25
Some analysis based on the pattern and the way of students’ thinking, indicate most of
the students have some dificulties in applying Rule of Inferences, Rule of Replacements, and
Rule of Indirect Proofs, and also in proving the invalidity of quantified arguments.
From the data which have been collected by using triangulation technique, it can be
observed that this weakness is due to the poor logic in teaching, which integrates logic into
the presented materials. For example, when the statement “Write a statement which is
logically equivalent to pq”. Most of the students answer  p   q. There were only few
number of students who expressed that this statement is logically equivalent to  p  q.
Further, when they were asked the negation of pq, almost all students were wrong.
From the interview, it was clear that it is because they have never been asked to find the
negation of an implication. The only aplication of negation is only for single statements, or
the negation of compound statements which contain conjunction or disjunction operation
only. De Morgan’s Theorem has never been used, since they have not reached the
equivalent form of the statement pq, i.e.  p  q.
This weakness gives impact to the other failure (more than 72%) when the students try
to answer the following questions:
The negation of the statement “If the sun has shone, the morning dew starts to make the
soil wet” is
a. The sun has not shone but the morning dew has started to make the soil wet.
b. The sun has shone but the morning dew has not started to make the soil wet.
c. If the sun has not shone, the morning dew has not started to make the soil wet.
d. If the morning dew has started to make the soil wet, the sun has shone.
e. The sun has shone, but the morning dew has not statrted to make the soil wet.
The other factor which gives the students problems, is unsufficient and poor exercise which
do not contain challenging, divergent, and open-ended problems in some courses, e.g. Basic
Mathematics, or Discrete Mathematics.
b. Method of Quantification
The meaning of quantifier, both universal quantifier and existential quantifier, are some
concepts in which the students find some difficulties as well. The lack of examples and
limited time of discussion have made the students were poor ability in analyzing the concept
of quantification. They found difficulties in understanding double quantifiers, particularly
quantifier which contains relations between statements.
The result of the research indicates that there are 71% of the students who have no
skills in proving the validity of quantified arguments. Symbolic deduction manipulation is
one of the probems where their ability is very poor. Placed at the end of semester, together
with syllogisms, the theory of quantification has no sufficient time for students to
understand.

Mathematics Courses
c. Converse and Contrapositive Application

In the context of Discrete Mathematics, there were students who were not able to
prove some theorems, due to the lack of skills in deduction principles and logical inferences.
For example, in understanding the concept of Hamiltonian graph, the students were given
the following theorem (Dirac Theorem):
𝑛
Let G be a simple graph with n vertices, and n3. If deg(v) for all vertex v, then
2
G is a Hamiltonian graph.
When the students were given the following problems, more than 55% of the students
said that Dirac Theorem was incorrect. When the following question were given,
Are the following graph a Hamiltonian graph?
p
a b
F d
e f t
They immediately concluded that this graph was not Hamiltonian. They persistently said
𝑛
that the condition “G is a simple graph in n vertices, n3, and deg(v) “ was not
2
fulfiled. So, they concluded that Diracc Theorem is incorrect.
This mistake occurs as the result of the students’ thinking which claims that if pq is
correct, then pq is correct too. They claimed that the theorem is incorrect since they
managed to find a cycle in the graph, and a graph can be considered as Hamiltonian if the
𝑛
graph is simple in n vertices, where n3, and deg(v) , for all vertex v.”
2
G. Conclusion
The results and analysis in the previous section give the following conclusions:
a. The students find some difficulties in modeling an argument symbolically from an
argument presented in English sentences.
b. The students have poor ability in applying mathematical connection when they do
deduction process of statements from particular forms into any other forms by using
Rule of Replacements.
c. The students have little skills in manipulating a compound statement symbolically, as
the result of poor ability in memorizing some equivalent statements.
d. The students have no sufficient skills in proving theorems deductively in dealing with
some problems in other branches of mathematics.

Kusumah 27
e. The students have poor skills in identifying whether a particular statement is a

converse, inverse, or contrapositive of a given statement.
f. Some of the difficulty factors which result in students’ difficulties: lack of exercises
which consist of challenging, divergent, and open-ended problems, both in
mathematics courses and other courses which need logical thinking ability.
g. Students’ weaknesses in quantifier topics are due to the location of the topic in the
syllabus, which is placed at the end of the material, so the lecturers and the students
do not have sufficient time to discuss it deeply.
h. The students’ difficulty of symbolic deduction method is due to the difficulties in
understanding the rules and principles in syllogism validity and quantified arguments
which need high ability in critical thinking.
H. Reference
Copi, I. M. (1973). Symbolic Logic. New York: Macmillan Publishing Co.

Ennis, R.H. (1996). Critical Thinking. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Simon &
Schuster/A Viacom Company.
Kusumah (1986). Logika Matematika Elementer. Bandung: PT Tarsito.
Kusumah, Y.S. (2014). Kemampuan Berpikir Logis Matematis Mahasiswa dalam
Perkuliahan Matematika Dasar dan Matematika Diskrit in Proceeding of Konferensi
Nasional Matematika XVII, organized by Himpunan Matematika Indonesia (Indo-MS)
and Institut Teknologi Sepuluh November, ITS Surabaya.
Nickerson, R. S. (2010). Mathematical Reasoning (Patterns, Problems, Conjectures, and
Proofs). New York: Psychology Press – Taylor and Francis Group.
Presseisen, B.Z. (1985). Thinking Skill: Meanings and Models. Dalam Costa, A. L.
(Editor). Developing Minds. A Resource Book for Teaching Thinking. Virginia: ASCD.
Splitter, L.J. (1992). Critical Thinking: What, Why, When, and How. Australian
Council of Educational Research.
Suppes, P. (1992). Introduction to Logic, New York: Dover Publication Inc.
Toh, P. C. & Kaur, B. (2016). 21st Century Competency in Mathematics Classrooms,
dalam Developing 21st Century ompetencies in the Mathematics Classroom (Yearbook
2016), Association of Mathematics Educators, Singapore: World Scientific Publishing Co.
Pte. Ltd.
Webb, N.L. and Coxford, A.F. (1993). Assessment in Mathematics Classroom. Virginia:
NCTM.

28 Mathematics Learning Through Arts, Teahnology and Robotics: Multi-and Transdiscpilinary Steam
Approaches
MATHEMATICS LEARNING THROUGH ARTS, TECHNOLOGY

AND ROBOTICS: MULTI- AND TRANSDISCPILINARY STEAM
APPROACHES
Zsolt Lavicza, Johannes Kepler University, Austria
Kristof Fenyvesi, University of Jyvaskyla, Finland
Diego Lieban, Johannes Kepler University, Austria
Hogul Park, 4D Frame, South Korea
Markus Hohenwarter, Johannes Kepler University, Austria
Jose Diego Mantecon, University of Cantabria, Spain
Theodosia Prodromou, University of New England, NSW, Australia
Abstract
In mathematics education, there is a growing need to design activities, which focus on the
creative process, instead of emphasizing the result, which is a product of following a certain
plan. Art as a context for mathematical problem solving can be a fruitful starting point, as
art is usually thought to include creative thinking and finding one’s own way (Burnard et al.,
2016). Creative activities, may support the students to recognize that doing ”real”
mathematics is creative thinking; and creative thinking in mathematics means, that you do
your own mathematics. Problem solving activities can underline the process aspect of
mathematics and if the problem is open-ended and the problem solving require collaboration,
then different students’ strengths in different areas can be adding up on the group level
(English et al., 2008). The development of collaborative problem-solving skills and
supporting students to discover unexpected connections between different aspects of various
phenomena are not only effective tools, but also ambitious goals of today’s education
(Fenyvesi, 2016a). Traditional models of accumulating knowledge through direct teaching
are being replaced by networked models of learning. This supports both teachers and
students in appreciating various kinds of creativities and in transforming their whole
world – including the school – into a “possibility space” of learning (Burnard et al., 2017;
Jacinto et al., 2016).
In the Experience Workshop International Math-Art Movement
(www.experienceworkshop.org) all these developments prompt us to enlarge the set of
pedagogical approaches, tools and materials. In cooperation with global initiatives in the
field, such as the world’s largest math-art-education community, the Bridges Organization
(www.bridgesmathart.org) and the International Symmetry Association
(www.symmetry.hu), we would like to complement the STEM (Science, Technology,
Engineering and Mathematics) learning with creative, aesthetic and artistic aspects
(Colucci-Gray et al. 2017). Our goal is to move from STEM to STE-A-M (by the inclusion
of Arts) and make the most of the -successful models of cooperation among science and art
education (Fenyvesi, 2016b). Phenomenon-based learning opens schools to become multi-
and transdisciplinary, experience-oriented and collaborative educational environments
offering new opportunities for both mathematics and art learning. As technology is

Lavicza, Fenyvesi, Lieban, Park, Hohenwarter, Diego-Mantecon, Prodromou 29
transforming learning environments and becoming part of learning in the 21st century, it is
also important to experiment with connecting hands-on and digital modelling in the learning
process. In our presentation at EARCOME 8, we are introducing our pedagogical
framework through examples of art- and robotics-related problem-solving activities,
selected from the Experience Workshop International Math-Art Movement’s portfolio as
well as outline research results from a variety of projects we carried out in the past 7
years. In addition, we will make recommendations on how STEAM pedagogies could
further teaching and learning of mathematics in various countries.
References
Burnard, P., Ross, V., Dragovic, T., Powell, K., Minors, H., Mackinlay, E. (Eds) (2017)
'Building Interdisciplinary and Intercultural Bridges: Where Practice Meets Research and
Theory'.
Doerr, H. M., Wood T. (2006) Pesquisa-Projeto (design-research): aprendendo a ensinar
Matemática. In: Tendências Internacionais em Formação de Professores de Matemática.
Org. Borba M. C. Autêntica Editora – Belo Horizonte – MG
English, L., Lesh, R. A., & Fennewald, T. (2008). Future Directions and Perspectives for
Problem Solving Research and Curriculum Development. Presented at the 11th
International Congress on Mathematical Education.
Fenyvesi, K. (2016a) 4Dframe’s Warka Water Workshop: Environmental Problem-Solving
through Creative Activities in STEAM. Proceedings of Bridges 2016: Mathematics, Music,
Art, Education, Architecture, Culture.
Fenyvesi, K. (2016b) Bridges: a World Community for Mathematical Art. Mathematical
Intelligencer.
Colucci-Gray, L., Trowsdale, J., Cooke, C. F., Davies, R., Burnard, P., & Gray, D. S. (2017).
Reviewing the potential and challenges of developing STEAM education through creative
pedagogies for 21st learning: how can school curricula be broadened towards a more
responsive, dynamic, and inclusive form of education? British Educational research
Association.
Jacinto, H., Carreira, S., & Mariotti, M. A. (2016). Mathematical problem solving with
technology beyond the classroom: the use of unconventional tools and methods. Presented
at the 40th International Congress on Mathematical Education, PME.

30 High School Teachers’ Attitudes toward Statistics in South Korea
HIGH SCHOOL TEACHERS’ ATTITUDES TOWARD STATISTICS

IN SOUTH KOREA
Bongju Lee, Kyungpook National University, Korea
Xiaohui Wang, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, USA
Hyung Won Kim, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, USA
Introduction
Research demonstrates the importance of non-cognitive factors in cognitive performance in
mathematics learning (Schoenfeld, 1992). Findings consistent with those in mathematics
education have been reported in the field of statistics education as well. For example,
non-cognitive aspects of teachers’ learning of statistics impact how they implement
statistics curricula, their beliefs on the usefulness of professional development programs,
and their students’ statistics learning (Estrada, Batanaro, & Lancaster, 2011; Lancaster,
2008). However, recent studies point to the ubiquity of negative attitudes toward statistics
among pre- and in-service primary teachers (Estrada, 2002). For example, Martins,
Nascimento and Estrada (2012) found in their empirical study that many primary teachers
believe statistical methodologies can be used to manipulate results, mistrust statistics
presented in the media and avoid using statistics in their daily lives. Such findings suggest
the need to investigate teachers’ attitudes toward statistics beyond the primary level. Given
that teaching statistics at the post-primary school level requires more statistics content
knowledge and corresponding statistics pedagogical knowledge, this study explores Korean
in-service high school math teachers’ (KHMTs) attitudes toward statistics in Korea.
Exploration of KHMTs’ attitudes toward statistics is of particular importance because high
school statistics in Korea is taught by math teachers, whose educational backgrounds in
statistics content and pedagogy are weaker than in mathematics. This can be problematic
because statistics is a discipline distinct from mathematics in aspects that affect teaching
and learning (Kim & Fukawa-Connelly, 2015).
This study is framed by a theoretical construct that classifies attitudes into three pedagogical
components—affective, cognitive and behavioral—which is widely used in psychological
and educational research on the non-cognitive domain of pedagogy. Further, we consider
how three teacher characteristics—gender, academic background and statistics teaching
experience—predict teachers’ attitudes toward statistics. The specific research questions
are:
(1) How do the three aspects (affective, cognitive and behavioral) of attitude
characterize KHMTs’ attitudes toward statistics?
(2) How do the teacher characteristics of gender, academic background and
statistics teaching experience predict KHMTs’ attitudes toward statistics?
Background
Non-cognitive factors in statistics pedagogy

Lee, Wang, Kim 31
The Statistics Attitude Survey (SAS; Roberts & Bilderback, 1980) and Attitudes Toward
Statistics (ATS; Wise, 1985) are widely used to measure college students’ attitudes toward
statistics. Based on these two instruments, Estrada (2002) developed the Scale of Attitudes
towards Statistics (EAEE), which she used to identify areas of negative attitudes among
Portuguese primary teachers. In a follow-up study, Martins, Nascimento and Estrada (2012)
explained the nature of the negative attitudes that Estrada reported in 2002. Also, Lancaster
(2008) reported pre-service primary teachers’ current self-efficacy to learn statistics in the
future as a moderate predictor of their beliefs on the usefulness of future professional
development in statistics in their classroom teaching. These studies have contributed to the
literature on attitudes toward statistics by identifying areas of negative teacher attitudes, the
nature of those attitudes, and the correlations between affect and beliefs, but they consider
only primary teachers. This study extends this line of research to high school teachers.
Pedagogical components of attitudes toward statistics
The classification of attitudes into three pedagogical components has been widely used in
studies of teachers’ attitudes (e.g., Estrada, 2002; Gómez-Chacón, 2000; Martins,
Nascimento, & Estrada, 2012). In particular, we draw on Estrada’s (2002) and Martins,
Nascimento and Estrada’s (2012) work on primary teachers’ attitudes toward statistics, in
which they used the “affective” component to address feelings about objects in question; the
“cognitive” component to address self-perception or beliefs about objects in question; and
the “behavioral” component to address inclinations to act in a particular way about the
objects in question.
Characteristics of KHMTs
The interest of gender is evident in social sciences. In this study, we group the KHMTs by
their academic background and statistics teaching experience as well as gender.
Academic Background
Many statistics educationists (for example, Garfield & Ben-Zvi, 2008; Kim &
Fukawa-Connelly, 2015) hold that statistics is a discipline distinct in nature from
mathematics. The disciplines differ, for example, in problem-solving goals and whether
problem-solving context is essential. Aligning with this view, the authors of this paper hold
that for mathematics teachers to teach statistics, they must be equipped with teaching
strategies and pedagogical content knowledge specific to the teaching of statistics as well as
statistics content knowledge. The reality in Korean high schools is, however, that high
school statistics content, which is equivalent to more than two-thirds of the content typically
discussed in US elementary statistics courses, is often taught by mathematics teachers with
an insufficient statistics background. This fact points to potential problems in Korean high
school statistics education: pre-service math teachers are not typically required to take more
than a sequence of two mathematical statistics courses to graduate from credential programs.
Hence, KHMTs’ statistics knowledge is likely to be limited to the mathematics side of
statistics, and they may have developed negative attitudes toward statistics. For this reason,
this study explores whether the attitudes that KHMTs take toward statistics might differ

depending on their educational background. We therefore divide the participants into three
groups, denoted by AB0, AB1 and AB2, by the number of statistics courses taken by the
teachers: AB0 for those with no statistics background beyond elementary statistics; AB1 for
those who took a course from one of four categories—mathematical statistics, applied
statistics regarding regression or biostatistics, advanced statistics such as multivariate data
analysis or time series, and experimental design; and AB2 for those who took courses from
two of the same four categories.
Statistics Teaching Experience
In mathematics teaching, there is a wide disjuncture between practices recommended by
credential programs and practices actually employed by teachers, partly due to the fact that
novice teachers find it difficult to implement practices they learned in such programs
(Gainsburg, 2012). High school math teachers tend to form, with experience, their own
teaching methods that incorporate practices that fit the culture of their work environment
(Gainsburg, 2012) as well as aspects of the teachers’ own dispositions toward learning,
teaching and specific subjects (Kim, 2017). Because novice and experienced teachers’
practices and attitudes toward a subject can be expected to differ, the study considers
teaching experience as a factor in KHMTs’ attitudes toward statistics and statistics teaching.
Methods
To explore KHMTs’ attitudes toward statistics, we drew on a survey instrument that Kim,
Wang, Lee and Castillo (2017) developed to measure college instructors’ attitudes toward
statistics and teaching college level elementary statistics. The survey is applicable because
high school statistics content in Korea significantly overlaps with three of the four major
themes that comprise college level elementary statistics: exploring data, sampling and
experimentation, anticipating patterns, and statistical inference (College Board, 2014).
Statistical inference is not commonly discussed in Korean high schools.
The survey is divided into three parts: Part I collected biodata (teacher characteristics) of the
participants. Parts II and III, translated from English into Korean, are from Kim et al. (2017).
Part II (15 items) addresses teachers’ attitudes toward statistics (as a discipline and a tool to
solve problems) and is subdivided, with five items for each of the three pedagogical
components—affective, cognitive and behavioral. Part III (28 items) addresses instructors’
attitudes toward statistics teaching recommendations, and is also subdivided by the three
pedagogical components. This paper’s analysis uses participant responses to the items in
Parts I and II only. Table 1 shows three example questions.
Table 1. Example items
Item Statement
2 I feel intimidated by statistical data.
10 Statistics is not very useful for most adults.
It’s normal for me to communicate with friends and colleagues about statistical problems
13
and issues.

Lee, Wang, Kim 33
For data collection, an online survey was sent to 337 KHMTs via email from 8/2016 until
7/2017, and 125 KHMTS responded. The high return rate (37.09%) is likely due to the
researchers’ personal acquaintances with some of the participants. The analysis is based on
the 91 responses, which answered more than 90% of Part II. The 15 items have a
Likert-scale format. To increase the effect of responses, we used a 9-point scale (instead of
the usual 5-point scale) from -4 (disagree) to 4 (agree). To avoid apparent acquiescence, 8
items were phrased positively and 7 were phrased negatively; the latter were reversed for
the analysis. We then converted the range of each item from the -4–4 scale to a 1–9 scale for
analysis.
Two sets of analyses were conducted. The first set of analyses compared the participants’
responses on the survey to examine their attitudes according to the three pedagogical
components (affective, cognitive and behavioral). In the second set of analyses, the
participants’ responses to the survey were compared across the participants by grouping
them in three ways based on their biodata: by gender (GN: male, female); by academic
background (AB: Stat0, Stat1 and Stat2); and by mathematics teaching experience (STE; Nov:
less than 7 years; Mid: 7–16 years; Exp: 17 years or more). Throughout the paper’s
discussion, we use the abbreviations GN, AB and MTE for gender, academic background
and statistics teaching experience, respectively. The gender groups were compared using
one-sided t-tests. The differences between the academic background groups and the
differences between the statistics teaching experience groups were analyzed using Welch
ANOVAs without assuming equal variance. Also, post hoc multiple comparisons were
performed to identify the specific AB/MTE groups that were the sources of differences in
these analyses.
Results
All significance tests were conducted at α = .10, .05 and . 01. Due to the limitations
involved in making dichotomous conclusions based on p-values (Gelman, 2013), we further
provide 95% 2-sided confidence intervals (CIs) for the distribution of the participants’
scores on the affective, cognitive and behavioral components separately as well as their
overall scores on all 15 items using the t-tests. The scores could range from 1 to 9 as we
used a 9-point Likert scale. Table 2 provides the comparisons of the three pedagogical
components of attitude and overall attitude in terms of the groupings based on each of the
three teacher characteristics considered in this study.
Gender
No gender difference is shown by the p-values, which are all greater than .10. However,
considering the small sample size (𝑛 = 91), the p-values close to .10 indicate a possibility
of gender differences on affective (𝑝 = .188) and behavioral (𝑝 = .152) components. Also,
while female KHMTs scored higher on the cognitive component, male KHMTs scored
higher on affective and behavioral components.
Academic Background

The AB differences are significant for the affective component, the behavioral component
and the overall score, at α = .01, .05 and . 10, respectively. The scores on affective and
behavioral components increase with the increase of statistics courses taken. For the
cognitive component, we note that, although the difference is not significant (𝑝 = .913), the
score of the Stat1 group is higher than those of the other two groups (Stat0 and Stat2).
Mathematics Teaching Experience
The MTE differences are significant for the affective component, the cognitive component
and the overall score at α = .10, .05 and .05, respectively. For all components, the
reference group is Nov (less than 7 years of experience). In general, the score difference
between Mid and Exp is very small compared to the difference between each of these two
groups and the Nov group. It is important to note that, for the affective component, the score
of Exp (6.9677) is lower than that of Mid (7.2552).
Table 2. Summary of the Results
Affective (A) Cognitive (C) Behavioral (B) Overall (O)

95% CI (6.5987, 7.2079) (6.4748, 6.9032) (5.7676, 6.3072) (6.3383, 6.7448)
Mean (SD) 6.9033 (1.4625) 6.6890 (1.0284) 6.0374 (1.2832) 6.5416 (.9758)
GN (n=91) 𝑝 = .188 𝑝 = .602 𝑝 = .152 𝑝 = .237
Male (n=65) 7.0431 (1.3695) 6.6546 (1.0595) 6.1569 (1.3198) 6.6169 (.9895)
Female (n=26) 6.5539 (1.6495) 6.7750 (.9605) 5.7385 (1.2050) 6.3533 (.9325)
AB (n=91) 𝑝 = .004 𝑝 = .913 𝑝 = .043 𝑝 = .083

Stat0 (n=28) 6.2357ref (1.5174) 6.7411 (1.0195) 5.5071ref (1.2359) 6.1590ref (1.0087)
Stat1 (n=47) 7.1021* (1.4684) 6.7053 (1.0505) 6.2723** (1.3374) 6.6914* (.9593)
Stat2 (n=16) 7.4875*** (1.1210) 6.5500ref (1.2502) 6.2750* (1.0743) 6.7708* (1.0743)
MTE (n=90) 𝑝 = .078 𝑝 = .581 𝑝 = .031 𝑝 = .023
Nov (n=30) 6.4533ref (1.3564) 6.5117 ref (1.1475) 5.5000ref (1.0722) 6.1529ref (.8020)
Mid (n=29) 7.2552* (1.3511) 6.6887 (.9258) 6.3226* (1.2789) 6.6568** (.8952)
Exp (n=31) 6.9677 (1.5976) 6.8643 (.9444) 6.4000** (1.3453) 6.4000 (1.0904)
Note. * p < .05; ** p < .01; *** p < .001. Subscript “ref” marks the reference group in each column,
to which the other groups were compared.
Table 2 also compares the component-wise mean scores (Affective: 6.9033, Cognitive:
6.68901, and Behavioral: 6.0374). Further, while the results show AB differences and MTE
differences for both affective and behavioral components, no difference is observed for the
cognitive component for either of these groupings. Even for GN, the p-value (𝑝 = .602) for

Lee, Wang, Kim 35
the cognitive component is greater than the p-values for the affective (𝑝 = .146) and
behavioral (𝑝 = .152) components.
Discussion
Although the findings do not demonstrate apparent relationships among the three
pedagogical components of attitude, they do show some patterns. For example, there were
more negative responses regarding the behavioral component (mean = 6.0374) than the
other two components (affective: mean = 6.9033; cognitive: mean = 6.6890). The
findings further suggest that statistics teaching experience (MTE) and academic background
(AB) are, respectively, strong and moderate predictors of KHMTs’ attitudes toward
statistics. In particular, AB seems to be a very strong predictor for the affective component
(p = .004), and MTE seems to be a strong predictor for the behavioral component (p =
.031). This indicates that affect (how KHMTs feel about statistics) and behavior (how they
act around statistics) differ moderately by GN and strongly by AB and MTE. However, the
evidence is not sufficient to claim that the cognitive component (perceptions or beliefs
about statistics) do not differ by any of the GN, AB and MTE groupings.
The mean scores of 6.9033 (A), 6.68901 (C) and 6.0374 (B) shown in Table 1 are lower
than the mean scores reported in a similar study by Kim et al. (2017) for the US
college-level instructors who responded to the same survey: 7.674 (A), 7.096 (C) and 6.906
(B). These findings have implications regarding the culture of statistics teaching at the high
school level in Korea. Mathematics teachers must develop the necessary attitudes toward
the subject to successfully implement effective teaching strategies (Wilson & Cooney,
2002), and non-cognitive characteristics play a significant role in how teachers implement
statistics curricula (Estrada, Batanaro & Lancaster, 2011). KHMTs’ developing positive
attitudes toward statistics will ensure effective statistics teaching, and ultimately help
cultivating high school students’ statistical literacy in Korea.
This study lays a foundation for future studies to explore the origins of and factors in high
school instructors’ attitudes toward statistics, the dynamics of how their attitudes affect their
teaching and pedagogical decision-making, and how the challenges in teaching statistics
relate to these instructors’ attitudes toward statistics.
This study has limitations. Both its relatively small sample size for a quantitative study and
its dependence on voluntary responses constrain the extent to which the findings can be
generalized. A larger scale study would be necessary to arrive at firmer conclusions and
provide more generalizable results.
References
Estrada, A. (2002). Análisis de las actitudes y conocimientos estadísticos elementales en la
formación del profesorado [Analysis of attitudes and elementary statistical knowledge in
training teachers] (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Universidad Autónoma de
Barcelona, Spain.
Estrada, A., Batanero, C., & Lancaster, S. (2011). Teachers’ attitudes towards statistics. In C.
Batanero, G. Burrill, & C. Reading (Eds.), Teaching statistics in school mathematics:

Challenges for teaching and teacher education. A joint ICMI/IASE study (pp. 163–174).
New York: Springer.
Gainsburg, J. (2012). Why new mathematics teachers do or don’t use practices emphasized in
their credential program. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 15, 359–379.
Garfield, J., & Ben-Zvi, D. (2008). Developing students’ statistical reasoning: Connecting
research and teaching practice. New York: Springer.
Gelman, A. (2013). P values and statistical practice. Epidemiology, 24(1), 69–72.
Gómez-Chacón, I. (2000). Affective influences in the knowledge of mathematics.
Educational Studies in Mathematics, 43(2), 149–168.
Kim, H. (2017). The teacher identity of mathematics teachers. In B. Kaur, W. K. Ho, T. L.
Toh, & B. H. Choy (Eds.), Proceedings of the 41st Conference of the International Group
for the Psychology of Mathematics Education (Vol. 3, pp. 49–56). Singapore: PME.
Kim, H., & Fukawa-Connelly, T. (2015). Challenges faced by a mathematically strong
student in transferring his success in mathematics to statistics: A case study. Journal of the
Korean Society of Mathematics Education–Series A: The Mathematics Education, 54(3),
223–240. doi.org/10.7468/mathedu.2015.54.3.223
Kim, H., Wang, X., Lee, B., & Castillo, A. (2017). College instructors’ attitudes toward
statistics. In A. Chronaki (Ed.), Proceedings of the 9th International Mathematics
Education and Society Conference (Vol. 2, pp. 611–621). Volos, Greece: University of
Thessaly.
Lancaster, S. (2008). A study of preservice teachers’ attitudes toward their role as students of
statistics and implications for future professional development in statistics. In C. Batanero,
G. Burrill, C. Reading, & A. Rossman (Eds.), Proceedings of the ICMI Study 18 and 2008
IASE Round Table Conference. Monterrey, Mexico: International Commission on
Mathematical Instruction and International Association for Statistical Education.
Martins, J. A., Nascimento, M. M., & Estrada, A. (2012). Looking back over their shoulders:
A qualitative analysis of Portuguese teachers’ attitudes towards statistics. Statistics
Education Research Journal, 11(2), 26–44.
Roberts, D. M., & Bilderback, E. W. (1980). Reliability and validity of a statistics attitude
survey. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 40, 235–238.
Schoenfeld, A. H. (1992). Learning to think mathematically: Problem solving,
metacognition, and sense making in mathematics. In D. A. Grouws (Ed.), Handbook of
research on mathematics teaching and learning (pp. 334–370). New York: Macmillan.
Willson, M., & Cooney, T. J. (2002). Mathematics teacher change and development: The
role of beliefs. Beliefs: A hidden variable in mathematics education, 127-147.
Wise, S. L. (1985). The development and validation of a scale measuring attitudes toward
statistics. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 45(2), 401–405.

Lee, Wang, Kim 37
[Bongju Lee]
[Kyungpook National University, Korea]
[leebj@knu@ac.kr]
[Xiaohui Wang]
[University of Texas Rio Grande Valley]
[xiaohui.wang@utrgv.edu]
[Hyung Won Kim]

[University of Texas Rio Grande Valley]
[hyung.kim@utrgv.edu]

38 Designing Practice Examples to Support Mathematics Reasoning
DESIGNING PRACTICE EXAMPLES TO SUPPORT

MATHEMATICS REASONING
Leong Yew Hoong, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Cheng Lu Pien, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Toh Wei Yeng Karen, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Introduction
This paper reports a case study of how a teacher (Teacher Teck Kong) designed and used
practice examples with a view of encouraging students’ mathematical reasoning. We think
that this is an important area deserving of deeper inquiry because practice examples are
tasks that are familiar to mathematics teachers all over the world. Despite calls over
numerous reform efforts to do away with or minimize the use of this vestige of a
‘drill-and-practice’ era, practice examples persist as a mainstay in most mathematics
classrooms. Instead of treating practice examples as merely materials associated with
undesirable pedagogy, a study of this nature can help open up new possibilities in achieving
other worthy mathematical instructional goals using tools that are (perhaps wrongly-)
dismissed as too traditional and uninventive. We think the case of Teck Kong’s use of
practice examples presents a refreshing take on an ‘old’ topic and can potentially bridge
research knowledge in both the areas of mathematical reasoning and task design. Before we
describe the details of the case study, we briefly review current literature on practice
examples and reasoning.
Mathematical reasoning
There has been a surprising absence of research that connects the use of practice examples
to the specific goal of teaching mathematical reasoning. In most studies on the use of
practice examples, the intended student outcomes so far are in specific mathematical skill
proficiency, flexibility, conceptual learning. Perhaps it is yet inconceivable that a complex
thinking process such as mathematical reasoning can be taught productively through the use
of practice examples. This renders the case of Teacher Teck Kong all the more compelling.
But before we zoom-in to the case study of Teck Kong, we review the literature on this
elusive but oft-used conception of “mathematical reasoning”.
In synthesising the existing literature in this field, Jeanotte and Kieran (2017) proposed a
conceptual model of mathematical reasoning that is specifically crafted for the study of
students’ reasoning when learning school mathematics. They defined mathematical
reasoning as “a process of communication with others or with oneself that allows inferring
mathematical utterances from other mathematical utterances”. It is clear that this broad
definition incorporates the inductive-deductive steps—which they referred to as the
“structural aspect” of mathematical reasoning, which is about the “more static aspect that is
related to the form of a given piece of mathematical reasoning”. In addition, their model
also includes the “process aspect” which highlights the more temporal and discursive
perspective of mathematical reasoning. Under this aspect, they listed and defined nine
processes: generalising, conjecturing, identifying a pattern, comparing, classifying,

Leong, Cheng, Toh 39
validating, justifying, proving, formal proving, exemplifying. This model proposed by

Jeanotte and Kieran is by far the most encompassing and at the same time rooted to the
needs of analysing reasoning at the level of school mathematics. In this case study of
Teacher Teck Kong, we draw heavily from the model.
Method
As mentioned briefly at the start of the paper, the choice of Teck Kong as case study of
mathematical reasoning was largely due to his own reference to “reasoning” in one of the
post-lesson interviews. He explained vividly the rationale behind the selection of the
examples in his instructional materials he designed and thus we were intrigue to examine
them. The class that he taught as the resident teacher comprised 20 students aged between
14 and 16.
The module that Teck Kong taught was “Quadratic Graphs and Inequalities”. As stipulated
by the Ministry of Education, MOE (2012), students have to learn: (a) to solve quadratic
equations in one variable by using (i) the general formula, (ii) completing the square and/or
(iii) graphical; (b) to know the conditions for a quadratic equation to have (i) two real roots,
(ii) two equal roots, (iii) no real roots; (c) to know the conditions for 𝑎𝑥 2 + 𝑏𝑥 + 𝑐 to be
always positive (or always negative); (d) solving quadratic inequalities, and representing the
solution (i) using a graph, or (ii) on the number line.
Under instructional materials, Teck Kong used mostly the set of notes he and some of his
colleagues in his department had prepared for the students. These related instructional
materials form the first primary source of data. The next source of data is the interviews we
conducted with Teck Kong. We conducted one pre-module interview before his lessons and
three post-lesson interviews after three lessons he selected—Lessons 03, 06 and 08. All
interviews were video recorded. We designed an interview protocol with two sets of
questions and probes respectively for the pre-module interview and post-lesson interviews.
The third source of data is Teck Kong’s enactment of his lessons in the module. We adopted
non-participant observer roles during the course of our study—one researcher sat at the back
of the class to observe Teck Kong’s lessons. This is so that the researcher will be
able–during the post-lesson interviews—to make relevant and specific references to his
teaching actions when pursuing certain threads during the interviews. A video camera is
also placed at the back of the class to record Teck Kong’s actions. A total of 10 lessons
were video recorded for Teck Kong. Figure 1 shows how we proceeded with our analysis
along four stages:

Composition of
Testing of Conjectures
Chronological Narratives
• Examined teacher's notes • Identified themes from CN
for segments that are by coding data.
intertwined. • Organised data from each • Synthesised themes that • Refuted and refined
• Divided segments into unit of analysis according emerged and formed conjectures on first unit.
"units" to analyse to timeline to form conjectures. • Corroborated with second
separately. respective chronological and third units to finalise
narratives (CN). conjecture.
Identification of Formation of Conjectures
Units of Analysis
Figure 1. Stages of analysis

Results
For the purpose of this paper, we present the Chronological Narrative based on one unit of
analysis which spans a number of practice examples taken from the set of notes.
From Teck Kong’s post-lesson interview after Lesson 06:
The first section [Example 3 & Example 4(a), (b), (c) as shown in Figure 2] is easy to factorize,
just focus on using principle of the method to solve, using graphical method. Then advance one
more, so you specifically say out in this Example 5. Right, what happens if we cannot factorize
properly …
We learnt that “advance one more” seems to be referring to the advancement of the
method – it means a development and refinement of the method. That is, the method in the
main is intact (i.e. using graphs to see the sections required), but modifications, such as,
using formula instead of factorization to find roots – need to be added to the arsenal. Teck
Kong’s notes also pointed out explicitly that the expression given in Example 5 is not easily
factorized (see Figure 3). At this point, we conjecture that (1) the examples were
sequenced to advance method.
An analysis of Teck Kong’s enactment of this portion of the notes bears this out: He
carefully points out to students that Example 5 “is the case where you cannot factorise very
nicely” (Lesson 5 transcript, 25:59). Hence a different method is needed which he
demonstrated using the quadratic formula.
Example 3 Solve the inequality 2x2 – 7x + 6 < 0.

Example 4 Solve the following inequality using a graphical approach:
(a) x2 – 4x + 3 > 0
(b) 3x2 – 4x – 7 < 0
(c) 4 – x2 < 0
Figure 2. Examples 3 and 4 in the instructional materials

Example 5 Solve the inequality 2x2 + x – 4 > 0.

Solution: We observe (or check) that the expression 2x2 + x – 4
is not easily factorized. In this case, we have to find the
x-intercepts using the quadratic formula. We present our
working in this way ...
Example 6 Solve the following inequalities, giving exact answers:
(a) x2 + 4x – 7 > 0
(b) 2x2 < 5
(c) x2 + 2x + 11 > 0
(d) 3x2 – 30x + 75 < 0
Figure 3. Examples 5 and 6 in the instructional materials
The analysis of Teck Kong’s lesson showed that the method used in Example 5 was applied
to Example 6. Teck Kong expanded the examples systematically to a whole suite of what he
called non-standard cases in Example 6. He also referred to those cases as “special”. In his
post-lesson interview Teck Kong said:
So the Examples 5 and 6 [See Figure 3] specifically address all the non-standard cases, that
means I can't factorize properly, what do I do? Or even if I can factorize properly …. 6(c)
and 6(d) are special cases as I said. … Example 4, they will say, “Okay, I’m quite
comfortable with the method, now these [Example 5 & 6] are all the unusual cases I must
know how to- how to take care of …
When we continued to analyse Teck Kong’s progression from Example 6(b) to 6(c) in his
lesson, we observed the application, development and refinement of the method. Moreover,
from the post-lesson interview after Lesson 06, we learnt that the development of reasoning
was intentionally built into the instructional materials:
[T]oday the focus is on the non-standard examples [Examples 5 & 6]…. So here is to
promote reasoning in general, because here the basic idea they want to learn is if I can get
the sketch of the graph, I can use the graph to deduce a solution … This way we make sure
that they know the thinking behind the particular graphical method, and we put in all these
parts to make sure that they are actually applying the reasoning behind the graphical
method.
In other words, (2) the sequence of Examples in the instructional materials pulled along
the development of mathematical reasoning as the method was advanced.
We observed that for Example 5, in Teck Kong’s Lesson 06, two methods were used to
identify the roots of the quadratic expression 2x2 + x – 4 = 0. Figure 4 shows the two
methods, namely, using the quadratic formula and through completing the square. In fact,
students were encouraged to think and choose the method they preferred. This act was

intentional and engineered into the design of the notes as shared by Teck Kong during his
post-lesson interview,
So again we give them the options, we don't tell the students, we try not to tell the students
which way to do, unless it’s like one is super long and one is super-efficient. This way, both
ways are fine for us. So we give them options, you choose the option that you think you
prefer, that you think you are more likely to succeed in. So that’s the design principle.
In the vignette presented in Table 1, Teck Kong unpacked two other reasoning processes,
justifying and inferring with a group of students (Group A) during the class seatwork. In
Line 11, Teck Kong wanted the students in Group A to infer what it means when there are
no x-intercepts. Student 1 claimed that the graph did not touch the x-axis in Line 12.
Beginning with “So what” in Line 16, Student 2 made inferences that “x is more than 0”
and that the graph “is above 0” in Line 18. The engagement with reasoning does not stop
here as Teck Kong required Student 2 to justify her claim “Is that true?” in Line 23.
Method 1: Quadratic formula Method 2: Complete the square
Figure 4. Comparing Methods in Example 5
Table 1. Justifying and inferring with students in Group A for Example 6 (c) Lesson 06
Line Speaker Content
1 Teacher: Part (c), how?
2 Student 2: Part (c), no solution.
3 Teacher: No solution?
4 Student 2: 'Cause the discriminant is negative.
5 Teacher: What does that mean?
6 Student 2: 0 ...
7 Teacher: But this part- this calculation is to do what? You do this calculation is
to ... ?
8 Student 2: To find the value of x.
9 Teacher: To find the x-intercepts right? So, "no solution" means what?
10 Student 2: No x-intercepts lor.

11 Teacher: No x-intercepts lor. Correct. So what? Therefore you can still carry on
and answer this question. It just tells you there is no intercept lor. You
are not- your task is not to find the x-intercepts, correct? Your task is to
solve this inequality. Correct. No x-intercept. So what can you deduce
from there? [infer]
12 Student 1: It's not touching the x-axis. [claim]
13 Teacher: It's not touching the x-axis, yah. So it's "floating", OK, you can say that.
14 Students: [students replied simultaneously but inaudible]
15 Teacher: OK, so does that help you answer this question?
16 Student 2: So what? So x is more than 0, ah? [infer, claim]
17 Teacher: Alright, because the idea is what? If I know the graph, I should be able to
answer this inequality question right? So knowing that there’s no
x-intercept, means you know how to draw the graph. So can you draw
the graph?
18 Student 2: Oh, so this is above 0. [claim]
19 Teacher: So, if you can draw the graph, then you can answer. What kind of x
values makes the graph greater than 0? [infer]
20 Student 3: But there’s no answer. [Claim]
21 Student 4: x more than 0, ah? [Claim]
22 Student 2: x above 0. [Claim]
23 Teacher: Is that true? Ask yourself that question. Is that true? [Justify]
From the above vignettes and examples, opportunities to develop reasoning was deliberately
infused in the design principles of the examples in Teck Kong’s instructional materials. The
careful sequencing of examples was observed to support the reasoning intended. In addition,
as his post-lesson interview revealed, one of the reasons why Teck Kong built in reasoning
opportunities through the carefully selected non-standard examples was to deal with the
misconceptions:
… or if there's a misconception that keeps popping up, I’ll also bring them up. … Just now
this question, the one where the solution is all real values [Example 6(c)], so many of
them … will say, “Oh, no answer, cannot, no roots, because its square root negative 40, and
then they want to stop there.”
From Table 1, Line 3, we noticed that Teck Kong picked up the Student 2’s faulty reasoning
for Example 6(c). From Line 4 to Line 6, he wanted the student to confront the faulty
reasoning and from Line 6 to Line 19 Teck Kong addressed and corrected the student’s
faulty reasoning. Thus, there are evidences to suggest that he deliberately incorporated
examples where he anticipated wrong method(s) made by the students that would provide
opportunities for him to teach sound reasoning. We therefore conjecture that (3) the
non-standard examples were also designed to expose and address students’ faulty reasoning
undergirding the methods they used.
Discussion
The purpose of this study was to explore in more depth the role carefully-designed examples
play in encouraging students’ mathematical reasoning by studying a case of Teacher Teck
Kong in Singapore. We found that in his design of sequence of examples, the teacher had in

mind the development and refinement of a method. As such, standard example-types were
first presented to familiarise students with the basic skeletal structure of the method;
subsequently, non-standard examples were used to help students develop flexibility in
tweaking the main method to suit the requirements of specific contextual elements in each
example. Up to this point, this narrative looks like a typical drill-and-practice routine –
providing students with a range of example types for practice. However, upon further
investigation, we noted that the teacher had a more ambitious goal – that of teaching
mathematical reasoning. The example set he used were not merely to give students a ‘full
range’ of example-types for the topic; rather, alongside the tweaking and refinement of the
method, he challenged students to reason – via comparing, inferring, and justifying –
towards each shift taken. Students were held accountable for their reasoning, not just for
their answers, and where their reasoning was faulty (as was anticipated in the design of the
example sequence), they were used as motivations for the students to learn sound
mathematical reasoning as modelled by the teacher.
Reflecting on the results of this study, we conclude with these thoughts: (1) in the literature
on teaching mathematical reasoning, the typical portrait is one of student participation in
social discourse as a way to establish socio-mathematical norms of learning mathematics;
this study provides a different (but perhaps complementary) portrait: one of using
deliberately-designed examples to stimulate and sustain mathematical reasoning in order to
sharpen a method-to-learn; (2) a casual observer of the lessons conducted by this teacher
may easily miss out on the amount of careful thought that went into the design of the
examples even before he entered the classroom. Clearly, he had a hypothetical learning
trajectory in mind and that was supported by the notes he used which presented the
sequence of examples. To help advance his cause of teaching mathematical reasoning in
class, he used the notes that he carefully designed before class. This emphasises the critical
importance of task design in order to support the ambitious goals of teaching; (3) But we
can imagine that a similar sequence of examples used by another teacher (who does not
share the goal of teaching mathematical reasoning) may enact the lessons quite differently.
To use the notes in the way that Teck Kong has exemplified, one has to be prepared to press
students for coherent reasoning as a norm especially in written forms of mathematical work.
References
Jeanotte, D., & Kieran, C. (2017). A conceptual model of mathematical reasoning for
school mathematics. Educational Studies in Mathematics. Advance online
publication. doi: 10.1007/s10649-017-9761-8
Ministry of Education. (2012). Mathematics syllabus: Secondary one to four. Express
course. Normal (Academic) Course. Singapore: Author.

Leong Yew Hoong

Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
1 Nanyang Walk Singapore 637616
yewhoong.leong@nie.edu.sg
Cheng Lu Pien
lupien.cheng@nie.edu.sg
Toh Wei Yeng Karen
karen.toh@nie.edu.sg

46 Mathematical Modelling Skills of Secondary Students
MATHEMATICAL MODELLING SKILLS OF SECONDARY

STUDENTS
Kwan Eu Leong, Faculty of Education, University of Malaya
Abstract:
Problem solving is one of the important skills tested in the mathematics classrooms.
However, formulation of problems is even more important in 21st century learning. In
mathematical modelling, solving real world problems requires students to not only
formulate problems but to also create models to solve them. These important skills would
prepare students to be successful when they join the workforce. This study aims at
identifying the modelling skills of secondary students. The mathematical modelling
instrument consists of modelling tasks. Participants of this study were 100 students from
several schools in Selangor, Malaysia. The results showed that many students have
difficulty solving the mathematical modelling tasks. In addition, they were weak in making
assumptions, formulating problems and developing the mathematical model. This study
suggests that students need to be exposed to more modelling tasks in order for them to
develop their modelling skills.
Keywords: modelling skills, mathematical modelling, secondary students

Li 47
CLASSICAL GEOMETRIC CONSTRUCTION MEETS 3D

PRINTING
Hua-lun Li, Chung-Hua University, Taiwan
Literature Review
Ancient Greeks invented geometry to study our universe and build models in mind. Since
then Euclidean geometry has become core part of school curriculum for centuries.
Nowadays, 3D printing also build models, models we can touch. It's a straightforward idea
to use 3D printing technology in geometry class and there are researches in this direction.
Yuyang Sun and Qingzhong Li explained how teachers can easily explain complex
mathematical expressions by the visual 3D tools in their paper (Sun & Li, 2017).
Oi-Lam Ng explored the use of 3D computer-aided design (CAD) and 3D printing for
teaching about the volume of solids in junior secondary mathematics classrooms (Ng, 2017).
E. Slavkovsky focus on its cost and its practical use of 3D printer technology in the
mathematics classroom (Slavkovsky, 2012).
Research Question
There are tremendous design-ready free 3D models in the web (Makerbot. Thingiverse).
Teachers can use them for their classes. But is it possible to let students design their own
models? Is there a simple principle to follow so students can enjoy the fun of geometric
3D design?
Methods
Our method is rethinking the distinction between plane figures and 3D polyhedron. The
faces of polyhedron are polygons, but they are on different planes and the angles between
those planes are difficult to compute. We find the Gram–Schmidt process in linear algebra
can help us avoid those angle computation. According to this principle the construction of
five regular polyhedrons (Platonic solids) are demonstrated in the second half of this paper.
Geometric constructions in 3D
Classical geometric constructions on plane use only compass, straightedge (i.e. ruler) to
draw shapes, angles or lines, no measurement of lengths or angles is allowed. In What is
Mathematics?, Courant and Robbin point out that every straightedge and compass
construction is built through a sequence of steps and each of them is one of the following:
1. Given two distinct points, draw the unique line connecting them
2. Given two nonparallel lines, find their point of intersection

48 Classical Geometric Construction Meets 3D Printing
3. Given a point and a length, draw a circle with the point as center and with radius equal
to the given length.
4. Given a circle, find the intersection of this circle with a line.
5. Given a circle, find the intersection of this circle with another circle.
This Euclidean type of geometric construction can be generalized to three dimensional
space if we replace compass with sphere and add some additional operations:
6. Given three noncollinear points, construct the unique plane containing these points.
7. Given two nonparallel planes, find their point of intersection
8. Given a point and a length, draw a sphere with the point as center and with radius
equal to the given length.
9. Given a sphere, find the intersection of this sphere with a plane.
10. Given a sphere, find the intersection of this sphere with another sphere.
In this paper we will call them 3D S&C operations. Most CAD (Computer Aided Design)
software, like Rhino can perform all these 3D S&C operations and print out the result.
However, most of the design process is cumbersome. For example, to build a regular
dodecahedron we have to construct regular pentagon 12 times (on different planes). We can
avoid this by duplicating, base on following theorem, Gram–Schmidt process in linear
algebra:
Theorem 1. Given two pairs of three noncollinear points 𝑃1 , 𝑃2 , 𝑃3 and 𝑄1 , 𝑄2 , 𝑄3 , there is
a rigid transformation 𝑇: ℝ3 ⟶ ℝ3 such that 𝑇(𝑃1 ) = 𝑄1 , 𝐿𝑖𝑛𝑒(𝑇(𝑃1 ), 𝑇(𝑃2 )) =
𝐿𝑖𝑛𝑒(𝑄1 , 𝑄2 ) with 𝑇(𝑃2 ), 𝑄2 on the same side of 𝑄1 and
𝑃𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑒(𝑇(𝑃1 ), 𝑇(𝑃2 ), 𝑇(𝑃3 )) = 𝑃𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑒(𝑄1 , 𝑄2 , 𝑄3 ) with 𝑇(𝑃3 ), 𝑄3 on the same side of
𝐿𝑖𝑛𝑒(𝑄1 , 𝑄2 ).
Proof of Theorem 1. According to the Gram-Schmidt process an orthogonal set {𝑢1 , 𝑢2 , 𝑢3 }
can be constructed from {𝑃1 , 𝑃2 , 𝑃3 } by following steps:
1. 𝑢1 = 𝑃2 − 𝑃1 , 𝑤 = 𝑃3 − 𝑃1
〈𝑤,𝑢1 〉
2. 𝑢2 = 𝑤 − 〈𝑢 𝑢1
1 ,𝑢1 〉
3. 𝑢3 = 𝑢1 × 𝑢2
Similarly, an orthogonal set {𝑣1 , 𝑣2 , 𝑣3 } can be constructed from {𝑄1 , 𝑄2 , 𝑄3 }. Let 𝑈 be
𝑢 𝑢 𝑢
the orthogonal matrix of the orthonormal basis {‖𝑢1‖ , ‖𝑢2 ‖ , ‖𝑢3‖}.
1 2 3
𝑣1 𝑣 𝑣
Let 𝑉 be the orthogonal matrix of the orthonormal basis {‖𝑣 ‖ , ‖𝑣2‖ , ‖𝑣3‖}.
1 2 3
−1
Then 𝑇(𝑥) = 𝑄1 + 𝑉𝑈 (𝑥 − 𝑃1 ) is the rigid transformation we need.
☐
The software Rhinoceros we used can perform all 3D S&C operations and it has a
command “Transform→orient→3 points” does exactly what theorem 1 does.

Li 49
3D construction activities
Following activities demonstrate how, the regular polyhedrons (Platonic solids) with a given edge
length can be constructed using the 3D S&C procedures. We will not explain how to draw regular
triangle, square and regular pentagon. We only discuss the difficult part, which is to locate all vertices
of the regular polyhedrons. After that, all faces can be easily constructed according to 3D S&C
procedure 6. In the following we use 𝑆(𝑐, 𝑟) to denote sphere with center 𝑐 and radius 𝑟.
1. Isosceles Tetrahedron
It has 4 regular triangle faces, 4 vertices.
Draw a regular triangle △ 𝐴𝐵𝐶 with the given edge length, the 4th vertex D of the
desired isosceles tetrahedron has same distance from 𝐴, 𝐵, 𝐶 (Figure 1) so it is at
the intersection of three spheres 𝑆(𝐴, 𝑑(𝐴, 𝐵)) 𝑆(𝐵, 𝑑(𝐴, 𝐵)) and 𝑆(𝐶, 𝑑(𝐴, 𝐵)).
2. Regular hexahedron (Cube)
It has 6 square faces, 8 vertices.
a. Draw a square with the given edge length, as in Figure 2, 𝑑 (𝐴, 𝐵) = 𝑑 (𝐴, 𝐷 ) =
𝑑(𝐵, 𝐷) so vertex D is on the intersection circle of two spheres (𝐴, 𝑑 (𝐴, 𝐵)),
𝑆(𝐵, 𝑑(𝐴, 𝐵)).
b. In Figure 3 we see that 𝑑 (𝐶, 𝐴) = 𝑑 (𝐶, 𝐵) = 𝑑(𝐶, 𝐷) so vertex D is located on
the sphere 𝑆(𝐶, 𝑑(𝐶, 𝐴)) . Thus D is at the intersection 𝑆(𝐴, 𝑑 (𝐴, 𝐵)) ,
𝑆(𝐵, 𝑑 (𝐴, 𝐵 )) and 𝑆(𝐶, 𝑑 (𝐶, 𝐴))
c. Same procedures will locate the other three vertices of the desired cube.
3. Regular octahedron
Draw a square with the given edge length, the desired regular octahedron has six
vertices. So there is one above the square and one below the square. In figure 4,
they are the intersection of 3 spheres 𝑆(𝐴, 𝑑 (𝐴, 𝐵)) , 𝑆(𝐵, 𝑑 (𝐴, 𝐵)) and
𝑆(𝐶, 𝑑 (𝐴, 𝐵 )).
4. Regular dodecahedron
It has 12 regular pentagon faces, 20 vertices.
a. Draw adjacent three pentagons with the given edge length, then glue the left and
right pentagons to form a corner of the desired dodecahedron as in figure 5. Points
E, F meet at point D and 𝑑 (𝐶, 𝐸 ) = 𝑑 (𝐶, 𝐷 ), 𝑑 (𝐵, 𝐹 ) = 𝑑 (𝐵, 𝐷 ), 𝑑 (𝐴, 𝐷 ) =
𝑑 (𝐴, 𝐸 ). Therefore point D is at the intersection of three spheres 𝑆(𝐶, 𝑑 (𝐶, 𝐸 )),
𝑆(𝐵, 𝑑(𝐵, 𝐹)) and 𝑆(𝐴, 𝑑(𝐴, 𝐸)).
b. After find position of point D, the desired polyhedral can be assembled in a variety
of ways by applying theorem 1(“Transform→orient→3 points” in Rhino). Figure
6 shows one possible assembly procedure.
5. Regular icosahedron


a. Draw a regular pentagon ABCEF with the given edge length as in
figure 7. Because 𝑑 (𝐴, 𝐷 ) = 𝑑 (𝐵, 𝐷 ) = 𝑑 (𝐶, 𝐷 ) = 𝑑 (𝐴, 𝐵) , Three spheres
𝑆(𝐴, 𝑑 (𝐴, 𝐵 )), 𝑆(𝐵, 𝑑 (𝐴, 𝐵)) and 𝑆(𝐶, 𝑑 (𝐴, 𝐵)) intersect at point D.
b. For vertex H in figure 8, since the front 5 triangles (on the right of figure 8) has
same structure as the top 5 triangles (on the left of figure 8) we have 𝑑 (𝐸, 𝐻 ) =
𝑑 (𝐸, 𝐵) and 𝑑 (𝐹, 𝐻 ) = 𝑑 (𝐹, 𝐵) . On the other hand the line ̅̅̅̅̅̅
𝐷 𝐻 is vertical
because symmetry. Therefore H is at the intersection of vertical line through D and
circle 𝑆(𝐸, 𝑑 (𝐸, 𝐵))⋂𝑆(𝐹, 𝑑(𝐹, 𝐵)). This can be done by 3D S&C operation 4
and 10.
c. According to theorem (“Transform→orient→3 points” in Rhino), in figure 9, using
transformation 𝑇: ℝ3 ⟶ ℝ3 with 𝑇(𝐸 ) = 𝐹, 𝑇(𝐹 ) = 𝐸 and 𝑇(𝐵) = 𝐻 (watch
the orientation) will give us 𝑇(𝐷 ) = 𝐼 (see top view and front view in figure 9).
Similarly vertex J (right view in figure 9) and other three vertices canbe located.
After all vertices have been found, we use “Rhino→Surface→Corner Points” to construct all
faces. Then apply “Rhino→Edit→Join” to form the solid polyhedrons, as in figure 10.
3D printing
The STL (Standard Triangle Language) is the industry standard file type for 3D printing. It
uses triangles to represent the surfaces of a solid model. Rhino allow us to export out solid
polyhedrons into STL. Then we use a “slicing” software called “Cura” to convert these
STL into machine language (G-code) and are ready to print.
All modern CAD (Computer Aided Design) software provides their own construction
methods. Rhino too, it can do not only 3D S&C operations but also Boolean operation,
like union, intersection and difference and many other geometry transformations. Using
these additional operation we can print out the skeleton of polyhedrons. For example,
dodecahedron and icosahedron are dual to each other, we can put them together as in figure
11.
Conclusion
Combining with 3D printing will make geometric construction very interesting. After
understand basic methods students can make their own design and do some experiments.
Especially, the Boolean operations produce many variations. Students can make things
like desk pen holder in polyhedron shape, polyhedron charm or toy all by themselves and
they will feel geometry is closer to their life.

Li 51
Figures
Figure 1. Isosceles Tetrahedron.
Figure 2. Cube, d(A,B)=d(A,D)=d(B,D).
Figure 3. Cube, d(C,A)=d(C,B)=d(C,D).

Figure 4. Regular octahedron.
Figure 5. Regular dodecahedron, glue edge ̅̅̅̅ ̅̅̅̅ to form 𝐴𝐷

𝐴𝐸 and 𝐴𝐹 ̅̅̅̅.
Figure 6. Regular dodecahedron, one possible assembly procedure.

Li 53
Figure 7. Regular icosahedron, Find D according to ABCEF.
Figure 8. Regular icosahedron, Find H according to ABCDEF.
Figure 9. Regular icosahedron, Find I, J using theorem 1.

Figure 10. Regular Polyhedra, with given edge length.
Figure 11. Duality.
References
Courant, R., & Robbins, H. (1941). What is Mathematics?. London: Oxford University Press.
Kinsey, L.-C., Moore, T.-E. & Prassidis, E. (2010). Geometry & Symmetry. New York: John
Wiley & Sons, INC..
Makerbot. Thingiverse. http://www.thingiverse.com.
McNeel, R. (2016). Rhino 5 Getting Started & User's Guide. Seattle: Robert McNeel &
Associates.
Ng, O. (2017) Exploring the use of 3D Computer-Aided Design and 3D Printing for
STEAM Learning in Mathematics. Digital Experiences in Mathematics
Education, Volume 3, Issue 3, 257–263
Segerman, H. (2012). 3D printing for mathematical visualization. Math. Intell., 34, no. 4,
56–62.
Slavkovsky, E. (2012). Feasability study for teaching geometry and other topics using
three-dimensional printers. Harvard University, 2012. A thesis in the field of mathematics
for teaching for the degree of Master of Liberal Arts in Extension Studies
Sun, Y., & Li, Q. (2017) The application of 3D printing in mathematics education. 12th
International Conference on Computer Science and Education (ICCSE), 47-50.

Li 55
Vanscoder, J. (2014). 3D Printing As A Tool For Teaching And Learning In STEAM

Education. In M. Searson & M. Ochoa (Eds.), Proceedings of SITE 2014--Society for
Information Technology & Teacher Education International Conference, (pp. 188-191).
Jacksonville, Florida, United States: Association for the Advancement of Computing in
Education (AACE).
＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿
Hua-lun Li
Chung Hua university, 707, Sec.2, WuFu Rd., Hsinchu, Taiwan 30012, R.O.C
hualun@chu.edu.tw

56

Liang 57
HISTORY OF MATHEMATICS AND CONNECTED

MATHEMATICS IDEAS FOR PRE-SERVICE MATHEMATICS
TEACHERS
Su Liang, California State University, San Bernardino
In the literature, the use of history of mathematic in mathematics education has been
strongly advocated because of its benefiting mathematics teaching and learning. The
benefits include increasing students’ learning interest and decreasing intimidation (Jankvist,
2009), improving students’ attitude toward mathematics (Ng & Chua, 2010), making
mathematics learning more meaningful (Marshall & Rich, 2000), helping students see a
dynamic living mathematics instead of a dead subject (Bidwell,1993), sharpening students’
problem solving skills and helping students make mathematical connections for better
understanding (Wilson & Chauvot, 2000), to name a few. Although these numerous good
reasons of using history of mathematics were inherently persuasive, we could not expect
“the changes will then miraculously happen” without demonstrable implementation (Fauvel,
1992). For a few decades, many researchers have proposed using history of mathematics as
a pedagogical tool of mathematics teaching and learning (e.g., Haverhals & Roscoe, 2010).
Despite general perception about benefits of using history of mathematics, the reality is that
many mathematics teachers don’t include history of mathematics into their classroom
instruction. According to Panasuk and Horton (2013), an on-line survey indicated that only
55.6% of participating teachers included history of mathematics in their classroom teaching
among 367 mathematics teachers from a New England state, USA. Analyzing the reason
why many teachers did not include history of mathematics in their curriculum, Panasuk and
Horton found that 51.4% of the participating teachers had never taken any history of
mathematics courses. Many teacher preparation programs don’t have history of mathematics
as a required course for prospective teachers.
As a mathematics teacher educator, reflecting on my teaching the course – Topics in History
of Mathematics at a state university, I agree with Panasuk and Horton that pre-service
teachers should be required to take the course of history of mathematics. I taught this course
in spring 2015 and spring 2016. Most of the students in the two classes were prospective
teachers of either middle or high schools. I observed that many of them did not retain
mathematics knowledge learned previously as expected. They need help to walk out of the
big pile of disjoint knowledge pieces and internalize their knowledge through recognizing
the underlying relations between mathematics topic/ideas in order to enhance their
understanding and retaining.
Topics in History of Mathematics at our university is offered as an upper division
undergraduate course with 4 credits. The content of the course includes exploration of the
historical and topical development of interconnected areas of mathematics, such as algebra,
geometry and analysis. The influence of culture and society on the development of
mathematical ideas and discovery is also a part of the discussion for the course. Most of
enrolled students are majored in mathematics and will be high school or middle school

58 History of Mathematics and Connected Mathematics Ideas for Pre-service Mathematics Teachers
mathematics teachers. Before I taught this course, I talked to three professors at our
department who taught this course previously. I found that they taught this course using
different approaches and different textbooks. To name a few, some used the textbook that
has content from algebra perspective; some used the textbook that emphasizes the proofs of
great theorems in the history of mathematics; some used the textbook written from teaching
perspective; some incorporated problem-solving into this course. Because most of the
students enrolled in the course will be mathematics teachers at high school or middle school
level, I wanted to use this course as a vehicle to address the following observed issues that
many students have: 1. learning mathematics superficially by memorizing mathematical
formulas without understanding the underlying mathematical reason(s); 2. failing to see the
connections between mathematical ideas/topics; 3. failing to apply mathematical
ideas/theorems to solve problems in different situations.
The development of mathematical ideas/theorems in human history has been such a
fascinating process. The formation of each big mathematical idea or great theorem had its
inspiring story behind the scene. From Euclid geometry to non-Euclid geometry, from
arithmetic to algebra, from geometry to algebra, from geometry and algebra to analysis,
from Fermat last theorem to number theory, from mathematics to computer science... there
were so many interesting historical stories of mathematicians and their creative mathematics.
As a teacher educator, I wanted the course to: 1. provide students opportunities to dig deep
into individual mathematicians’ life and the process of formation of their ideas/theorems; 2.
learn where certain mathematical ideas/theorems came from, how they were formulized,
and how the mathematicians conducted problem-solving; 3. be able to piece together
different mathematics topics they learned previously, into a complete picture of
mathematics as a whole. The ultimate teaching/learning outcome of the course should not
only help address the issues mentioned above but also reach the following objectives: 1.
deepening students’ understanding of mathematical concepts and ideas; 2. enriching
students’ mathematical knowledge; 3. learning how to think like a mathematician; 4.
learning interconnection between geometry, algebra, and analysis; 5. learning methods of
attacking different mathematical problems; 6. learning how to conduct a research.
While designing my teaching approach for this course, I considered student engagement the
most important factor to reach the teaching/learning outcomes of the course. Recalling my
experience of taking the course of history of mathematics in 2004, I and my peer students
were bored by the professor’s way of teaching this course. He gave lectures every class and
didn’t provide opportunities for students to engage in any discussions. There was very low
attendance each class. I don’t remember my mathematics knowledge was enriched in any
way from the professor’s lecture. However, I did learn a good deal of geometry ideas
through conducting my research on Poincare conjecture for the course final paper. My own
experience helped me make the choice of my teaching design for this course, which can be
characterized as follows: 1. Engaging undergraduate students in research/creative activity; 2.
Allowing students learn through self-driven research; 3. Using inquiry-based learning
approach; 4. Foster creativity and innovation; 5. Allowing students to learn how to think
critically.

Liang 59
A list of mathematicians and their theorems was provided in the beginning of the quarter for
students to choose from and conduct a research on their choice. Guided by the instructor,
students conducted research on mathematical ideas/theorems through different resources
throughout the quarter. A group of two students formed a group to conduct the research.
Each group scheduled a meeting with the instructor to discuss the selected topic, the
research resources, and related questions or issues in second week of the quarter. After
determination of research topic, each group was required to meet the instructor to report the
progress of their research and discuss any existing questions in every two weeks. In week 6,
each group was required to turn in their research progress report. Students are expected to
learn from the process of conducting the research. In the end of the quarter, students must
submit a 10-15 pages of research report and give a 20-minute presentation.
Student research could analyze: 1. formation of a great theorem, 2. evolution of
algebra/analytic geometry/calculus, 3. development of certain mathematical ideas, 4.
different ways of proving Pythagorean Theorem by mathematicians from different culture, 5.
interconnection between mathematical ideas. The research could also provide an alternative
method of demonstrating a mathematical idea/proving a theorem, or create a high school
mathematics lesson that articulate the formation of a “big idea” incorporating historical
story of mathematicians, etc.
Two textbooks were used for the course. One was Math through the Ages: A Gentle History
for Teachers and Others by William Berlinghoff & Fernando Gouvea. Another one is
Journey through Genius: The Great Theorems of Mathematics by William Dunham. The
classes were Inquiry-Base Learning oriented. I minimized the lecturing time and played the
leading role of class discussion. Before each class, the reading assignment selected from the
textbooks and other resources was assigned to students. The reading assignments were
collected in class and counted as a part of homework for credits. During each class period,
small group discussions were conducted and followed by whole class discussions. The
discussions were based on the reading assigned and the problems related to the content of
the reading assignment for students to solve. The reading assignments were aligned to the
listed research topics. Homework was assigned every week.
Observing students’ performance in class discussions, in homework and tests, and in their
final research paper and presentation, I saw deep learning taking place. Students appreciate
seeing connected mathematics ideas. For example, in their research paper, a group of
students recognized the internal relationship between Gauss’ method of finding the sum of
consecutive n whole numbers from 1 to 𝑛, finding the total numbers of handshakes when a
group of n people shake hands exactly once with every other person in the group, and
finding the number of diagonals in a n polygon. Using Gauss’s method, the sum of
consecutive n whole numbers is solved as follows:
Sum of 1 to 100
Numbers from 1 to 100 1 2 3 …… 99 100
Numbers from 100 to 1 100 99 97 …… 2 1
Sum of row 1 and row 2 101 101 101 …101… 101 101
Total sum from 1 to 100 1 101×100
(101 + 101 + 101 + …+…+101) = = 5050
2 2

Sum of 1 to 𝑛
Numbers 1 to n 1 2 3 …… n -1 n
Numbers n to 1 n n -1 n -2 …… 2 1
Sum of row 1 and row2 n +1 n +1 n +1 …… n +1 n +1
Total sum from 1 to n 1 n(n+1)
[(n +1) + (n +1) + (n +1) + … + … + (n +1)] =
2 2
For the handshake problem, one way to solve it as follows:

Number of People 1 2 3 4 5 ……n
Number of Handshakes 0 1 3 6 10 ……
The pattern 0 1 1+2 1+2+3 1+2+3+4 1+2+3+4+5+…+…+(n − 1)
Formulated from the pattern 1(1 − 1) 2(2 − 1) 3(3 − 1) 4(4 − 1) 5(5 − 1) n(n − 1)
2 2 2 2 2 2
For finding the number of diagonals in 𝑛-gons, one solution is shown below:
Number of Sides 3 4 5 6 7 8 …… n
Number of 0 2 5 9 14 20 ……
Diagonals
The Pattern 0 2 2+3 2+3+4 2+3+4+5 2+3+4+5+6 2+3+4+…+…+(n-2)
Formulated from 3(3 − 3) 4(4 − 3) 5(5 − 3) 6(6 − 3) 7(7 − 3) 8(8 − 3) n(n − 3)

the pattern 2 2 2 2 2 2 2
Although the three problems look different, after digging further we can see that they are all
related to the arithmetic series which can be formulated using Gauss’s method. The process
of formulating the patterns occurred in the three problems are also very good examples of
transformation from arithmetic expression to algebraic expression, in another word, from
concrete to abstract. This process articulates how a formula has been developed. The
students were excited by this discovery.
Another example to be shared here is the relation between repeating decimals and geometric
series. In a class, students were asked to express several repeating decimals (e.g. 0.44444…,
0.21212121…) using a fraction. Some students did these problems in this way:
let 𝑥 = 0.44444… which is equation 1)
Multiply 10 to both sides of the equation: 10𝑥 = 0.44444 … × 10 which is equation 2)
= 4.4444 …
Subtract 1) from 2): 9𝑥 = 4
4
𝑥 = 9 = 0.44444…
Similarly, let 𝑥 = 0.212121… which is equation 1)
Multiply 100 to both sides of the equation: 100𝑥 = 0.212121 … × 10 which is equation 2)
= 21.2121 …
Subtract 1) from 2): 99𝑥 = 21
21
𝑥 = 99 = 0.212121…

Liang 61
When being asked to use an alternative way to do these problems, two students did as
4 4 4
follows: 0.44444… = 0.4 + 0.04 + 0.004 + 0.0004 + 0.00004 + ⋯ = + + +
4 4 4 1 1 1 1 4 1 104 100
1 1000
4
+ + ⋯ = (1 + + + + + ⋯) = × 1 = × 9 = ×
10000
10 4 100000 10 10 100 1000 10000 10 1− 10 10
10
= 10
9 9
21 21 21 21 1
0.212121…= 0.21 + 0.0021 + 0.000021 + ⋯ = 100 + 10000 + 1000000 + ⋯ = 100 (1 + 100 +
1 21 1 21 100 21
+ ⋯ ) = 100 × 1 = 100 × = 99
10000 1− 99
100
The first approach used algebraic equation while the second approach employed geometric
series in calculus. The process of solving this type of problems demonstrates the
connections between arithmetic, algebraic, and calculus knowledge. When the alternative
ways of solutions were explained by the students, I heard some students uttering “this is so
cool”.
Students appreciated the course. These are some examples of students’ comments in the
university post-class survey of Students’ Opinion of Teaching Effectiveness:
Great topics. It’s nice to see where the things we do its math came from as well as
understand alternative ways to do math.
She facilitated great discussions and made the topics interesting and fun!
This professor made this class very fun. I learned a lot and enjoyed every class.
The instruction was good and helped me gain a historical background on math and how it
came to be. This helps me make connections.
Several students enrolled in spring 2016 told me that they took the class because students in
my spring 2015 class highly recommended the course to them. I assume that this is the
reason why the class enrollment increased by 10 from 13 students in spring 2015 to 23
students in spring 2016. Usually class enrollment for this course was 10 to 15 students.
My own experience of teaching History of Mathematics supports other researchers’
suggestion that history of mathematics enriches pre-service teacher’ mathematics
knowledge. My reflections on my own teaching also suggests that history of mathematics as
a course itself does not automatically benefits mathematics teaching and learning. The
course curriculum should be appropriately designed to fit the audiences. Using
inquiry-based learning approach in history of mathematics course helps engage students in
internalizing their mathematics knowledge learned previously. Although there is no lack of
research promoting teaching history of mathematics, few research demonstrates how and
what class activities could help students appropriately re-organize a pile of disjoined
mathematics knowledge on their mind to form a systematically connected mathematics.
Future research should improve the curriculum and develop more inquiry-based learning
activities that are able to facilitate pre-service teachers to make meaningful mathematical
connections and attain deep learning. These inquiry-based learning activities will not only
help preservice teachers enrich their own mathematics knowledge but also demonstrate the

ways for them to implement history of mathematics in their classroom teaching in the
future.
Standing high, we see a more complete picture, far and beyond; standing low, we only have
a limited sight, near and discrete. We should prepare our pre-service teachers to be able to
stand high with a map of connected mathematics so that they can help their students build
solid foundation of mathematics in the future. History of mathematics is a promising course
which can solidate pre-service teachers’ mathematics knowledge and help them access to
high level of mathematics understanding.
References
Bidwell, J. K. (1993). Humanize Your Classroom with The History of Mathematics.
Mathematics Teacher, 86, 461-464. 
Fauvel, J. (1992). Using history in mathematics education. For the Learning of Mathematics,
11(2), 3-6. 
Haverhals, Nick and Roscoe, Ma (2010) " e history of mathematics as a pedagogical tool:
Teaching the integral of the secant via Mercator’s projection," e Mathematics Enthusiast:
Vol. 7: No. 2, Article 12.  Available at: http://scholarworks.umt.edu/tme/vol7/iss2/12
Jankvist, U. T. (2009) A characterization of the “whys” and “hows” of using history in
mathematics education. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 71(3), 235 – 261.
Marshall, G. L.& Rich, B. S. (2000). The Role of History in a Mathematics Class.
Mathematics Teacher, 93 (8), 704-706.
Ng, W. L. & Chua, K. J. (2010). Elements of Ancient Chinese Mathematics for
Pre-University Studentds. The Mathematics Educator, 12(2), 3-24,
Wilson, P.S., & Chauvot, J. B. (2000). Who? How? What? A Strategy for Using History to
Teach Mathematics. Mathematics Teacher, 93(8), 642-645.

Lim, Yoo 63
STUDY ON THE DESIGN AND PROPERTIES OF

AUTOMATICALLY GENERATED ITEMS: FOCUSING ON
POLYNOMIAL FACTORIZATION
Hyeongjun Lim, Seoul National University, Korea
Yun Joo Yoo, Seoul National University, Korea
Introduction and Background

Computers are widely used in every field of our society including business, science and
education, and most of innovations in modern society is based on computer technology.
Educators and researchers have also found that computer-based assessment has many
advantages over paper-based assessment (Simin, & Heidary, 2013). Despite the advantages
of computer-based assessment, most of schools still use paper-based test for assessment due
to lack of the technology infrastructure to supper computer-based exams (Blazer, 2010).
However, many experts predict that paper-based test will disappear from the school
eventually (Paton, 2013).
As the applicability of computer-based assessment increases, automatic item generation
(AIG) has been proposed as an important technique for computer-based tests (Gierl, &
Haladyna, 2013). AIG is a system with which computers automatically generate random
items following rules based on the given item model. AIG has many advantages as
following. First, it can create plenty of items in a short time. Second, it makes establishing
item bank easier as the cost of making items is reduced (Gierl, & Haladyna, 2013). Third,
the effort, time, resources and expense for teachers to develop a test are saved (Pellegrino,
& Quellmalz, 2010). Finally, risk of test security violation in conventional test
administration setting, such as students' cheating and incidents in test delivery is reduced
(Pellegrino, & Quellmalz, 2010)
To construct an AIG system for a test, you need to design a set of item models which are
considered as templates indicating fixed and variable features of items and automatic item
generation rules (Gierl et al., 2008). Many, sometimes endless, items can be generated
through an item model in AIG system. Drasgow et al. (2006) classified item models into
two types; one based on cognitive models, called "strong theory" approach, and one based
on only formal structure of a parent item, called "weak theory" approach. The items
generated based on the item models constructed by weak theory approach will have very
similar item characteristics in terms of item response patterns which is usually analyzed by
item response theory (Baker, & Kim, 2004). On the contrary, items generated based on the
item models of strong theory approach may have varying levels of item difficulties (Gierl &
Lai, 2012).
In mathematics learning, a cognitive model can be devised for understanding a concept
composed of many important attributes. In this study, we focus on the concept of
polynomial factorization. Cognitive attributes involved in performing polynomial
factorization include understanding basic factorization formulas, recognizing and extracting

64 Study on the Design and Properties of Automatically Generated Items: Focusing on Polynomial
Factorization
a common factor, and algebraic structure sense. Hoch & Dreyfs (2004) argued that algebraic
structure sense is required to perform polynomial factorization. In their study, when teachers
introduced the factorization formula, 𝑎2 − 𝑏2 = (𝑎 + 𝑏)(𝑎 − 𝑏), and let students solve
𝑥 4 − 𝑦 4 and (𝑥 − 3)4 − (𝑥 + 3)4 , the percentages of correct answer were 77% and 7.5%
respectively, showing most of them are lack of algebraic structure sense. Zazkis &
Campbell (1996) performed research on number factorization and showed that students
could easily found the correct answers when the given number is divided by small factor but
had difficulty when the given number is divided by bigger factor. They also had difficulty
finding arithmetic structure as the number becomes bigger and complicated.
In this study, we design an item model based on strong theory in the domain of polynomial
factorization by analyzing the national curriculum of Korea (Ministry of Education, 2011)
and literatures about learning polynomial factorization. We generate items based on the item
model and obtain students' response data. We examine how various factors involved in the
item model for polynomial factorization affect the item characteristics by empirical analysis
using 2PL item response theory.
Methods
A group of 243 middle school third grade students (ages about 15) in ten classes from three
schools located in Seoul, South Korea, took the test composed of automatically generated
items about the skills of polynomial factorization. The cognitive model we constructed for
items of polynomial factorization models includes cognitive attributes such as types of
factorization formula, extracting a common factor, number type, algebraic structure sense
(Figure 1). With this cognitive model, we extracted the features, elements and constraints
along with specific rules to generate automatic items to consist the item model (Figure 2). In
the test, 33 items with specific feature elements and constraints levels are selected. Amon
them the items selected for the analysis in this paper and their characteristics are presented
in Table 1.
Figure 1 Cognitive Model for Generating Factorization Problem

Lim, Yoo 65
Figure 2 Item Model for the Generating Factorization Problem
Table 1 Item characteristics for each cognitive attribute and the item analysis results for correct
answer rate and difficulty estimates
Type of Common Number Structure

Item # Correctness rate Difficulty,
formula factor type sense
4 - O - - 62.45 -0.7863(0.1931)
5 - O - - 92.41 -1.9549(0.1674)
8 A - IL - 94.51 -2.0359(0.1432)
9 A - IH - 87.34 -1.4854(0.1112)
10 A - IL - 89.03 -1.6978(0.1462)
11 A - F - 83.12 -1.5429(0.1738)
12 A - F - 70.89 -0.8873(0.1154)
13 B - IL - 78.48 -1.1224(0.1151)
14 B - IH - 76.37 -1.0205(0.1082)
15 B - IH - 87.76 -1.5356(0.1295)

Factorization
16 C - IL - 78.9 -1.0176(0.0945)
17 C - IH - 64.98 -0.5903(0.0847)
18 C - IL - 82.28 -1.2984(0.1229)
19 All - IL/IH - 78.48 -1.0764(0.1012)
20 B,C O IL - 41.77 0.1990(0.1025)
21 C - IH - 75.95 -0.9773(0.1015)
22 All - N NT 75.11 -1.2135(0.1688)
23 A O IL - 39.24 0.2502(0.0857)
24 C O IH - 42.19 0.1576(0.0878)
26 C - - SLT 46.84 -0.0031(0.0767)
27 A - - SLT 62.45 -0.4836(0.0635)
28 C - - SLT 17.72 1.1451(0.1458)
29 B - - SLT 51.48 -0.1494(0.0681)
30 C - - SLT 60.34 -0.4357(0.0829)
31 All - - NT 59.92 -0.4912(0.1173)
32 C - IH - 49.79 -0.0863(0.1492)
Results
In Table 1, we show the correctness rate and the difficulty parameter estimates for each item
obtained using ltm package of R (Rizopoulos, & Rizopoulos, 2017) based on 2PL item
response theory. The t-test was conducted using the standard error and each difficulty value
to see if there is a difference in difficulty level among the items related to certain factors in
the cognitive model. The null hypothesis was that the two items had the same level of
difficulty (𝜇1 − 𝜇2 = 0), and the two sides were tested according to the type of the null
hypothesis. The probability of significance in the test was 0.05.
First, we compared the items 8, 9, 13, 14, 16, 17 with different basic formulas and integer
coefficients. Among the items with lower integer value coefficients (items 8, 13, 16), the
item 8 of the formula 𝑎2 𝑥 2 ± 2𝑎𝑏𝑥𝑦 + 𝑏2 𝑦 2 showed difficulty significantly different from
the item 13 of the formula 𝑎𝑥 2 + 𝑏𝑦 2 and item 16 of the formula 𝑎𝑥 2 + 𝑏𝑥𝑦 + 𝑐𝑦 2
(p<.001). Among the items with higher integer value coefficients (items 9, 14, 17), the
difficulty estimates were significantly different form each other with a trend of getting
higher difficulty following the order of basic formulas : 𝑎2 𝑥 2 ± 2𝑎𝑏𝑥𝑦 + 𝑏2 𝑦 2 , 𝑎𝑥 2 +
𝑏𝑦 2 , 𝑎𝑥 2 + 𝑏𝑥𝑦 + 𝑐𝑦 2 .

Lim, Yoo 67
Table 2 Comparison of difficulty estimates between two items with the same type of formula and
difference in requirement of extraction of common factor
Items in comparison Type of formula p-value

16, 20 𝑎𝑥 2 + 𝑏𝑥𝑦 + 𝑐𝑦 2 <0.001*
13, 20 𝑎𝑥 2 + 𝑏𝑦 2 <0.001*
8, 23 𝑎2 𝑥 2 ± 2𝑎𝑏𝑥𝑦 + 𝑏 2 𝑦 2 <0.001*
16, 24 𝑎𝑥 2 + 𝑏𝑥𝑦 + 𝑐𝑦 2 <0.001*
Next, we compared the two items with the same type of formula and difference in
requirement of extraction of common factor (Table 3). We could observe significant
difficulty level estimated between two items for each of four basic formulas, which showing
that the common factor extraction is a factor which raises the difficulty of items.
We also examined the impact of the integer size on the difficulty by analyzing the items
having different range of integer coefficients for each basic formula. We found no
significant difference in the item difficulty between those items. Also, when we compared
the items with fraction coefficients (11, 12) with the items with integer coefficients (10) for
the basic formula 𝑎2 𝑥 2 ± 2𝑎𝑏𝑥𝑦 + 𝑏2 𝑦 2 , we found that the difficulty estimates between
item 10 and 12, and item 11, 12 are significantly different. We could not find any
explanation for these results except that item 12 has different problem format from item 11.
Regarding the algebraic structure sense, we first compared items requiring to find the
matching structure of basic formulas by factorizing numbers (item 22, 31) with the ones
without requiring it (8, 13, 16, 19). Especially item 31 showed significantly different
difficulty estimates from items 8, 13, 16 and 19 (p<0.001). Item 22 showed higher difficulty
estimates than item 8 only. We concluded that finding matching factorization formula for an
integer after factorizing it may increase the difficulty.
Lastly, we compared the items requiring algebraic structure sense which enables seeing the
compound literal terms as a single entity (items 26, 27, 28, 29, 30 ) with the items not
needing it (items 8, 13, 16). The items 26, 27, 28, 29 and 30 contain expressions with the
elements for the basic formula being substituted by compound literal terms such as the case
𝑥 4 − 𝑦 4 and (𝑥 − 3)4 − (𝑥 + 3)4 . We found that such items showed the higher difficulties
compared to the items not requiring the structure sense (p<0.001).
Discussion
The implication of this study is that by using item models based on "strong theory" for AIG,
it is possible to create an assessment directly related to a cognitive model reflecting
students' cognitive structure. Also, we show that it is possible to predict students'
performance about that item by generating items using item model based on cognitive

Factorization
models. This prediction can help materializing feedback for the assessment that directly
explains which cognitive attributes are acquired or not. In addition, this study is the first to
use experimental data about the hypothesis that design of item model based on strong theory
can help predict the characteristic of items such as item difficulties.
According to the result, students had difficulty solving items requiring common factor
extraction or requiring sense about algebraic structure. Also, there was variation in the
difficulty levels between items with different types of factorization formulas. For teachers,
parents, and students it is difficult to accurately diagnose specific cognitive attributes which
students lack of and to obtain proper learning contents to mend the problem. In addition,
exact diagnosis about students' cognitive profile can contribute to choosing items from the
item bank in automated assessment system, making the assessment more adaptive to
students' individual characteristics. This is the goal of cognitive diagnostic assessment
(CDA; Tatsuoka, 1983) which is an assessment methodology applying cognitive model in a
fine-grained scale and the results of this study show that CDA and AIG have a prospect to
be combined together.
References
Baker, F. B., & Kim, S. H. (Eds.). (2004). Item Response Theory: Parameter Estimation
Techniques. CRC Press.
Blazer, C. (2010). Computer-Based Assessments. Information Capsule. Volume
0918. Research Services, Miami-Dade County Public Schools.
Drasgow, F., Luecht, R. M. & Bennett, R. (2006). Technology and Testing, In R.L.
Brennan(Ed.), Educational Measurement(4th ed., pp. 471-516). Washington, DC :
American council on Education.
Pellegrino, J. W., & Quellmalz, E. S. (2010). Perspectives on the Integration of Technology
and Assessment. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 43(2), 119-134.
Gierl, M. J., Zhow, J. & Alves, C. (2008). Developing a Taxonomy of Item Model Types to
Promote Assessment Engineering. The Journal of Technology, Learning, and Assessment,
7(2).
Gierl, M. J., & Lai, H. (2012): The Role of Item Models in Automatic Item Generation,
International Journal of Testing, 12:3, 273-298
Gierl, M. J., & Haladyna, T. M. (2013). Automatic Item Generation. NY : Routledge
Hoch, M., & Dreyfus, T. (2004, July). Structure sense in high school algebra: The effect of
brackets. In Proceedings of the 28th Conference of the International Group for the
Psychology of Mathematics Education (Vol. 3, pp. 49-56).
Ministry of education of Korea. (2011). Mathematics Curriculum.
Pellegrino, J. W., & Quellmalz, E. S. (2010). Perspectives on the Integration of Technology
and Assessment. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 43(2), 119-134.
Rizopoulos, D., & Rizopoulos, M. D. (2017). Package ‘ltm’. URL http://wiki. r-project.
org/rwiki/doku. php.

Lim, Yoo 69
Simin, S., & Heidari, A. (2013). Computer-based assessment: pros and cons. Elixir
International Journal Vol, 55, 12732-12734.
Tatsuoka, K. K. (1983). Rule Space: An Approach for Dealing with Misconceptions Based
on Item Response Theory. Journal of educational measurement, 20(4), 345-354.
Paton, G., (2013), Pen and paper exams 'to be axed within a decade', The telegraph,
20/09/13,http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/10321372/Pen-and-paper-
exams-to-be-axed-within-a-decade.html
Zazkis, R., & Campbell, S. (1996). Prime decomposition: Understanding uniqueness. The
Journal of Mathematical Behavior, 15(2), 207-218.
Hyeongjun Lim
seoul national university, 1 Gwanak-ro, Gwanak-gu, Seoul 08826
qhfktkfkd10@snu.ac.kr
Yun Joo Yoo

seoul national university, 1 Gwanak-ro, Gwanak-gu, Seoul 08826
yyoo@snu.ac.kr

70 Modified Reciprocal Teaching and Problem-Solving Ability in Mathematics
MODIFIED RECIPROCAL TEACHING AND

PROBLEM-SOLVING ABILITY IN MATHEMATICS
Rachel Dorcas A. Lim, Ma.Ed. University of the Philippines, Philippines
Ma. Nympha Beltran - Joaquin, Ph.D. University of the Philippines, Philippines
Problem solving and critical thinking are considered essential skills in developing and
improving the mathematical competence of the students. “Word problems are given to
students to enhance their creative, critical and problem solving abilities” (Quirk, 2010, p.
18). However, evidence shows that many elementary students nowadays fear mathematics
because of their inability to solve and interpret different kinds of word problems, resulting
in poor performance. The difficulties of the students in problem solving is mirrored in the
results of the 2003 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), where
the Philippines ranked 23rd out of 25 participating countries in Math for grade 4 students.
The country’s average, which is 358, was lower than the international average of 495.
Locally, in the 2012 National Achievement Test (NAT) conducted by the Department of
Education, the mean percentage score of the grade 6 students in mathematics was 66.47. It
was lower than the average mean percentage score of 75. In order to tackle this problem,
the teaching of mathematics has to change. Joaquin (2007) emphasized that:
A great number of researches that focus on the teaching and learning of mathematics
have been conducted through the years, yet the following problems still persist: poor
mathematics comprehension, low mathematical reasoning ability, poor
problem-solving skills, negative attitudes towards mathematics, low mathematics
self-efficacy and high mathematical anxiety, (p. 1).
Moreover, Pilonieta and Medina (2009) remarked that many teachers put more emphasis on
assessing comprehension rather than teaching comprehension strategies instruction. There
is an urgent need for educators to teach comprehension strategies in all grade levels (Oczkus,
2010).
Reciprocal Teaching is an instructional strategy worth investigating because this geared
towards improving students’ comprehension. Various studies have been conducted to test
the effectiveness of Reciprocal Teaching as a comprehension strategy for learning. The
strategy has also been adapted for promoting students comprehension of mathematical word
problems which can improve the mathematical literacy of the students.
This study addressed the following questions: (1) Do students exposed to Modified
Reciprocal Teaching (MRT) have significantly better problem-solving ability than students
exposed to the Conventional Teaching (CT) and (2) Does language proficiency moderate
the effects of MRT on problem-solving ability?

Lim, Beltran- Joaquin 71
Reciprocal Teaching in Mathematics
Reciprocal Teaching is a teaching strategy that is originally designed to improve the reading
skills of the readers. The term “reciprocal” refers to the nature of the interactions. Each
person acts in response to the other and takes turn in leading the discussion (Oczkus, 2010).
“The teaching model of reciprocal teaching allows the teacher and students to scaffold and
construct meaning in a social setting by using modeling, think-aloud and discussion”
(Oczkus, 2010, p.2).
Reciprocal teaching is supported by the use of four stages: 1) predicting, 2) questioning, 3)
clarifying and 4) summarizing. These four stages has been applied in mathematics to
support students in comprehending and solving word problems (Collen, 2011; Huber, 2011;
Lamb, 2004; Quirk, 2010; Reilly, Parsons & Bortolot, 2009; Van Garderen, 2004).
Studies show that Reciprocal Teaching helps students gain confidence in answering
mathematical word problems and lower their math anxiety.
Problem-Solving
Problem solving is the highest level of cognitive process in Gagné’s hierarchy of learning.
Gagné (1956) proposed eight basic types of learning. The lowest four orders focus on the
behavioral aspects of learning while the highest four orders focus on the cognitive aspects.
(see Figure 1)
Figure 1. Gagné’s hierarchy of learning

Problem solving involves discovering a higher order set of rules by using the prior invented
rule to be applied to a similar problem or situation.
Problem Solving and Language Proficiency

Many studies show that there is a strong link between reading comprehension and
mathematical word problem-solving skills (Adams & Lowery, 2007; Erktin & Akyel, 2005;
Hyde, 2006; Van Garderen, 2004; Vilenius, Tuohimaa, Aunola & Nurmi, 2008). Erktin &
Akyel (2005) found out that if the students will be supported to develop their
comprehension skills, this will lead to higher performance when solving problems. Grimm
(2008) found that students who had a higher level of reading comprehension tended to learn
problem solving and data interpretation skills faster than those with weaker reading
comprehension.
Language proficiency or linguistic proficiency is the ability of an individual to speak or
perform in an acquired language and it also suggests variability (Llurda, 2000). Racca and
Lasaten (2016) remarked that “language proficiency is a key to academic performance.
Academic subjects such as Science, Mathematics, and English often require the use of
language functions. The language functions play a significant role in critical and analytical
thinking required in science and mathematics subjects” (p. 44). The more language
functions with which students are adept, the more effective their thinking can be. Thus,
the more the students are proficient with the English language, the more they are likely to
perform well in their academic subjects (Aina, Ogundele & Olanipekun, 2013).
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of Modified Reciprocal Teaching on
the problem-solving ability in mathematics of the MRT and CT group. This research
further explored the possible moderating effects of language proficiency.
Method
Sample
The study was conducted in a typical private school in the Philippines. The participants in
this study were 64 Grade 6 students enrolled in the First Quarter of School Year 2016-2017.
Two intact heterogeneous sections were used in the study. The classes were randomly
assigned to the two teaching methods.
Instrument
The study used the Problem-Solving Ability Test (PSAT). This is an 8-item
researcher-made test designed to measure the problem-solving ability of the students. The
questions in the test were constructed based on the lessons in fractions (addition, subtraction,
multiplication and division) for grade 6. A rubric was used to score the student answers.
This instrument was validated by an experienced elementary mathematics teacher and a
mathematics coordinator. The instrument was further subjected to reliability analysis.
After deleting some items and improving the questions the final form of PSAT yielded a
Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient of 0.813.
Procedure

This was a quasi-experimental study, which utilized the pretest-posttest control group
design. Two intact classes were randomly assigned to either control (conventional teaching)
or experimental group (MRT). The PSAT was administered to both groups at the start of
the experiment and after seven weeks of instruction. All the participants were taught the
same lessons and were asked to answer the same activities throughout the study. The only
difference was that the experimental group was exposed to MRT.
Treatment
Modified Reciprocal Teaching.
The procedures and stages of reciprocal teaching were modified by considering the
learning styles, needs and academic performance of the participants. Based on
pre-experimental observations and test, it was found out that the participants had not built
up their vocabulary words. Moreover, most of the participants were visual learners. They
understand ideas and concepts using sketch, charts and diagrams. In addition to these, the
students had difficulties in monitoring their own comprehension particularly when solving
word problems.
Hence, the reciprocal teaching was modified and included the following stages:
1. Exploring (listing the words in the problem that are unfamiliar, writing the
definitions of the words, citing examples of the words and constructing sentences
using the words)
2. Diagramming (drawing a sketch or diagram to visualize what the problem is all
about based on the context clue, the operations to be used to answer it, and the
anticipated result.)
3. Transferring (relating the concepts in Math that are discussed in the problem and
transfer them to real-life situations.)
4. Outlining (making an outline of the steps, solutions and strategies that they will use
to solve the problem.)
5. Evaluating (evaluating what you learned, the main idea in the problem, and the
different learning strategies that you used.)
6. Reflecting (reflecting how well you performed, how the problem will be applied to
your daily experiences, and what better strategies you should use to solve the
problem easily.)
As students became familiar with these six stages, the teacher presented more challenging
word problems by forming them into five groups. The students collaborated to answer the
word problems using a series of prompt cards. The members chose a leader to act as a
facilitator and assigned roles based on the stages to be followed. The members including

the leader of each group were given five minutes to read their assigned roles. The roles were
rotated every week. After the given time, the members shared their ideas with the group.
They recorded their answers in their problem-solving module. As soon as the first four
stages had been completed, the members solved individually the word problem. After
solving, the leader asked the members of the group to evaluate their work and compared
their answers with the other participants. Finally, the students reflected on their own
performances and experiences during the group activity. The groups were given only 20
minutes to answer the word problem and to prepare for their presentation using the MS
PowerPoint. The teacher required two members in each group to present their work. A
minimum of three minutes and a maximum of five minutes were given to each group.
In contrast, the students subjected to the conventional teaching method were exposed to the
usual process of teaching whereby the teacher had her lecture using media presentations,
textbooks, visual aids and manipulatives. The teacher guided the students using any
problem-solving strategy. The commonly used steps were: (1) understand the problem, (2)
plan, (3) solve and (4) check the answers. Seatwork, researcher-made worksheets and
engagement activities were likewise given. Cooperative Learning was done also for
mastery of the mathematical concepts. The same project and quizzes were given to both the
MRT and CT group. However, the students in the CT group did not use a series of prompt
cards in answering the word problems. They answered the same problems using the
typical steps in problem-solving. The same time allotment was given to the CT group to
discuss with the members and to prepare for their presentation.
Results and discussion

Comparability of the two groups before the intervention
A two-tailed independent samples t-test was conducted to compare the mean pretest scores of MRT
and CT students in the problem-solving ability test. This was done to determine if the two groups
differ significantly at the start of the experimentation period and to check whether the data gathered
after the intervention can be attributed only to the treatment. Table 1 summarizes the result of the
t-test:
Table 1
t-test on Pretest Scores in PSAT
Levene’s Test t-test
Methods N M SD F Sig. t df Sig (2-tailed)
MRT 32 8.56 4.58 1.16 .29 -1.50 62 .140
CT 32 10.44 5.42
Note that the mean score of the MRT group is lower than the mean score of the CT group.
Table 1 shows that there was no significant difference in the mean pretest scores in the
problem-solving ability test of MRT (M=8.6, SD=4.58) and CT (M=10.4, SD=5.42), t(62)=

-1.50, p=.140. This result suggests that the MRT and CT students’ problem-solving ability
were comparable prior to the intervention even if one group has a lower PSAT mean score.
Comparability of the two groups after the intervention

The PSAT posttest scores of the students were used to compare the problem-solving ability
of those who were exposed to MRT and those who used the CT. Table 2 summarizes the
results.
Table 2
t-test on Post-test Scores in PSAT
Mean t-test
Methods N Mean SD Diff T df Sig (2-tailed)
MRT 32 14.75 6.49 3.5 2.07 62 .043
CT 32 11.25 7.03
Table 2 shows that there is a significant difference in the mean scores in the
problem-solving ability test of MRT (M=14.75, SD=6.49) and CT (M=11.25, SD=7.03);
t(62)=2.07, p =.043. Specifically, the students exposed to MRT developed better
problem-solving abilities than those exposed to CT. The result implies that the use of
Modified Reciprocal Teaching improved the problem-solving ability of the students. The
stages used in this strategy helped in the development of the problem solving ability of the
students in the experimental group. This is evidenced in the following transcription of a
group activity in the MRT class:
Teacher: Kumusta ang test ninyo? [How’s your test?]

Student A: Nasagutan ko po ma’am lahat. Di ko nga lang po sure kung perfect.
Minsan kasi careless ako. [I answered them all ma’am. Although, I am not sure
if it is all correct. Sometimes I’m careless.]
Student B: Ma’am, may dalawang problems po na nalito ako sa operations na gagamitin
kung multiplication or division. [Ma’am, there are two problems that confused
me as to what operation to use whether multiplication or division.]
Student C: Ma’am, nakalimutan ko po yung formula ng area. Buti na lang nagdrawing na
lang ako ng tiles katulad ng sa kwarto ko.[Ma’am, I forgot the formula for area
so I drew tiles similar to what I have in my room.]
Teacher: Paano ninyo nasagutan yung mga tanong na nahirapan kayo o di ninyo na
sinagutan pa? [How did you answer the problems that you find difficult or you
haven’t tried answering them?]
Student C: Ako ma’am gumamit po ako ng diagramming sa may area kaya minultiply ko.
[Ma’am, I used diagramming regarding area so I multiplied it.]
Student A: Di na ako nagdrawing. Nirecall ko lang yung past lessons natin. Kinareer ko
ma’am yung pagsulat ng solusyon ko saka explanation. Nacheckan ninyo na
po ba?[I didn’t draw. I just recalled our past lessons. I tried very hard to write

the solution and the explanation. Did you finish checking our test?]
Student B: Di pa. Kakapasa lang natin kay ma’am. Ilang ulit ko pong binasa yung
problems para sa tamang operation. Nalito kasi ako.[Not yet. We just passed
the paper to ma’am. Many times I read the problems to make sure I will use the
correct operations. I was confused.]
Clearly, Student C used diagramming/drawing (MRT Stage 2) to help her answer the
problem while Student A used transferring (MRT Stage 3) by relating the problem to the
other concepts in Math. Moreover, Student B used exploring (MRT Stage 1) and outlining
(MRT Stage).
Figure 2 below shows how another student in MRT used diagramming to solve the given
problem.
Word Problem: William’s mathematics class meets 4 times
1
a week for 12 hour each time. How many hours is that a week?
Figure 2. Student C diagramming
In contrast, a student in the CT group did not use the stages and had errors.
Figure 3. CT Student # 2
In the CT group, however, even if some students can multiply and divide fractions, they
were not able to use the correct operation because of poor understanding of the problems
and concepts in mathematics.
In addition, it was observed by the teacher that majority of the students in the MRT group
could defend and justify their answers by explaining thoroughly their strategies, displaying
a clear understanding of the word problems compared to the students in the CT group who
used their own strategies for solving word problems.

Moderating Effects of Language Proficiency

An assessment was conducted to determine the language proficiency of the students. Roth
(2009) claims that language is one of the factors that contribute to the difficulty of the
students in answering word problems in math. Table 3 summarizes the results of the
comparison of means of the two groups on the Language Proficiency Test.
Table 3
Mean Scores of the Students on the Language Proficiency Test
Levene’s Test t-test
Methods N M SD F Sig. T df Sig (2-tailed)
MRT 32 76.03 5.46 .017 .897 .294 62 .770
CT 32 75.63 5.60
Table 3 shows that there is no significant difference between the mean scores of the MRT
and the CT groups. It implies that the two groups are comparable at the beginning of the
study in terms of their level of proficiency in language.
A one-way ANOVA was used to test whether language proficiency moderated the effect of
MRT on student’s problem-solving ability. The students’ mean scores in the language
proficiency test are grouped into three levels: (1) not met standards, (2) progressing toward
standards and (3) proficient. The students who got 60 to 69 are labeled as not met standards,
70 to 79 are labeled as progressing toward standards and 80 to 89 are labeled as proficient.
No one obtained a mean score of 90 and above among the participants. Table 4 shows the
summary of the mean scores and standard deviations of the experimental and the control
groups in the problem-solving ability test posttest based on their level of proficiency in
language.
Table 4
Descriptive Statistics
Dependent Variable Teaching Method Level of LP Mean SD N
Problem-solving Ability Experimental Not met std. 9.67 3.33 6
Progressing 13.40 4.85 15
Proficient 19.36 7.09 11
Total 14.75 6.49 32
Control Not met std. 10.33 9.07 3
Total 11.25 7.03 32
Total Not met std. 9.89 5.25 9
Total 13.00 6.94 64
To determine if there is a significant difference between the MRT and CT groups’ variances,
the test of homogeneity of variances was done. The F value for Levene’s test is .731 with a

Sig. (p) value of .486. Because the Sig. value is greater than our alpha of .05 (p> .05), the
null hypothesis (no difference) for the assumption of homogeneity of variance was retained
and it can be concluded that there is no significant difference between the two group’s
variances. That is, the assumption of homogeneity of variance is met.
Table 5 shows the results of the one-way ANOVA for one independent variable with
problem-solving ability as the dependent variable.
Table 5
ANOVA
Dependent Variable: Problem-Solving Ability
Sum of
Df Mean Square F Sig.
Squares
Between groups 434.10 2 217.05 5.10 .009
Within groups 2597.90 61 42.59
Total 3032.00 63
Table 5 shows that there was a significant difference between the groups as determined by
one-way ANOVA (F (2, 61) = 5.10, p = .009). It signifies the rejection of the 3rd null
hypothesis and that there is a significant interaction between students’ language proficiency
and teaching method used in terms of influencing student’s problem-solving ability.
Table 6
Tukey HSD
Dependent Variable: Problem-Solving Ability Test
(I) Level (J) Level Mean Difference (I-J) Std. Error Sig.
NMS PTS -1.833 2.432 .732
P -7.006* 2.641 .027
PTS NMS 1.833 2.432 .732
P -5.173* 1.851 .019
P NMS 7.006* 2.641 .027
PTS 5.173* 1.851 .019
*. The mean difference is significant at the 0.05 level.
A Tukey post hoc test revealed that the problem-solving abilities of the students were
significantly lower in the not met standards level (9.89 ± 5.25, p=.027) and progressing
toward standards level (11.72 ± 6.18, p =.019) compared to the proficient (16.89 ± 7.61).
Moreover, there was no significant difference between the not met standards (NMS) level
and the progressing toward standards (PTS) level (p = .732).

Conclusions
Based on the findings, the following conclusions are drawn:

1. The MRT group performed better compared to the CT group in terms of their mean scores
after the intervention. It implies that the use of the following MRT stages: (1) exploring, (2)
diagramming, (3) transferring, (4) outlining, (5) evaluating and
(6) reflecting, is effective in increasing the problem-solving ability and comprehension
skills of the students.
2. Math curriculum developers and instructional materials development team should create
similar materials used in this study such as the MRT prompt cards and problem-solving
modules to have better understanding of fractions and other math concepts.
3. The language proficiency has a significant effect on problem-solving ability. It means that
increasing the level of proficiency in language will improve the problem-solving ability of
the students.
References.
Adams, T. L. (2003). Reading mathematics: more than words can say. The
Reading Teacher, 56(8), 10. Retrieved from Academic Research Library.
Aina, J. K., Ogundele, A. G. & Olanipekun, S. S. (2013). Students’ proficiency in English
language relationship with academic performance in science and technical education.
American Journal of Educational Research, vol. 9, pp. 355-358
Collen, M.H. (2011). Fifth grade children’s use of reciprocal teaching to solve word
problems in
mathematics (Doctoral thesis, State University of New York at Albany). Retrieved from
ProQuest Dissertations & Theses A&I database.
Erktin, E. & Akyel, A. (2005). The role of L1 and L2 reading comprehension in solving
mathematical word problems: A case in a delayed immersion program. Australian
Review of Applied Linguistics, 28(1), 52-66.
Grimm, K. (2008). Longitudinal associations between reading and mathematics
achievement.
Developmental Neuropsychology, 33(3), 419-420.
Huber, C. (2011). The impact of reciprocal teaching on mathematics problem solving
for grade 4 students (Doctoral thesis, Central Connecticut State University, New Britain,
CT).
Retrieved from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses A&I database.
Hyde, A. (2006). Comprehending math: Adapting reading strategies to teach mathematics,
K-6.
Portsmouth, Heinnemann.

Joaquin, Ma. N. (2007). Achievement goal modification: Effects on students’ self efficacy
and mathematical thinking skills. (Master’s Thesis). University of the Philippines,
Diliman, Quezon City.
Lamb, J. (2004). Reciprocal Teaching in the Mathematics classroom: Improving
student achievement through reading 1423301(M.A.E.). Pacific Lutheran
University,
Ann Arbor. Retrieved from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses A&I database.
Llurda, E. (2000). On competence, proficiency, and dommunicative language ability.
International Journal of Applied Linguistics vol 10, no. 1
Oczkus, L. D. (2003). Reciprocal teaching at work: Strategies for improving reading
comprehension. Newark, DE: International Reading Association.
Oczkus, L. D. (2010). Reciprocal teaching at work: Powerful strategies and lessons for
improving
reading comprehension (2nd ed). Newark, DE: International Reading Association.
Pilonieta, P., & Medina, A.L. (2009). Reciprocal teaching for the primary grades: We can do
it, too!” The Reading Teacher, 63(2), 120 – 129.
Quirk, P.J. (2010). Using reciprocal teaching and learning methods to enhance
comprehension in mathematics word problems (Master of Education thesis, Massey
University, Palmerston North, New Zealand). Retrieved from
http://mro.massey.ac.nz/handle/10179/2247.
Racca, R. & Lasaten, R.C (2016). English language proficiency and academic performance
of
Philippine Science High School students. International Journal of Languages, Literature
and
Linguistics vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 44-49
Reilly, Y., Parsons, J. & Bortolot, E. (2009). Reciprocal teaching in mathematics.
Proceedings of
the Mathematics of Prime Importance Conference, the 46th Conference of the
Mathematical Association of Victoria (pp. 182– 189). Retrieved from
http://www.mav.vic.edu.au/files/conferences/ 2009/13Reilly.pdf.
Roth, W.-M. (2009). On the problematic of word problems – language and the world we
inhabit.
In L. Verschaffel, B. Greer, W. Van adooren, & S. Mukhopadhyay (Eds.), Words and
worlds:
Modelling verbal descriptions of situations (pp. 55-71). Rotterdam: Sense Publishers
Van Garderen, D. (2004). Reciprocal teaching as a comprehension strategy for
understanding
mathematical word problems. Reading & Writing Quarterly, 20: 2257229. doi:
10.1080/10573560490272702.

Vilenius-Tuohimaa, P.M., Aunola, K. & Nurmi, J. (2008). The associationbetween

mathematical
word problems and reading comprehension. Educational Psychology, 28 (4), 409-426
_______________________
Rachel Dorcas A. Lim, MaEd
University of the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City 1101
rdal02@icloud.com
Ma.Nympha Beltran-Joaquin, PhD

University of the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City 1101
mbjoaquin@up.edu.ph

APPENDIX A
SAMPLE ITEMS IN THE PROBLEM-SOLVING ABILITY TEST
DIRECTIONS: Read, analyze, and solve each problem carefully. Show your step by step
solution. Write your answer with the corresponding unit and label.
1 5
1) A family has 9 2 boxes of cassava cakes. During the weekend, their guests ate 2 6
boxes of the cake. How many boxes were left?
1 1
2) Ben bought a packet of marbles. He used 3 of the marbles in the experiment and 6
of them was kept in the box. Then he gave the rest of the marbles to his friends.
What part was given to his friends?
2 1
3) In the Grade VI level, of the pupils are doing their MathScore, and are doing
10 4
their research paper and the rest are writing their homework. What part of the class
is the third group?
5
4) At Shekinah Glory Academy, 8 of the students play a musical instrument. Of the
4
students who play a musical instrument, 5 play a ukulele. What fraction of the
students at Shekinah Glory Academy play a ukulele?
1 2
5) What is the area of a room with a length of 9 2 m and a width of 3 3 m?
1
6) William’s mathematics class meets 4 times a week for 1 2 hour each time. How
many hours is that a week?
3
7) The sale price of a pair of rubber shoes is ₱1350. This is 4 of the original price.
What was the original price?
9
8) A carpenter has a piece of wood that is 15 of a foot in length. He needs to cut
1
pieces that are of a foot long. How many pieces can a carpenter cut?
20
APPENDIX B
PROMPT CARDS

Lin 83
THE NORMS OF ARGUMENTATION IN A PRIMARY

CLASSROOM
Pi-Jen Lin, National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan
Introduction
The importance of developing mathematics literacy has been highlighted in recent
documents in mathematics education. Mathematics education should place value on the
process of critical reasoning and argumentation that enable students to understand
mathematics conceptually and how evidence is used to construct explanations. The
argumentation-based classrooms where knowledge is created by dealing with doubt,
ambiguity, and contradiction with peers’ negotiation should be emphasized. This indicates
that instruction should shift toward argumentation-based classroom away from traditional
mathematics classrooms where knowledge is relied on teacher’s authority. Students in
argumentation-based classrooms are expected to criticize, defend ideas and conjectures,
share the responsibility of learning. The mathematical knowledge is collaboratively
developed through discourse among students with teacher’s support. Teacher in
argumentation-based classroom is not an unquestioned authority (Makar, Bakker, &
Ben-Zvi, 2015).
There is an increasing agreement that teachers should set up proper learning environment so
as to arouse students need for argumentation in primary classrooms. Recently,
argumentation has been received increasingly attention from researchers in mathematics
education (e.g., Hanna & de Villiers, 2012; Stylianides, Bieda, & Morselli, 2016). However,
teaching argumentation in classrooms has been slow when a number of challenges exist for
both teachers and students. Teachers face many challenges when dealing with
argumentation in ordinary classrooms. For instance, teachers need to establish suitable
norms of teaching argumentation, choosing or design appropriate tasks for fostering
students’ conceptual understanding and argumentation. The challenge could be caused from
teachers’ lack of experience and weak knowledge in teaching argumentation (e.g., Gabel &
Dreyfus 2013). Thus, the study aims to understand how a teacher establish the norms of
teaching argumentation in a primary classroom. The research question to be answered is:
What did the norms of argumentation look like that a teacher taught argumentation in a
classroom over a year?
Theoretical Framework
Norms consist of cognitive and social aspect through the collective expectations of teacher
and students about what counts as appropriate activities and interactions at classroom level
(Cobb, 2002; Makar et al., 2015; Webb et al., 2014). Cobb (2002) addresses three key types
of norms constituting classroom mathematical activities and interactions, including
normative purpose (shared goals of an activity), normative standards of argumentation
(what count as a legitimate argument in terms of claims, and support that would be expected
by the teacher and students), and normative ways of reasoning with tools and

84 The Norms of Argumentation in a Primary Classroom
representations. According to the three types of norms, Makar with colleagues (2015)
translate them into the norms of argumentation-based inquiry including having a shared goal
responding to an inquiry question, generating a legitimate and justifiable solution, being
explicit about the evidence and process of solution, anticipating critique, and privileging
expectations to think and reason mathematically. In this paper, we only focuses on the
cognitive aspect in argumentation teaching; it is called argumentation norms.
In terms of the use of evidence, when students defend their claims, evidence plays a critical
role in convincing their peers of the validity of their claims. To establish the norms of
students’ ownership for developing argumentation, Goos (2004) argues that teacher needs to
ask students to go beyond passive listening and share incomplete ideas with others. Goos
suggests that teacher needs to withhold judgement on students’ suggestions and further
elicit comments and critiques from peers. Gradually, students would not be afraid to offer
conjectures and critique without teacher prompting. Otherwise, if teacher makes a
judgement on student contribution as correct or incorrect, students would be less likely to
contribute their emerging thinking. In addition, active listening, explaining and justifying to
peers, and building on others’ ideas are the norms of argumentation required to establish in
classrooms (Webb et al., 2014).
How can a teacher support student to establish the norm of argumentation in classrooms?
Webb and her colleagues (2014) point to teacher’s follow-up questions are critical important
for supporting students to engage with each other’s ideas. Franke and her colleagues (2015)
further address the need of scaffolding in-the-moment. They claim that it is important for a
teacher to make the in-the-moment decisions to support students, to extend an interaction
around an idea rather than to move on to another idea, as well as to invite other students to
have a new contribution. Given these, it is apparent that Franke and her colleagues’ three
features of scaffolding focus on the functions of teacher support for collective
argumentation, while Webb and her colleagues emphasize on the follow-up questions as
important support for teachers to elicit students’ argumentation.
Conner, Singletary, Smith, Wagner, and Francisco (2014) develop a framework of teacher
support for collective argumentation in classroom discourse. This framework consists of
three types of support: direct contribution, asking questions, and using other supportive
actions. In this framework, the questions asked by teacher mean a request for action of
information, not simply an interrogative sentence. The rhetorical questions are not included
in the type of support for collective argumentation. The questions they identify focus on
teacher’s intention rather than on the types of responses they elicit from students. They
identify five categories of questions as a means to describe the ways in which teachers
might support collective argumentation in classrooms. The five categories of questions are:
requesting a factual answer, requesting an idea, requesting a method, requesting elaboration,
and requesting evaluation.
We adopt Conner et al.’s (2014) framework of teacher’s support for collective
argumentation, because it is a device allowing us to examine classroom discourse. Their
framework goes beyond frameworks currently in use to examine how teachers impact the

Lin 85
development of mathematics in classrooms. Thus, it allows us to examine how the teacher

support students in understanding how and when claims that have been previously
established can be used in support of subsequent claims. This framework provides a
finer-grained analysis of the mathematics discourse.
METHOD
Context and Participants
The data presented in the study was part of a project on mathematical argumentation
involving six primary teachers over three years. The goal of the project was to improve
argumentation teaching in classrooms. This paper draws on the data only from a classroom
in the last year of the project.
Data were collected from Fong and her 27 fifth-grade students engaging argumentation in
three units during the school year. Fong has been taught 13 years including 4 years of
argumentation teaching in research projects conducted by the author. Fong was selected
because she was interested in adopting an innovative argumentation instructional approach.
Students had neither prior experience with argumentation teaching nor collaborative
learning. Students were regularly heterogeneously grouped for working with a diverse peer.
A typical argumentation teaching consisted of five stages (Lin ＆ Horng, 2017): (1)
construction, formulation, validation, generalization, justification. In the construction stage,
Fong asked students to construct cases individually. It was not enough to look for a pattern
from the limited cases, so that students came together in groups of 4. In formulation stage,
students worked individually to look for patterns and formulate claims based on the cases.
The group-claims gathering from individual-claims followed by group sharing and checking
the correctness of the claims. The claims were frequently modified on the statements
through group discussions. Fong invited students to display their claims on the blackboard
and to report to the whole class.
In validation stage, Fong asked students to classify various claims into different categories.
Each category was sequenced for validating the truth with one more new cases. For leading
the claims to target conclusions, Fong asked students: “Does each of your claims work for
all case?” The premise of a claim was proposed. In generalization stage, Fong frequently
asked students “Whether the claims were true for all cases ?” If it does, she further asked
students to elaborate the claim with precise mathematical language. If it does not, Fong
asked “How do you specify the special condition under which the claim holds true?”. In the
final stage, Fong asked students to justify their claims by “How do you convince your
friends?”.
Data Collection and Analysis
The focus of data collection was on displaying the norms of argumentation in classroom
rather than tracking the development of the norms. The data consisted primarily of the 6
videotaped lessons from three units. The transcripts of video recording were used as primary
data sources, supplemented by students’ worksheets. Six graduate students were divided
into two subgroups to analyze the transcripts on identifying the scenarios with respect to

mathematics argumentation components including claims, supports, refutations, qualifiers,

and Justification. Discussions on codes among the two subgroups took place throughout the
analysis in order to negotiate potential narratives. Where questions arose, transcripts were
shown to two subgroups for negotiation and finally determined by the researcher if they had
different codes for a same narrative. A framework of coding the transcripts based on
grounded theory was developed. Due to the limited pages, the norms of argumentations are
reported in the result section.
RESULTS
Norms of Claims: Claims Leading to Conclusions More Than Those Without Leading to
Conclusion
The data of Table 1 shows two trends. First, the claims leading to conclusion was
categorized into non-true claims and true claims for all cases. 16 claims to be resulted into
the target conclusion were more than 2 claims that did not reach the conclusion. A true
conjecture as an example was proposed by students, such as “Both the length and width of a
rectangle was enlarged/reduced with x times, its perimeter was also enlarged or reduced
the same x times.”. A non-true conjecture was “When the divisor is less than 1, the quotient
is greater than 1; the divisor is greater than 1, the quotient is less than 1; the divisor is
equal to 1, and the quotient is the same as the dividend.”.
Second, the claims unable to be led to the conclusion was sorted into two categories:
irrelative and false claims. The false claims proposed by students was such as “When the
divisor is less than 1, the quotient is greater than 1; when the divisor is greater than 1, the
quotient is less than 1; when the divisor is equal to 1, and the quotient is equal to 1.” The
example of irrelative claims was such as “Both red and blue are two sides of the right angle.”
in the lesson of area of triangle.
Table 1: The frequencies of the norms of claims in three units
Types of claims Claims without leading to
Claims leading to conclusions
conclusions
Lessons Non-true True for all irrelative False
Multiplication & division
3 2 0 0
of fractions and decimals
Triangle area 1 7 1 0
Enlarge and reduce 0 3 0 0
Total 4 12 1 1
It is noted that the claims that were originated from students were not guaranteed to be led
to the target conclusion. Thus, the non-true claims to be true for all cases needed to be
validated with more supporting cases and refuted by a counter-case. During the generalizing
stage, the qualifier which was the statement with specifying domain with which a claim to
be true for all cases was involved. After the "condition" added in the non-true claims, then
the non-true claim was turned out to be a true claim for all cases. For instance, a claim
initially proposed by the students with “The larger the multiplier is, the greater the

Lin 87
product.”. Through Fong’s intervention on the premise to be clear, the claim was elaborated
to be more precisely “When the multiplicand is the same, the larger the multiplier is, the
greater the product.”. The support from Fong in the formulation stage was by asking her
students to check the initial claims with the question “Could it be still true while using other
cases from other groups?”. Furthermore, Fong realized that “When the multiplicand is the
same, the larger the multiplier is, the greater the product.” was not true for the multiplier to
be a fraction and the number 0. Accordingly, she asked students a further question by “What
we were missing here? Why did you say so?”. After the whole-class discussion with Fong’s
support, the claim was revised and became a true claim for all cases as “When the
multiplicand is the same (except 0), the larger the multiplier with more than 1, the larger
the product is.; the smaller the multiplier less than 1, the smaller the product is.; the
product keeps the same with the multiplicand if the multiplier is equal to 1.”. Through
Fong’s support in the generalization stage, the multiplicand and multiplier is equal to the
number 0 were exclusive for the claim to be true for any other cases.
There were 8 claims to be led to the target conclusions and one irrelative conjecture
generated by students. Of the 8 claims, one was true only for some cases and the others
were true for all cases. In the lesson of multiplication and division of fraction and decimal, 5
claims were able to be resulted into the target conclusions. The claim with “When the
divisor is less than 1, the quotient is greater than 1; when the divisor is greater than 1, the
quotient is less than 1; when the divisor is equal to 1, and the quotient is equal to 1.” was
false. However, it is correct on the basis of the cases they constructed. These cases were 1
1/2=2, 1 3=1/3, 1 1=1. In fact, the claim is non-true for the cases 8 3/2=16/3, 1/12
1/3=1/4, 1 1=1. Thus, the claim is true for some cases and is false for some cases. The
non-true claims for all cases will be refuted in the validating stage. This is a feature of
argumentation teaching. Thus, the quality of claims depends on the cases to be constructed.
Norms of Warrants: Students Mostly Using Examples to Validate One’s Own or Others’
Claims
There were five norms of argumentation that Fong evoked her students’ argumentation in
total 55 frequencies. The five norms of argumentation consisted of: one’s own or others’
claims was warranted by examples or mathematical ideas (A1), refuting others’ own claims
by using examples or mathematical ideas (A2), specifying condition or excluding the
non-true claims to become true claims for all cases (A3), by using universal quantifier to
describe a true conjecture (A4), and by using conjunctions to be part of the statement of a
target conclusion (A5), indicated in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Types of argumentation across three units
Figure 1 shows that supporting one’s own or others’ claims by example or mathematical
ideas was highest frequencies, with 26 frequencies, as about half of the 55 frequencies of
the argumentation. Fong also devoted to elaborating the language description for leading to
the target conclusion, with 18 frequencies(A3+A4+A5). For instance, the universal
quantifier expressed by the logical terms such as "as long as", "all" and "any" "," or "and
other mathematically logic terms.
Norms of Warrant: Students Mostly Using Correct Examples to Validate True Claims
The data in Table 2 shows that Fong helped her students in using either correct or incorrect
examples to warrant their own claims or others' claims. Four norms of warrants were
established in the three units. Using correct examples for validating the true claims (S1) was
most frequently used, 19 out of the 26 frequencies. Fong often asked: "Where did you see
that your claim was correct?" "Did any data in the rest of your group still meet this claim?
". When students did not understand what the claim means, the correct example (S2) and the
incorrect examples (S3) were sometimes invalid used by students for a true claim.
Table 2: Norms of warrant and refutation for validating one’s claims
Multiplication
Mathematics Contents Enlarge
& Division of Triangle
& Total
fraction, Area
Norms of warrant and refutation Reduce
Decimals
Warrant (A1)
S1: Correct examples to be valid true claims 8 8 3 19
S2: Correct examples to be invalid true claims 0 0 5 5
S3: Incorrect examples to be valid true claims 1 0 0 1
S4: Correct example to be invalid false claims 1 0 0 1
total 10 8 8 26
Refutation (A2)
R1: Invalid correct examples to refute non-true 1 0 0 1
R2: Invalid incorrect examples to refute non-true 2 0 0 2
R3: Invalid correct examples to refute false 2 0 0 2
R4: Math knowledge to be valid refuting false 3 0 2 5
R5: Math knowledge to be invalid refuting false 1 0 0 1
total 9 0 2 11

Lin 89
Norms of Refutation: Students Mostly Using Prior Mathematics Knowledge to Refute False
Claims
Similarly, the data in Table 2 shows that Fong helped her students in giving evidence to
refute others’ claims. The evidence to be used in refusing others' claims mainly consist of
using correct or incorrect examples and prior mathematical knowledge. There were five
norms Fong assisted her students to refute other’s claims in classroom: (1) correct examples
to be valid refuting true claims (R1); (2) incorrect examples to be invalid refuting non-true
claims (R2); if the students did not ensure if the claim was non-true for all cases, then (3)
correct examples to be invalid refuting false claims (R3), as well as prior mathematics
knowledge to be valid refutation false claims (R4) and invalid refuting false claims. Of the 5
norms of finding evidence to refute a non-true claim for some cases, the students refuted in
valid false conjecture with prior mathematics knowledge was the most used in the refutation
type. As we observed, Fong requested students use their prior knowledge by asking the
question: "Please go back to what you have learned before."
Question Types to be Asked for Supporting the Norms of Argumentation
The data in Table 3 shows the question types asked by Fong for supporting the
argumentation norms. Five types of questions were described as follows. F1 type of
questions was for encouraging students to formulate claims as many as possible.
Particularly, this type was not only respecting students’ multiple claims but also inspiring
low achievers’ participation. This type of questions was most frequently asked by Fong for
the norm of claims. F2 type of questions was required for compiling and then classifying
students’ various claims. Normally, more than 2 claims were generated by each student,
including the low achievers. Thus, there were different quality of claims addressed in a class.
It is impossible to examine the correctness of the claims and their truths in a 40-min lesson.
Fong helped her students to establish the norm of claim by classifying the claims coming up
in the classroom. Afterwards, the third type of question was asked for requiring a claim to
be referred to given cases. F3 type of questions was for establish the habit of mind “what
you said must depend on where the evidence is”, such as the question: "What were the cases
the claims you generated based on?" The claim without referring to the data student
generated was not accepted, even if the claim is true. F4 type of questions to be asked was
essential to support students in establishing the norm of claims in the formulation stage.
After the claims to be formulated, questions for requiring a claim to be precise and to be
complete (F5) were asked by Fong. Frequently, the statements students made were not
precise and incomplete by using mathematical language or terms.
Table 3: Question types of the teacher asked for argumentation
Contents Multipli. & divi.
Triangule Enlarge
of fractions & Total
area &Reduce
Questions types decimals
Formulation stage
F1: Request for more claims 8 4 8 20
F2: Request for classifying 1 0 1 2
F3: Request for a claim referring to cases. 6 2 4 12
F4: Request for checking a non-true/false claim 6 2 4 12

F5: Request for a claim to be precise & complete. 6 3 2 11

Validation stage
V1: Request for validating claim with a new case 6 3 2 11
V2: Request for categorizing the validated claims 1 0 1 2
V3: Request for compiling the validated claims 3 2 2 7
Three types of questions were used for establishing the norms of argumentation in the
validation stage. The questions were for requiring students validate a given claim with a
new case (V1), request to categorize the validated claims (V2), and request to compile the
validated claims (V3). The questions to be asked by Fong for requiring validate a given
claim with one more new cases was most frequently employed in the validation stage for
helping students the meaning of validation, with 11 frequencies, such as the question
"Which of the data in your groups was also valid to the claim?".
CONCLUSIONS AND DISCUSSIONS
The study contributed to the norms of claims, warrants, and refutation in argumentation
teaching The norms of claims included the claims could be refuted during the stages of
argumentation teaching and the claims can be led to the target conclusions after teacher’s
intervention in argumentation teaching. Students’ norms of argumentation needed to be
supported by asking different types of questions in different stage of argumentation teaching.
Thus, this study contributed the information to both students’ and the teacher’s actions
in-the-moment (Franke et al. 2015). However, students engaging in argumentation was the
first year, so that they did not reach into independence in argumentation norms. The result
supports Makeret al.’s (2015) claimed that the hand over to independent use of norms was a
cumulative development
It is found that the claims could be led to the target conclusion were more than those unable
to be led to conclusion. The refuted claims were occurred within a group or between groups
discussion. Using prior mathematical knowledge was the teacher assisting students in
refuting non-true claims and false claims for all cases. The non-true claims for all cases to
be led to the conclusion were resulted into true claims for all cases, requiring the teacher by
asking key questions at different stages of the argumentation teaching. In the formulation
stage, to help students in formulating a claim which was really based on the cases they
constructed, the teacher often asked students by the type of questions for request a claim to
be referent to the given cases and the questions for inviting more claims from students. The
type of questions to be asked for inviting more claims is the study contributing to elaborate
Goos’s suggests that teacher needs to withhold judgement on students’ suggestions and
further elicit comments and critiques from peers (Goos, 2004). In the validation stage, to
help students in figuring out the evidence to defend or to refute a claim, the teacher often
asked the type of questions for requiring validating a given claim with a new case.
Argumentation teaching had three characteristics: (1) The quality of claims to be generated
depended on the cases. (2) It provides an opportunity for enhancing the quality of group
interaction. The teacher helped students to explain their own ideas, to persuade others to
accept their own ideas, and to ask questions to others. (3) The right and wrong mathematical

Lin 91
knowledge depended on democracy rather than teacher’s authority. The process of

democracy referred to the possibility of making non-true claims be true claims for all cases,
by checking and validating, peers used counterexamples to refute them. An implication of
this study is to provide an initial template of what to expect in terms of students’ adopting
norms of teaching argumentation over a year and how a primary teacher can support these
norms. However, only one case teacher was analyzed for this study. We expect that working
on six teachers’ classrooms level norms of argumentation would be more stable for coming
paper.
References
Cobb, P. (2002). Reasoning with tools and inscriptions. Journal of the Learning Sciences,
11(2–3), 187–215.
Conner, A., Singletary, L. M., Smith, R. C., Wagner, P. A., & Francisco, R. T. (2014).
Teacher support for collective argumentation: A framework for examining how teachers
support students’ engagement in mathematical activities. Educational Studies in
Mathematics, 86, 401-429.
Franke, M. L., Turrou, A. C., Webb, N. M., Ing, M., Wong, J., Shin, N., & Fernandez, C.
(2015). Student engagement with others’ mathematical ideas: The role of teacher
invitation and support moves. The Elementary School Journal, 116(1), 126-148.
Gabel, M., Dreyfus, T. (2013). The flow of proof—The example of Euclidean algorithm.
Lindmeier, A. M. & Heinze, A. (Eds.). Proceedings of the 37th Conference of the
International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education, (Vol. 2, pp.321-328).
Kiel, Germany: PME.
Goos, M. (2004). Learning mathematics in a classroom community of inquiry. Journal for
Research in Mathematics Education, 35(4), 258–291.
Hanna, G. & de Villers, M. (2012). Proof and proving in mathematics education. The 19th
ICMI study. New ICMI Study Series 15. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer.
Makar, K., Bakker, A., & Ben-Zvi, D. (2015). Scaffolding norms of argumentation-based
inquiry in a primary mathematics classroom. ZDM, 47(7), 1107-1120.
Lin, P. J. ＆ Horng, S. Y. (2017). The Conjecturing contributing to the group argumentation
in primary Classrooms. Keynote speech for the 9th Classroom Teaching Research for All
Students Conference. July 12 – 15, Dalian University, China.
Smit, J., van Eerde, H. A. A., & Bakker, A. (2013). A conceptualization of whole-class
scaffolding. British Educational Research Journal, 39(5), 817–834.
Stylianides, A. J., Bieda, K. N. & Morselli, F. (2016). Proof and argumentation in
mathematics education research. In A. Gutiérrez, C. L. Gilah & P. Boero (Eds.), Second
Handbook of research on the psychology of mathematics education: The journey
continues (pp. 315-351). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense publishers.
Webb, N. M., Franke, M. L., Ing, M., Wong, J., Fernandez, C. H., Shin, N., & Turrou, A. C.
(2014). Engaging with others’ mathematical ideas: Interrelationships among student
participation, teachers’ instructional practices, and learning. International Journal of
Educational Research, 63, 79–93.

Acknowledgement
The research was funded by the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST
104-2511-S-134 -003 -MY3). Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations
expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the
MOST.

Lin 93
ARE DRAWINGS BETTER THAN QUESTIONNAIRES?

COMPARING TWO METHODS OF STUDYING MATHEMATICS
TEACHERS’ BELIEFS
Yung-Chi Lin, National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan
Introduction
Identifying or developing alternative methods for investigating teacher beliefs is
increasingly important, in light of recent findings about the limitations of traditional
methods such as questionnaires and interviews. For example, as well as pointing out that
traditional methods cannot capture certain important belief-related factors, Lee and Zeppelin
(2014) found that such methods may create stressful environments that are likely to reduce
the accuracy and richness of the data collected. Accordingly, many researchers
(Beeli-Zimmermann, 2014; Finson, 2002; Hsieh & Tsai, 2017; Lee & Zeppelin, 2014)
proposed an alternative drawing method, in which each respondent draws a picture of him-
or herself working as a mathematics teacher. However, every method or technique has its
limitations. For example, White and Gunstone (2000) focused on the difficulty of scoring
drawings reliably, due to their open-ended features and students’ different levels of artistic
skill. Moreover, having developed their own drawing-based instrument, Thomas, Pedersen,
and Finson (2001) recommended that it can be used in combination with another type of
instrument, the Teaching Styles Continuum, which classifies one’s teaching approach using
questionnaire-like items. As such, a meaningful investigation of the differences between
drawing and questionnaire methods is somewhat overdue, and this is what prompted us to
conduct the research discussed in this paper. Thus, the purpose of this study was to
investigate the relationship between drawing and questionnaire methods.
Method
This study used a mixed-methods approach, comprising chi-square tests of association,
Spearman’s correlations and interview analysis. The 59 participants, all of whom were
pre-service teachers, were asked to complete a drawing task, the Teaching Styles
Continuum, and an 18-item Likert-scaled beliefs questionnaire prior to being interviewed
individually. The qualitative interview data were used to complement statistical analysis and
provide deeper explanations of the quantitative results.
Participants
The participants comprised 47 females and 12 males, all enrolled in an elementary teacher
education program at a university in Taiwan, and all were taking the same elementary
teaching methods course at the time of the study. Only three were graduate students and the
rest, undergraduates. Two-fifths of them (n=23) had informal elementary school teaching
experience: for example, as tutors or after-school program instructors. The participants’
self-reported attitudes toward mathematics were generally positive, though not enthusiastic,
averaging 1.96 on a three-point Likert scale with 1 being “like” and 3 being “dislike”.
Instruments

94 Are Drawings Better Than Questionnaires? Comparing Two Methods of Studying Mathematics Teacher
Beliefs
Drawing Task
In the drawing task, which was adapted from Thomas et al. (2001), the participants were
asked to imagine they were working in a mathematics classroom, draw it, and then write a
caption explaining what the teacher and students in the picture are doing.
Teaching Styles Continuum
The Teaching Styles Continuum developed by Thomas et al. (2001) divides teaching types
into three categories, as shown in Table 3. The Exploratory type is reflective of a generally
constructivist teaching approach; the Explicit implies a more traditional approach; and the
Conceptual is a middle way between the other two approaches. When filling out the
instrument, the respondents were asked to choose one description in each item (raw) that
best described their beliefs.
Table 3. The Teaching Style Continuum
Exploratory Conceptual Explicit
1. A. Teacher believes B. Teacher believes C. Teacher believes
students are capable of students need themed, students lack knowledge
managing their own conceptual learning and need assistance in
learning. experiences. learning.
2. A. Curriculum is open to B. Content is exploratory, C. Curriculum is focused
student interests. organized around key on specific outcomes.
concepts.
3 A. Teacher leads and B. Teacher organizes the C. Teacher is the
guides student activities connections of content and knowledge conduit (telling
and investigations. learning process. is teaching).
4 A. Teacher focuses on B. Teacher-centered C. Teacher initiates
student questions as an lessons include hands-on activities. Student input is
instructional goal. activities, group work, and acknowledged but not
discussion of ideas. expected.
5 A. Alternative assessment B. Tests check for C. Tests focus on science
measures student learning understanding of important content knowledge.
and knowledge. concepts.
Note. Adapted from Thomas et al. (2001), p. 310.
Beliefs Questionnaire
This study’s beliefs questionnaire, which was revised from Chan and Elliott (2004),
comprised two sub-domains: constructivist beliefs (measured by six items) and traditional
beliefs (12 items). The sample questions are shown in Table 4. Cronbach’s alpha values
were .686 for the whole questionnaire, .571 for constructivist beliefs, and .748 for
traditional beliefs.

Lin 95
Data Analysis
For analysis of the drawing task, we developed the coding framework shown in Table 5
based on Thomas et al. (2001) coding sheet. As the table indicates, the students’ drawings
were evaluated according to five critical indicators, covering the depiction of three aspects
of teacher roles (indicators 1, 2, and 3), two aspects of student roles (indicators 2 and 4), and
the classroom environment (indicator 5). For each indicator, a given drawing was assigned a
score of -1, 0, or +1 according to how well it fits into the Teacher-centered, Mixed, or
Student-centered categories. Aggregating the scores for each indicator yields the total score,
which can therefore range from -5 to +5. Within this range, -5 to -3 represents a
Teacher-centered approach, -2 to +2 a Mixed approach, and +2 to +5 a Student-centered
approach.
Table 4. Beliefs questionnaire
Dimensions Sample items
Constructivist 1. It is important that a teacher understands the feelings of the
Conception (n=6) students.
2. Good teachers always encourage students to think for answers
themselves.
3. Learning means students have ample opportunities to explore,
discuss and express their ideas.
Traditional 1. During the lesson, it is important to keep students confined to
Conception (n=12) the textbooks and the desks.
2. Learning means remembering what the teacher has taught.
3. Good students keep quiet and follow teacher’s instruction in
class.
Table 5. Coding framework for the drawing task
Indicators Teacher-centered Mixed Student-centered
(Score: -1) (Score: 0) (Score: +1)
1. Teaching Activity Role of lecturer Mixed role of lecturer and Role of facilitator
facilitator
2. Teacher-Student No interaction with Interaction with
Interaction* students students
3. Teacher Location In the front of class Sometimes in the front of With students
class; sometimes with
students
4. Student Activity Role of information Mixed role of receiver Role of active
receiver and active learner learner
5. Classroom Traditional (arranged U-Shaped, circle or half Arranged in groups
Arrangement in rows) circle
Note. *, no mixed type
To analyze the results obtained from the Teaching Styles Continuum, we calculated each
participant’s total number of choices in each column (i.e., Exploratory, Conceptual,
Explicit), and these totals were then used to categorize his or her beliefs among these three
teaching styles. For example, if a participant selected 60% of the descriptions in the

Beliefs
Exploratory column and 40% of those in the Conceptual column, that person was coded as
having an Exploratory teaching style. However, in cases where two of a respondent’s three
percentages were equal (for example, 40% in Exploratory, 40% in Conceptual and 20% in
Explicit), his/her results were always coded as Conceptual. This was because all three
permutations of results featuring two equal percentages – that is to say, 40/40/20, 40/20/40
and 20/40/40 – failed to fit neatly into either the traditional or constructivist categories, as
60% of the person’s responses always fell into the Conceptual category plus the polar
opposite category to the one that might otherwise have been selected. Given that the
Conceptual category is defined in large part as a mixture of the other two, it seemed to be
the best available way of describing these equal cases.
Two forms of statistical analysis were used to explore the relationships between the drawing
task, on the one hand, and on the other, the Teaching Styles Continuum and the beliefs
questionnaire. First, a chi-square test was used to establish a contingency coefficient
reflecting the magnitude of the relationship between the results of the drawing task and
those of the Teaching Styles Continuum. As noted earlier, data from the drawing task were
further divided into three categories – Teacher-centered, Mixed and Student-centered – and
data from the Teaching Styles Continuum were also divided into three categories: Explicit,
Conceptual and Exploratory. Chi-square testing is appropriate for two nominal variables.
Second, a Spearman’s correlation analysis was applied to examine the relationship between
the data from the drawing task and those from the beliefs questionnaire. In both cases, this
was ordinal data, with the drawing task’s variable ranging from -5 (very traditional beliefs)
to +5 (very constructivist beliefs) and the questionnaire’s five-point Likert scale ranging
from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree”. Therefore, Spearman’s correlation analysis
was appropriate.
Results
The relationship between drawing-task and Teaching Styles Continuum results
Results of Spearman’s correlation between the drawing task and the beliefs
questionnaire
Table 7 presents the Spearman’s rho correlations between the results of the drawing task
and those of the beliefs questionnaire. These indicate that the participants’ drawing-task
scores were not significantly correlated with either their constructivist beliefs (r=.03, p=.81)
or their traditional beliefs (r=-.14, p=.29) as revealed by the questionnaire, and that both
correlation coefficients were weak.
Interview data results
The findings discussed above were counter to our expectation that the results of the drawing
task, the questionnaire, and the Teaching Styles Continuum would be fairly similar.
However, the participants’ interview data shed some light on these unexpected findings.
First, some reported that their drawings reflected their general feelings about teaching

Lin 97
mathematics, whereas the questionnaire or Teaching Styles Continuum reflected their

knowledge about how mathematics should be taught. Second, some others said their
drawings illustrated realistic teaching, while the questionnaire or Teaching Styles
Continuum recorded their teaching ideals. And a third group stated that the drawings
reflected their childhood experiences as learners, and thus could have appeared more
traditional than their actual beliefs.
Table 6 presents a cross-tabulation of the teaching approaches from the drawing task and the
Teaching Styles Continuum. The former classified nearly half the respondents as having a
Student-centered approach (44%, n=26), as compared to 22% (n=13) who were
Teacher-centered and 34% (n=20) who had a Mixed approach. Based on the Teaching
Styles Continuum, on the other hand, the vast majority of the respondents were deemed to
have a Conceptual teaching style (n=48, 81%), with the Exploratory and Explicit styles
accounting for only 17% (n=10) and 2% (n=1) of the sample, respectively. Notably, 95% of
the drawings that were categorized as depicting a Mixed approach (i.e., all but one) were by
people who had been classified as having the corresponding Conceptual style by the other
instrument. Intuitively, this seemed plausible, insofar as the Mixed approach and
Conceptual style both represented an area near the middle of a spectrum of traditional to
constructivist teaching. However, a chi-square test of association showed no significant
correspondence between the results obtained from the two instruments (χ=5.25, df=4,
p=.262) and yielded a contingency coefficient of .29, implying that there was no meaningful
relationship between the results of the drawing task and those of the Teaching Styles
Continuum.
Results of Spearman’s correlation between the drawing task and the beliefs questionnaire
Table 7 presents the Spearman’s rho correlations between the results of the drawing task
and those of the beliefs questionnaire. These indicate that the participants’ drawing-task
scores were not significantly correlated with either their constructivist beliefs (r=.03, p=.81)
or their traditional beliefs (r=-.14, p=.29) as revealed by the questionnaire, and that both
correlation coefficients were weak.
Interview data results
The findings discussed above were counter to our expectation that the results of the drawing
task, the questionnaire, and the Teaching Styles Continuum would be fairly similar.
However, the participants’ interview data shed some light on these unexpected findings.
First, some reported that their drawings reflected their general feelings about teaching
mathematics, whereas the questionnaire or Teaching Styles Continuum reflected their
knowledge about how mathematics should be taught. Second, some others said their
drawings illustrated realistic teaching, while the questionnaire or Teaching Styles
Continuum recorded their teaching ideals. And a third group stated that the drawings

Beliefs
reflected their childhood experiences as learners, and thus could have appeared more
traditional than their actual beliefs.
Table 6. Cross-tabulation of teaching approaches from the drawing task and Teaching Styles
Continuum
Teaching Styles
Drawing Task Explicit Conceptual Exploratory Total
Teacher-centered 0 9 4 13 (22%)
Mixed 0 19 1 20 (34%)
Student-centered 1 20 5 26 (44%)
Total 1 (2%) 48 (81%) 10 (17%) 59 (100%)
Table 7. Results of Spearman’s correlations between the drawing task and beliefs questionnaire
Beliefs Questionnaire
Constructivist beliefs Traditional beliefs
Drawing Task .037 -.149
Note. p>.05
Conclusion
Despite its small scale and limited setting (the participants were all from the same
university), both of which could limit its generalizability, this study’s starkly different
results for the drawing method and the traditional method could imply that when studying
beliefs, both should be jointly applied.
Acknowledgement
This study was supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan.
References
Beeli-Zimmermann, S. (2014). Beyond questionnaires–Exploring adult education teachers’
mathematical beliefs with pictures and interviews. Adults Learning Mathematics: An
International Journal, 9(2), 35-53.
Chan, K.-W., & Elliott, R. G. (2004). Relational analysis of personal epistemology and
conceptions about teaching and learning. Teaching and Teacher Education, 20(8),
817-831. doi:10.1016/j.tate.2004.09.002
Finson, K. D. (2002). Drawing a scientist: What we do and do not know after fifty years of
drawings. School science and mathematics, 102(7), 335-345.
Hsieh, W.-M., & Tsai, C.-C. (2017). Exploring students’ conceptions of science learning via
drawing: a cross-sectional analysis. International Journal of Science Education, 39(3),
274-298. doi:10.1080/09500693.2017.1280640
Lee, J.-E., & Zeppelin, M. (2014). Using drawings to bridge the transition from student to
future teacher of mathematics. International Electronic Journal of Elementary Education,
6(2), 333-346.

Lin 99
Thomas, J. A., Pedersen, J. E., & Finson, K. (2001). Validating the

draw-a-science-teacher-test checklist (DASTT-C): exploring mental models and teacher
beliefs. Journal of Science Teacher Education, 12(4), 295-310.
White, R., & Gunstone, R. (2000). Probing under standing. London: Falmer Press.
Yung-Chi Lin
National Tsing Hua University, No. 521, Nanda Road, East District, Hsinchu City, 300,
Taiwan
yclin@mail.nd.nthu.edu.tw

100

Lin, Wu 101
CLUSTERING ASSESSMENT ON STATISTICAL LITERACY

PERFORMANCE OF PRIMARY SCHOOL STUDENTS
Yuan-Horng Lin, National Taichung University of Education, Taiwan
Sz-Pei Wu, National Taichung University of Education, Taiwan
Abstract
The purpose of this study aims to investigate the statistical literacy performance of primary
school students. Statistics has been considered a domain of mathematics content.
Mathematical literacy is also an important issue of mathematics education, and thus
statistical literacy is one branch in the field of mathematical literacy. Nowadays, the “BIG
DATA” revolution has given citizens access to enormous large-scale open databases.
Therefore, statistical literacy highlights the need for citizens to understand material
presented in daily life. Reforms in mathematics curriculum also emphasize the importance
of being statistically-literate, including both the ability to evaluate statistical material and to
appreciate the relevance of statistically-based approaches in all aspects of life. Therefore,
it is worthwhile to analyze the statistical literacy performance of primary school students. In
this study, dimensions of statistical literacy are based on five components from J. M.
Watson. These five components are basic graphs/tables, sample, basic chance, variation in
data/graphs and variation in chance. Assessment contexts are statistics and probability
materials in daily life. The sample is 383 sixth graders from Taiwan. According to these five
components, comparisons and clustering analysis are adopted to do research on the features
of students’ statistical literacy performance. Results show that there are significant mean
differences among these five components for all students. Male students perform better than
female students do on basic chance, whereas female students perform better than male
students do on basic graphs/tables. Moreover, clustering analysis indicates that all students
could be properly classified into six clusters which are from cluster I to cluster VI. Students
belonging to the same cluster own homogeneity across all dimensions of statistical literacy.
Statistical test shows there are significant mean differences on the performance of five
components among clusters. Students of cluster I have the lowest score on all dimensions of
statistical literacy. On the contrary, students of cluster VI perform quite well and have the
highest score on all dimensions of statistical literacy. As to cluster II, cluster III and
cluster IV, students among clusters excel in various dimensions respectively. In addition,
frequency distributions of gender vary among clusters. Since these assessment contexts of
statistical literacy take place in daily life instead of mathematics textbooks, it seems that
primary school students own distinct features of statistical literacy. Results of this study
could provide suggestions for statistics curriculum and instruction of primary schools.
Finally, based on the findings, some recommendations for future research are also brought
into discussion.

102

Liu, Huang, Chen 103
ANALYSIS OF PROBLEM POSING PERFORMANCE OF A

GIFTED STUDENT IN THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
Shiang-Tung Liu, National Chiayi University, R. O. C.
Chi-Jen Huang, National Chiayi University, R. O. C.
Ming-Chung Chen, National Chiayi University, R. O. C.
Research Background
Most students know how to get the right answers from computational problems of
division. However, if we ask them to pose word problems to correspond the computational
problems, some study showed they have difficulty to pick up appropriate contexts for
posing word problems.
Making connections between computation problems and real word problem is
favorable for students in leaning mathematics and making sense of mathematics operations.
However, most teachers do not connect computation problems to real word problems while
teaching mathematics
Competence of posing real mathematics problem is one of the important goals for
mathematic education, especially in gifted education. But the performance of connecting
computation problems to real word problem for gifted students deserves to be explored.
A gifted boy, Henry, who does not attend extra mathematics program, is interested in
doing problem solving of math activities. However, Henry made mistakes in sense making
for a unit rate when he posed problems for computation sentence.
NCTM (1991) stressed that student should be given opportunities to formulate
problems from given situations and create new problems by modifying the conditions of a
given problem" (p. 95).
To engage students in learning important concepts and to enhance their problem solving
competence, Silver & Cai (2005) designed a task dealing with division with remainders,
such as , pose problem that all can be solved using the same division statement : 540÷40＝?
They illustrated a variety of possible contexts to correspond this statement. Thus, the
problem could be a good way of assessing whether students understand that any division
statement can be used to model many problem situations and that the answer to a situated
division problem depends to a great extent on the features of the situation and the nature of
the quantities involved. Of course, this knowledge might also be tested in different ways,
but a problem-posing task of this type seems especially well suited to this testing goal.
Research Purposes
This study had two purposes:
1. To investigate the performance of Henry’s problem posing.
2. To explore the development of Henry’s problem posing under the researchers’

104 Analysis of Problem Posing Performance of a Gifted Student in the Elementary School
scaffolding (minimal intervention).
Literature Review
Problem posing usually refers to the process of changing an existing problem into a
new one by modifying the knowns, the unknowns, or the restrictions places on the answer
(Moses, Bjork, & Goldenberg, 1990). Problem posing is an important component of the
mathematics curriculum and, indeed, lies at the heart of mathematical activity (Brown &
Walter, 1993; Silver, 1990, 1994). The inclusion of activities in which students generate
their own problems has been strongly recommended by the National Council of Teachers of
Mathematics (NCTM, 1989).
The experiences of posing problem

Math educators consider problem posing to be an important mathematical activity and
therefore believe that students should have experiences posing problems (Silver, 1994). The
experience of “creating one’s own mathematics problems” ought to be part of every
student’s education (Kilpatrick, 1987).
The process of problem posing can enrich mathematics classes by actively engaging
children in constructing mathematics for themselves, and it can assist in intrinsically
motivating children to embrace mathematics as interesting, relevant, and essential
dimension of their lives (Cathcart, Pothier, Vance, & Bezuk, (2011).
Van de Walle (2004) pointed that understanding is demonstrated when connections are
formed between procedure knowledge and conceptual knowledge. Be able to make
connections between conceptual knowledge and procedure knowledge is what Skemp
(1989) calls relational understanding, an important goal to help children think
mathematically. Connections between conceptual and procedural knowledge promote
relational understanding (see Fig. 1) (Cathcart, Pothier, Vance, & Bezuk, 2011). In addition,
the authors believe students’ experiences of problem posing will create the chance to
support relational understanding by connecting the above two kinds of knowledge.
Fig 1. Connections Leading to Relational Understanding
Categories (Interpretations) of fraction division

Sinicrope, Mick, & Kolb (2002) categorized fraction division as partitive division,
measurement division, the inverse of a Cartesian product, the inverse of multiplication, and
the determination of unit rate.
The above five kinds of context for division operation already completely appear in the
math textbook and extra math enrichment material. If we ask students to pose word
problems for decimals’ or fractions’ division, what would be their problem posing
performance?
Vertical and horizontal content knowledge
Fig 2. The position of decimal fraction on the map of different kinds of division.
Methods
Methods: Case study (Yin, 2003)
A case study is an empirical inquiry that investigates a contemporary phenomenon
within its real-life context; especially the boundaries between phenomenon and context are
not evident. The case study relies on multiple sources of evidence, with data needing to
converge in a triangulating fashion.
Research participant
A sixth grader, Henry, is a qualified gifted student identified by the local government.
He does not attend any extra math program outside of school.
Henry has learned computation problem and word problems related to multiplication
(division) for integers, decimals, and fractions, as well as proportional relationship at their
original class.
Most students adopted measurement division or division as the inverse of Cartesian
product (area model) to pose (decimals or fractions) problem. Henry adopted the rate
model and made mistakes at in interpretation for intensive quantity, such as liter per km, km
per minute, etc., while he posed problem for the computation problem of “2.5 ÷ 1.1”.
This is the main reason why Henry was chosen as a research participant.

The computation task

Computation ability is the basic procedural knowledge. This task was designed for
testing students’ computational ability. There are four different problems of division in the
task. The followings are computation problems of division. Please get the answers for
each problem.
1. 540 ÷ 40
2. 2.5 ÷ 1.1
1 1
3. ÷
3 2
4 5
4. ÷
3 6
Illustrating Examples of Problem Posing

Henry and his classmates don’t have the experiences of problem posing. To enrich his
experience, the authors gave him a computation problem of integer with three different
contexts of math word problems. They are partitive division, measurement division, and
the determination of a unit rate.
• Computational problem 12 ÷3 =?
1. There are 12 dollars evenly divided for three children. How much can each child get?
2. The length of a ribbon is 12 meters. If we make 3 meters to be a segment, then how many
segments can we make?
3. If we can use 12 dollars to buy 3 kilograms of orange, how much it is for each kilogram?
Problem posing task

Can you pose two different contexts of word problems for the following computation?
Data resources and analysis

To explore Henry’s problem posing performance, the information of his computing of
division, locating specific position point from two given points, the responses from
interviews, and the performance of solving the word problem he posed were collected and
analyzed (see Fig 3.)

Fig 3. Multiple resources and a chain of evidences
Results and findings: Posing word problems

To find a position from the givens
He got 2 times and remainder, 0.3. Thus, he set the position of 2.2 and determined the
length of 0.3 from 3/11 of the length of a given unit.
Unit rate: Some liters per km

Example:
Can you pose two different contexts of word problems for the computation, 2.5 ÷1.1?
Henry’s two solutions as follows.
1. If a car drove 2.5 km, it consumed gas 1.1 L. How much gas would consume for 1 km
distance?
2. If 2.5 L water costs 1.1 U.S dollars, how much for 1 L water?
Interview for problem posing (1)

If A car drove 2.5 km consumed gas 1.1 liter. How much gas would consume for 1
km distance?
R: Can you solve this word problem you posed?
S: 2.5 ÷ 1.1 (the correct answer is 1.1 ÷2.5)
R: If a car drove 2 km, it consumed gas 1.1 liter, how much gas
would consume for 1 km distance? (simplify the problem he posed)
S: 1.1 ÷ 2 (not 2 ÷1.1)
R: Tell me your thinking?
S: Each km shares a half of 1.1 liter (Henry’s fingers also showed two sections of 1 km
in the diagram.).
R: OK, can you pose a word problem again for the computation problem, 2.5 ÷ 1.1?
S: Now I find my mistakes.
(revised version) If a car drove 1.1km, it consumed gas 2.5 L. How much gas would
consume for 1 km distance?
R: Telling me your understanding about the revised word problem.
S: To fix 1.1 km on the position of a divisor and 2.5 L on the
position of a dividend, (the unit rate of ) this answer is supposed
to be some liters per km, not some km per liter.
Analysis: The diagram he demonstrated showed that each section(km) shares a half of
the gas volume.
Dual property of intensive quantity

• A car drove 2.5 km consumed gas 1.1 L. how much gas would consume for 1 km
distance? (1.1 ÷ 2.5)
• A car drove 1.1km, it consumed gas 2.5 L, how much gas would consume for 1 km
distance? (2.5 ÷ 1.1 ).
• 1.1 ÷ 2.5 (L/km) and 2.5 ÷ 1.1 (km/L) <=> dual property
A similar problem:
If we use 1/4 dollars to buy 1/3 kilogram of orange, how much it is for each
kilogram? How much weight of orange is for one US$?
• The first answer is 1/4 US$ ÷1/3 kg= 3/4 US$/kg.
• The second answer is 1/3kg ÷1/4 US$ = 4/3 kg/US$.
Making sense of fraction (decimal) division

To find the answer for fraction (decimal) division is only a kind of procedure
knowledge. To know the relationship among “dividend”, “divisor”, and “ratio” is necessary
for conceptual knowledge. The process of students’ problem posing gives a chance to

construct conceptual knowledge and makes sense for decimals (fractions) division. In
other words, problem posing gives students to construct relational understanding for both
conceptual and procedural knowledge. Yet, if he/she without enough experiences of math
word problem from math curriculum and math learning, a student may not be successful in
doing problem posing. Thus, the authors draw the following diagram to describe the
relationship of experience of math word problem , relational understanding, and successful
problem posing.
Fig 3. The foundation for successful problem posing performance
Discussions
Henry was able to locate the exact position of 2.5 from the givens (0 and 1.1). His
locating behavior for the computation task showed that his instrument understanding and
norming ability developed well. In addition, Henry preferred to adopt an area model to pose
word problems for decimal division. However, he did not make correct interpretation in unit
rate. Thus, his problem posing for decimal (fractions) division is unsuccessful.
After the researcher gave him minimal intervention, he gained experiences of math
word problem posing and finally made sense of unit rate of intensive quantity and then
posed correct word problems for decimals (fractions) division.
Implications
Henry showed the method of setting two rulers (liter and km) on a number line to
represent his understanding of the consumed liter shared by 2 km. This representation
method is a kind of operating visual materials for his reasoning, and also be helpful to
communicate his idea with others.
This finding suggests teachers to adopt this method to teach unit rate for elementary
students.

Reference
Brown, S.I. & Walter, M.I. (1990). The art of problem posing (2nd ed.). Hillsdale. NJ:
Erlbaum.
Cai, J., Hwang, S., Jiang, C. & Silber, S. (2015). Problem-posing research in mathematics
education: Some answered and unanswered questions. In F. M. Singer, N. F. Ellerton & J.
Cai (Eds.), Mathematical Problem Posing: From Research to Effective Practice. New
York: Springer.
Cathcart, W. G., Pothier, Y. M., Vance, J. H. & Bezuk, N. S. (2011). Learning and teaching
mathematics. In K. V. Canton (Ed), Learning mathematics in elementary and middle
schools: A learner-centered approach (pp. 15-38). Boylston Street, Boston: Pearson
Education.
Kilpatrick, J. (1987). Problem formulating: Where do good problems come from? In A. H.
Schoenfeld (Ed.), Cognitive science and mathematics education (pp. 123-147). Hillsdale.
NJ: Erlbaum.
Lamon, S. J. (1999). Units and unitizing. Teaching fractions and ratios for understanding:
Essential content knowledge and instructional strategies for teachers (pp. 39-58).
Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Ma, L. (1999). Knowing and teaching elementary mathematics. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence
Erlbaum Associates.
Moses, B., Bjork, E., & Goldenberg, E. P. (1990). Beyond Problem Solving: Problem
Posing. In T. J. Cooney (Ed), Teaching and Learning Mathematics in the 1990s: 1990
Yearbook (82-91). National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.
National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM). (1989). Curriculum and evaluation
standards for school mathematics. Reston, VA: NCTM.
National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM). (1991). Professional standards for
Teaching mathematics. Reston, VA: NCTM.
Ott, J. M., Snook, D. L. & Gibson, D. L. (1991). Understanding partitive division of fraction.
Arithmetic Teacher 39 (pp. 7-11).
Silver, E. A. (1990). Contributions of research to practice: Applying findings, methods, and
perspectives. In T. J. Cooney & C. R. Hirsch (Eds.), Teacher and learning mathematics
in the 1990s (pp. 1-11). Reston, VA: National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.
Silver, E. A. (1994).On mathematics problem posing. For the Learning of Mathematics,
14(1), 19-28.
Silver, E. A., Downs, J. M., Leung, S. S. & Kenney, P. A. (1996). Posing mathematical
problems: An exploratory study. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 27(3),
293-309.
Silver, E. D. & Cai, J. (2005). Assessing students’ mathematical problem posing. Teaching
Children Mathematics, 12(3), 129-135.

Sinicrope, R., Mick, H. W. & Kolb, J. R. (2002). Interpretations of fraction division. In B.

Litwiller & G. Bright (Eds.), Making sense of fractions, ratios, and proportions
(pp.153-161). Cedar Falls, Iowa: University of Northern Iowa.
Yin, R. K. (2003). Case Study Research: Design and Methods. Thousand Oaks, California:
Sage Publications.

112 What Are Important for Being a Competent or Expert Mathematics Teachers in Mainland China:
Perceptions of Teacher Educators
WHAT ARE IMPORTANT FOR BEING A COMPETENT OR

EXPERT MATHEMATICS TEACHERS IN MAINLAND CHINA:
PERCEPTIONS OF TEACHER EDUCATORS
Xiaoli Lu, East China Normal University, China
Jiansheng Bao, East China Normal University, China
Abstrct
To increase teacher quality and to promote student achievement, researchers have paid
attention to teacher professional development or learning which considered as a crucial
approach to attain these goals. Meanwhile, the phenomenon that East Asian students have
got outstanding achievements in large-scale assessments has aroused world-wide research
interest in investigating mathematics education in such context. This study explores what
are important for being a competent or expert mathematics teachers in Shanghai China from
the perceptions of frontline teacher educators through asking their opinions on mathematics
teacher professional competence. A 90-to-120-minute interview was conducted to
twenty-six teacher educators with at least the professional title of deputy senior, who
working for primary and secondary school levels and working in in teaching and research
offices, institute of educational development and schools. These participants have rich
experience in teaching mathematics or conducting teaching research and recognised
educational publication, and have high reputations in educator and teacher peers. The
interviews conducted in November and December 2016 and January 2017 in Shanghai,
including questions asking for their general opinions of teacher professional competence,
for their detailed views on the knowledge for teaching, on mathematics classroom teaching
practice, and on support system involving teacher beliefs, attitudes and values of teaching
and learning of mathematics. This paper only presents findings from the teacher educators’
general opinions of teacher professional competence. It is found from the teacher
education’s perceptions that the components of mathematics teacher professional
competence are teacher knowledge including theoretical knowledge
(subject-matter-knowledge and pedagogical-content-knowledge) being obtained from books
and practical knowledge that obtained from conducting teaching practice, good personal
psychological characteristics such as enthusiasm in mathematics and teaching children
mathematics, and other characteristics and skills like having been formed recognised unique
teaching styles or pattern and the ability of continuing active study and learn of the teaching;
among which, knowledge have been widely recognised as a key component. In addition,
some teacher educators hold different views of teacher professional competence that they
did not count teacher knowledge into the components but put more emphases on teachers’
enthusiasm and ability to conduct learning, practice and reflection on teaching. Interestingly,
those teacher educators obtained the newly added highest professional title have more
complex views rather than considering teacher competence as teacher knowledge, or even
hold the different views.

Lu, Bao 113
Keywords: teacher professional development, mathematics teacher competence,

mathematics teacher educator, mathematics teacher expert, the context of Shanghai

114 A Mid-Career Teacher’s Learning from Students’ Thinking and Actions: A Lesson Study
A MID-CAREER TEACHER’S LEARNING FROM STUDENTS’

THINKING AND ACTIONS: A LESSON STUDY
Tomohiko Makino, Utsunomiya University, Japan
Keiko Hino, Utsunomiya University, Japan
Background and purpose of the study

What do teachers learn from mathematics professional development (MPD)? As Goldsmith,
Doerr, and Lewis (2014) indicate, we need careful examination of teachers’ developmental
processes in knowledge, beliefs, or instructional practices. Here, we focus on mid-career
teachers who have been teaching mathematics for 15–20 years and their learning through a
university in-service program. When viewing teachers’ growth from a career-long
perspective, we find certain task and need characteristics for each period (Brown & Borko,
1992). Additionally, the expectation of a mid-career teacher as “middle leader” in one’s
school is growing in Japan. By focusing on teachers with a range of teaching experience, we
attempt to clarify interventions suitable to their tasks and concerns.
In previous papers, we have noted the merits of collaboratively conducting lesson study
among teachers in university in-service programs (Hino & Makino, 2012, 2014). We also
argued the importance of working with people from different communities of practice,
including university researchers (Hino & Makino, 2015).
In this paper, we try to understand the learning of a junior-high school teacher (Mr. T), who,
in mid-career, conducted a lesson study with two university researchers (Makino and Hino).
We report how he shaped his learning through the lesson study, especially from his students’
thinking and actions.
Teacher learning through professional development program
How do practicing mathematics teachers improve their knowledge, teaching practices, and
dispositions through in-service programs? Understanding the process of teachers’
professional growth and conditions that support or stimulate that growth is important.
In this paper, we report on two areas of interest in teacher learning in an in-service program.
First, we agree with Clarke and Hollingworth (2002) and Goldsmith et al. (2014), who
argued that the teacher learning pathway varies among individuals, depending on their
mathematical knowledge, belief and disposition, experience of teaching practice, and so on.
As noted in the next section, the number of practicing teachers who participate in our
in-service program is usually small. Therefore, we can focus explicitly on whatever
“problem” or “concern” each participant brings to the environment. Although mid-career
participants have similar motivations (Hino & Makino, 2012), specific problems and
concerns—or areas of interest—vary among individual teachers. We think that, though the
focus of a university in-service program, careful reports on what and how mid-career
teachers learn will inform us about different learning pathways.

Makino, Hino 115
Second, we are interested in how information about student thinking, understanding, and
development can impact teachers’ improvement of knowledge and/or teaching practice.
According to Goldsmith et al. (2014), the category of “attention to student thinking” was
present in about 40% of articles they reviewed, including studies that reported a range of
teacher changes related to student thinking, teachers’ increased attention to students’
mathematical thinking and improved understanding, and teachers’ growing capacity to elicit
students’ thinking in class. These results also showed the impact of a professional
development (PD) program on making these changes possible.
Recently, Sztajn, Borko, and Smith (2017) reviewed MPD programs according to tools that
designers used to organize their programs. “Framework of student mathematical thinking” is
one category they developed. Here, they synthesized MPDs that explicitly focus on and use
what we know from research about how students learn specific mathematical content and
topics.
In our program’s assessment, participants commonly mentioned the usefulness of observing
and analyzing student activities in depth from certain perspectives (Hino & Makino, 2012).
Also worthwhile would be comparing the case of a participant in our program with cases in
different programs to obtain information on what and how activity related to student
thinking and development works for the teacher’s learning.
Therefore, this paper addresses two research questions:
- In a university in-service program, what was Mr. T’s learning pathway?
- How did information about student thinking, understanding, or development impact Mr.
T’s improvement of knowledge or teaching practice?
An in-service program with lesson study as the core activity
As a joint project of universities and local boards of education, our program’s goal is to
enhance teachers’ professional knowledge and skills in mathematics teaching. In our
prefecture, teachers take 6 months’ leave from their positions to engage in studies with
university staff members. In our mathematics department, we usually work with two
teachers during each 6-month period, and they commonly have 15-20 years of teaching
experience.
Our program design incorporates a practice-based research activity comprised of two core
activities: lesson study and creation of a mathematics lesson framework (Hino & Makino,
2012, 2014). Both activities are collaborative, that is, teachers and the two university
researchers propose and discuss their perspectives and opinions for teachers’ learning goals
(Hino & Makino, 2015).
The lesson study activity basically follows the lesson study cycle summarized by several
researchers. The cycle contains four phases: study curriculum and formulate goals, plan
lessons, implement lessons, and reflect with others (e.g., Lewis & Hurd, 2011). We concur
with Fujii (2015) in stressing the importance of educational value that underpins all these
phases and drive teachers’ activities. Furthermore, we believe that recognition of the

in-service program’s value closely links to the problem or concern each practicing teacher
brings to it. Eliciting teachers’ areas of interest is important because through them, teachers
recognize educational values.
Context and method of the study
The teacher
Mr. T is a junior-high school teacher who had 15 years of teaching experience when he
participated in our program. He had several experiences of lesson study within his school
and district. Mr. T’s theme was to create lessons that foster students’ ability to express their
thinking mathematically. He was especially interested in active learning (AL) instructional
methods. One reason was that his junior-high school’s theme was AL, including how to
foster students’ learning with AL methods. In Japan, schools usually establish a theme of
the year (or several years) for lesson study.
Notably, Mr. T’s interest and theme directly linked to his work as a soccer coach in his
school. Through conversations with him on informal occasions, it became clear that he felt
strong similarity between coaching soccer and teaching mathematics. Mr. T repeatedly told
us the importance of fostering students’ ability to self-evaluate, decide, and take action
toward a goal in both mathematics lessons and soccer.
Data used for reporting learning
To approach his learning in lesson study activities, we mainly analyzed Mr. T’s final report
about his lesson study (Okada & Toji, 2016). In the report, he summarized what he got from
his inquiry into the theme and the tasks involved. We also drew on artifacts Mr. T
developed for meetings and our notes on them. Furthermore, to obtain information on our
program’s influence on his daily lessons, we visited him approximately 1.5 years after his
program ended. Our field notes on the lesson observed at that time, the interview with Mr. T
about the lesson, and reflection on lesson study activities in our program form another set of
data. By connecting and comparing these data, we developed a description of his learning
and his improved teaching practices.
Activity of Mr. T through a lesson study
Study AL theory and formulate his learning goal
First, Mr. T checked AL’s penetration status in Japan. Then he examined its definition, the
necessity for it, and types of AL lessons. In developing his AL lesson, he referenced
problems and directions for improvement.
Mr. T focused on the “flipped classroom” as one type of AL lesson. He adopted “reading
assignment” to implement the flipped classroom because it was most suitable for his actual
ways of teaching. Furthermore, he found AL indispensable for fostering students’ ability to
think mathematically and to express that way of thinking because AL necessitates an
externalization process through which students write, speak, or otherwise present their
thinking. Therefore, Mr. T decided to explore the question, “What AL lesson will foster
students’ ability to think and express their thinking?”

Makino, Hino 117
Plan lesson
Mr. T collaboratively designed a lesson (actually, two consecutive lessons) with two of us.
Through continued discussion in meetings, we came to share an idea that students might
need some experience having their methods of explanation assessed by their peers and then
revising or modifying their explanations. Therefore, Mr. T planned a lesson in which
students would have opportunities to assess and modify their methods of explanation.
In the lesson, Mr. T distinguished between students who explain their thinking and students
who listen to the explanation; he devised activities for both.
For students who explain their thinking
- To explain one’s thinking to other people
- To modify one’s explanation on the basis of evaluation by others
- To explain one’s thinking again (modified explanation) to the same people
For students who listen to the explanation
- To listen to and evaluate an explanation by another person
- To listen to the modified explanation and again
evaluate it
To enhance students’ positive engagement in these
activities, we decided to incorporate elements of a
game. Students evaluated explanations by scoring 1, 2,
or 3 points according to pre-established criteria. Five
teams competed for total scores.
Figure 1. A star-shaped pentagon
Mr. T planned two consecutive lessons (research lesson)
for a 9th grade class at his school. The lesson’s goal was for students to evaluate and modify
their methods of explanation through the activity of explaining and listening to ways of
thinking. The teaching material for the lesson was a star-shaped pentagon. The task was
“Let’s explain reasons that the sum of inner angles of the star-shaped pentagon is 180
degrees” (see Figure 1).
Interviews with his students
Mr. T presented the lesson task to students about one month before the research lesson, and
they developed their reasons for “the 180 degrees” as a homework assignment. Then, during
lunch breaks, Mr. T twice interviewed each student about her/his reasons. In interviews,
each student explained her/his reason, and Mr. T questioned the student’s understanding.
Based on the flipped classroom concept, students engaged in the task before the research
lesson and Mr. T interviewed them about the task. Mr. T found that through the assignment,
all students were able to build confidence in their thinking at the beginning of the research
lesson. Therefore, he thought that this attempt likely promoted positive externalization of
thinking, a core of AL.

Mr. T also used interview information to plan the grouping of students (members of each
team) for the research lesson. He intended to form homogeneous teams according to reasons
in which students had developed confidence. As a result, five teams were formed, and each
team had six students.
Implement the research lesson
Lesson 1
In Lesson 1, each group member would need to present their team’s explanation to the other
teams. Therefore, to explain successfully, teammates needed to question each other so that
they understood their explanation clearly and correctly.
After the within-team activity, five groups were formed of six or seven students from
different teams. In turn, students in a group presented an explanation. We observed that
students tended to have difficulty in their presentations because they had not fully
understood their teams’ explanations, so they simply read prepared explanations.
After a presentation, other group members evaluated it by writing comments on what was
good and what needed to be revised; they then handed their evaluation sheets to the
presenter. For example, positive comments were, “The figure [used in the presentation] was
easy to understand”; “The presenter was using symbols in the explanation.” The comments
also included information for revision, such as, “I didn’t understand where the alternate
interior angles were”; “I thought it was hard to understand because the presenter used too
many letters in the explanation.” Students with higher mathematical performance tended to
receive lower evaluations because they tended to explain the reason according to their own
understanding, but did not consider whether it was understandable to other people.
Lesson 2
As a team activity in Lesson 2, students modified their explanations based on comments
from students on other teams. Several teams had enthusiastic discussions. Compared with
the team activity in Lesson 1, students were much more involved in questioning, expressing
their opinions, and advising each other, in order to create better explanations.
After the activity, they reformed Lesson 1 groups and again presented explanations.
Through observation, we saw that many students better explained reasons by checking
whether listeners developed understanding of their explanations or by adding words or
phrases for students who did not completely understand. Additionally, students contrived
improved presentation methods, such as speaking clearly, pointing to the figure, or writing
words and symbols in the figure.
Reflect with others
In the research lesson, students had the opportunity to revise their initial explanations based
on peer feedback. We collected data on observable changes during their modified
explanations: mid-explanation, some asked listeners whether they understood what was said;
some pointed and made gestures; some drew additional figures or symbols according to

Makino, Hino 119
listeners’ reactions. Mr. T interpreted these data as showing that students learned the
importance of figuring out explanations according to listeners’ needs or reactions.
On the other hand, Mr. T reflected on his teaching actions during the research lesson and
addressed the issue of how to support students or intervene during group activity. He said
that, once, because of his irrelevant question or comment, he confused students when he
intervened. He sighed that he could not track any one team’s members on their
actual—often subtle—progress.
Post-lesson assessment
Two months after the research lesson, Mr. T implemented an assessment to examine
whether knowledge students gained about the star-shaped pentagon was retained. He
compared students in the research lesson (Class A) with students who were taught only by
textbook (Class B). Table 1 shows this assessment’s results.
Because all students in the research lesson retained knowledge of the sum of the star-shaped
pentagon’s inner angles for 2 months, Mr. T concluded that they had fully internalized
knowledge of this problem.
Table 1. Results of Post-lesson assessment with active-learning class and textbook class
Class A (n = 34) Class B (n = 30)
Number of students who got
34 (100%) 23 (68%)
the correct answer
Number of students who
16 (47%) 6 (18%)
recorded their explanations
In his report, Mr. T reflected on his entire engagement in the lesson study and contended as
follows:
The AL with high quality contains the process of thinking, expressing one’s thinking, knowing the
thinking and expression by others, reviewing one’s thinking and expression, thinking better, and
expressing one’s thinking better. When students experience all these processes repeatedly, their ability
to think and express their thinking will be heightened. (Okada & Toji, 2016, p. 5-1)
Implication of the lesson study activity for Mr. T’s daily teaching practices
We visited Mr. T and observed a lesson 1.5 years after his participation in our in-service
program. The lesson concerned introduction to the “construction” of mathematical figures in
a 7th-grade class, and its objective was to know the definition of construction and some rules
for constructing mathematical figures (how to use a ruler and compass). Below, we describe
mainly our observations of the lesson and what Mr. T told us about its relationship with his
learning through our program.
In the lesson, Mr. T incorporated activities both of evaluating and modifying one’s thinking
or a friend’s thinking. He told us that he devised such activities because he wanted to show
us what he had learned in the in-service program. Mr. T asked students to write in their own
words a rule for using a ruler. After that, he gave several minutes for students to walk

around and read their peers’ rules and then encouraged them to modify their rules. Mr. T
told us that he sometimes includes such peer evaluation and modification in his lessons. We
also felt that students’ moved easily and naturally during the activity, likely indicating that
they are accustomed to reading and commenting on their peers’ writing.
In the lesson, we observed that Mr. T told students whether they used words and
expressions that their peers could easily understand (e.g., “Do people understand what you
are saying?” “Please write so that others can understand.”). He also asked a student to show
a classmate’s expression that she particularly noticed and preferred. We also noticed that
several times Mr. T himself identified good expression in students’ utterances and
commented on what was good about them. What follows is an example of such interaction.
T: I think N’s words are nice. Will you read what you wrote, N?
N: [The ruler is] only [used] for drawing a segment or a straight line.
T: [He repeated N’s utterance.] Well, does anyone know why I think the statement is nice?
Ss: Straight line. … Segment.
T: N utilized the term, “segment,” which we learned before.
….
T: … But N used good words, “straight line” and “segment.” He used appropriate words by making
use of his learning.
According to Mr. T, during lesson study in our program, he came to acknowledge the
teaching strategy of attending to students’ expressions of their thinking and of modifying
their expressions to better, understandable ones. An interview excerpt below illustrates this:
I: In your lessons, did you often ask your students to write down their thinking before participating
in our in-service program?
…
T: I think that my intense focus on students’ own expression was the influence of the in-service
program.
T: Concerning the ability to express or write a sentence exactly … I think that the influence of the
in-service program was great. I realized that this is the area that I did not have enough of in my
teaching. So, I thought that I wanted to try a research lesson by emphasizing [how to improve]
students’ ability to explain their thinking.
…
I: Why did you decide on “evaluation” or “modification” as the theme of your study? Did you have
such a theme in mind before participating in our in-service program?
T: Well, no, I developed the theme while I was receiving different advice from the two of you in the
conversation during the in-service program. I thought, “Oh, such theme would be interesting!”
T: To foster students’ ability to explain their thinking, I thought [students’ experience of] both
evaluation and modification [are necessary]. I thought modification would especially be
necessary.
On the other hand, Mr. T had been concerned about whether AL methods also work for
retention of basic knowledge and skills. He wanted to answer his question by experimenting
with AL and comparing results with another class (control group). He said, “I had a
hypothesis in my mind. To have an impressive experience during the process of learning
will impact retention of that knowledge. I wanted to pursue this hypothesis.” Therefore, the
result of post-lesson assessment was really impressive for him. He said that the positive
results gave him solid confidence and motivated him toward further improvement of his
teaching practice.

Makino, Hino 121
Discussion
In this section, we summarize insight gained from this study with respect to the two
resesarch questions.
Even though all teachers develop knowledge of AL methods, Mr. T’s illustration of teacher
learning makes us aware that teachers differ in the value they assign to learning AL methods.
Several experiences were relevant to Mr. T’s inclination to AL. His bent to soccer, both as a
player and as a coach, especially constituted an indispensable and idiosyncratic factor of his
interest in AL. This case urges us to predict that varying motivations, all of which must be
idiosyncratic, exist when teachers learn new knowledge or methods. Moreover, it is
interesting that Mr. T did not just want to learn AL methods, but also had developed a
certain hypothesis. During our program’s lesson study, he had the opportunity to conduct an
experiment on his hypothesis, and its existence seemed to make results of students’
assessment much more meaningful in his learning.
Our case study shows that in-service activities’ impact depend largely on what problems,
concerns, or desires participant teachers have in mind when they come to the program. Mr.
T’s learning pathway can be characterized by extension or cultivation of his original
concern, not by insertion into some other, external source of information. This extension or
cultivation was made possible by gaining new perspectives (students’ change of expression
is important, or explicating the process of evaluation and modification is critical for students’
change) while reading the literature and talking with us, on the one hand. On the other, it
was made possible by concretizing and experimenting with new perspectives in the lesson,
and observing and reflecting on the research lesson’s results.
Clarke and Hollingworth (2002) succeeded in grasping “the pedagogy of teachers” (that is,
the theories and practices developed by teachers) in their interconnected model of
professional growth by stressing the nonlinear structure and multiple change sequences and
possible growth networks. The case in this paper guides us to pay closer attention to the
Personal Domain (knowledge, beliefs, and attitude) in Clarke and Hollingworth’s model. It
constitutes a baseline for building growth networks, and its heavier weight on the Personal
Domain arises because we are targeting mid-career teachers, who have often developed
personal theories and practices from their accumulated classroom experience.
Furthermore, our case study illuminates the need to understand the substance of personal
pedagogy or theory that teachers bring to the program and to build collaboratively on that
pedagogy or theory. The “possible change mechanisms as yet unexplored and unexploited”
(Clarke & Hollingworth, 2002, p. 965) need to be explored continuously. The role played
by the mid-career teacher’s personal pedagogy or theory would be one area worth pursuing.
As for the second research question, Mr. T’s problem and concern were deepening students’
thinking and understanding, including knowledge retention, through expression.
Fundamentally, this process includes attention to student thinking. Therefore, we
incorporated both pre-lesson and post-lesson phases of student assessment into our lesson
study. They turned out to be useful for Mr. T’s professional growth. Even in the interview
after 1.5 years, he noted the impact of assessment, in particular, the result of post-lesson

assessment, on further improvement of his teaching practices. Closely observing and

analyzing students’ thinking seems to provide powerful opportunities for mid-career
teachers to reflect on the personal pedagogy or theory they have been developing.
Although, according to the review by Sztajin et al. (2017), some MPD programs use
frameworks of student mathematical thinking, we did not. One reason is our inability to find
a useful framework for planning specific lessons. Although development of frameworks or
learning trajectory models is in progress—so teachers can easily access lesson
designs—producing a useful framework relevant to individual lessons presents many
challenges. Future tasks include pursuing roles of the in-service program for producing such
frameworks or models.
References
Brown, C. A. & Borko, H. (1992). Becoming a mathematics teacher. In D. A. Grouws (Ed.),
Handbook of research on mathematics teaching and learning (pp. 209-239). New York:
Macmillan.
Clarke, D., & Hollingsworth, H. (2002). Elaborating a model of teacher professional growth.
Teaching and Teacher Education, 18, 947-967.
Goldsmith, L. T., Doerr, H. M., & Lewis, C. C. (2014). Mathematics teachers’ learning: A
conceptual framework and synthesis of research. Journal of Mathematics Teacher
Education, 17 (1), 5-36.
Fujii, T. (2015). The critical role of task design in lesson study. In A. Watson & M. Ohtani
(Eds.), Task design in mathematics education: An ICMI Study 22 (pp. 273-286). New York:
Springer.
Hino, K., & Makino, T. (2012). Collaborative creation of lesson framework and its impact on
teachers’ professional development. In M. Inprasitha (Ed.), Proceedings of the 6th East
Asia Regional Conference on Mathematics Education (Vol. 3, pp. 135-143). Phuket,
Thailand: EARCOME.
Hino, K., & Makino, T. (2014). An attempt at inservice education program that incorporates
collaboratively making of mathematics lesson framework. Proceedings of the Second
Spring Meeting of Japan Society of Mathematical Education (pp. 157-164). Tokyo
Gakugei University. (in Japanese)
Hino, K., & Makino, T. (2015). Mid-career teacher learning through collaboratively framed
mathematics lessons. In C. Vistro-Yu. (Ed.), In pursuit of quality mathematics education
for all: Proceedings of the 7th East Asia Regional Conference on Mathematics Education
(pp. 313-320). Quezon City: Philippine Council of Mathematics Teacher Educators
(MATHTED), Inc.
Lewis, C. & Hurd, J. (2011). Lesson study step by step: How teacher learning communities
improve instruction. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
Okada, M., & Toji, Y. (2016). Mathematics Lesson to foster students’ ability to think and
express mathematically through autonomous and collaborative learning by students.
Report of inservice teacher training, Tochigi Prefecture. (in Japanese)

Makino, Hino 123
Sztajn, P., Borko, H., & Smith, T. M. (2017). Research on mathematics professional
development. In J. Cai (Ed.), Compendium for research in mathematics education (pp.
793-823). Reston, VA: The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.
[Tomohiko Makino]
[Utsunomiya University, 350 Mine-machi, Utsunomiya-shi, Tochigi-ken 321-8505 Japan]
[makino@cc.utsunomiya-u.ac.jp]
[Keiko Hino]
[Utsunomiya University, 350 Mine-machi, Utsunomiya-shi, Tochigi-ken 321-8505 Japan]
[khino@cc.utsunomiya-u.ac.jp]

124 Vietnamese Prospective Mathematics Teachers’ Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching the Derivative
and Implications for Teacher Preparation Programs
VIETNAMESE PROSPECTIVE MATHEMATICS TEACHERS’

MATHEMATICAL KNOWLEDGE FOR TEACHING THE
DERIVATIVE AND IMPLICATIONS FOR TEACHER
PREPARATION PROGRAMS
Tran Kiem Minh, College of Education, Hue University, Vietnam
Le Thi Bach Lien, Quang Binh University, Vietnam
Introduction
Preparing future mathematics teachers with the appropriate mathematical knowledge
necessary for their effective teaching is an important issue in mathematics teacher education.
There have been several studies conducted in an attempt to identify what kinds of
knowledge teachers need to teach mathematics effectively (Shulman, 1986; Ball, Thames, &
Phelps, 2008; Hill, Ball, & Schilling, 2008). From the work of Shulman (1986), many
researchers have tried to develop and clarify the nature of the different types of knowledge,
especially the pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) that teachers need to teach
mathematics effectively. Ball and her colleagues made an important contribution by
developing a model of mathematical knowledge for teaching (the model MKT) for assessing
and developing the domains of teachers’ knowledge for teaching.
Many researchers have used or adapted the model MKT for studying prospective
mathematics teachers’ knowledge for teaching specific topics. However, there have been
very few studies focusing on the exploration of prospective mathematics teachers’
mathematical knowledge of the derivative. Recently, Pino-Fan, Godino & Font (2018)
assessed key epistemic features of didactic-mathematical knowledge of prospective
mathematics teachers (PMTs) about the derivative, but this research used a theoretical
model of mathematical knowledge for teaching based on an onto-semiotic approach. In
Vietnam, until now there has been no study on measuring and developing Vietnamese
prospective mathematics teachers’ knowledge for teaching.
In this study, we assess and develop Vietnamese PMTs’ mathematical knowledge for
teaching the derivative. More specifically, we aim at analysing the characteristics of
Vietnamese prospective secondary mathematics teachers’ MKT for teaching different
meanings of the derivative. Finally, implications for the professional learning of Vietnamese
PMTs to improve their mathematical knowledge for teaching the derivative are also
discussed.
Model of mathematical knowledge for teaching
The model MKT consists of two main domains of knowledge: subject content knowledge
and pedagogical content knowledge. In each of these domains, the authors distinguished
different types of knowledge. One of the special contributions of the model MKT is a
distinct categorisation of different types of knowledge, and especially the existence of a
specialized content knowledge (SCK) which is considered as knowledge unique to teaching.

Minh, Lien 125
Subject content knowledge Pedagogical content knowledgec
Common
content
knowledge Knowledge of
(CCK)r content and
Specialized Knowledge of
student (KCS)s
content content and
knowledge curriculum
Horizon (SCK)G (KCC)q
content
knowledge Knowledge of
(HCK) content and
teaching (KCT)
Figure 1. Model of mathematical knowledge for teaching (Ball, Thames, & Phelps, 2008)
Mathematical knowledge for teaching different meanings of the derivative
The derivative is an important concept in calculus. The history of the concept of derivative
is closely linked to the problems of finding the tangent line to a curve and the instantaneous
velocities in physics. The Vietnamese mathematics curriculum mentions explicitly both the
geometric and physical meanings of the derivative. The analytical meaning (linear
approximation) is implicitly presented through exercises.
CCK: defining the concept of derivative and identifying different meanings of the derivative
in different contexts
Any user of mathematics should be able to identify the definition of derivative as well as to
recognize the geometric, physical or analytical meanings of the derivative in a simple
problem. For example, as a part of CCK, a user of mathematics should recognize the
existence of the derivative of a function at a point based on its graphical representation
(Pino-Fan, Godino & Font, 2018), or recognize that the instantaneous velocity of an object
in motion means the derivative of the function characterising its motion at a point.
SCK: ability to analyse and comment on right and wrong solutions given by students, to
recognize the associations between different meanings of the derivative.
In the context of teaching derivatives, as part of SCK, we focus on the ability of PMTs to
analyse, and comment on the accuracy of students’ responses related to different meanings
of the derivative. Another important aspect of SCK is the ability to perceive associations
between different meanings of the derivative (Pino-Fan, Godino, & Font, 2018). A

mathematical task that addresses the associations between these three meanings can be used
to assess teachers’ specialized content knowledge.
KCS: anticipating students’ common answers, predicting and interpreting students’
difficulties and misconceptions in the learning of derivatives
KCS is an important PCK for PMTs. According to Ball, Thames, & Phelps (2008), KCS is
knowledge that combines knowing about students and knowing about mathematics and helps
teachers predict student thinking. Teachers with this type of knowledge often have a deep
understanding of students’ thinking and of what makes the learning of mathematical concepts easy
or difficult. In the context of teaching the different meanings of derivatives, as part of the KCS, we
focus on examining the ability of PMTs to predict students’ responses related to associations among
the different meanings of the derivative, as well as to interpret students’ difficulties and mistakes.
KCT: choosing and designing appropriate mathematical tasks for strengthening students’
understanding of different meanings of the derivative
As part of KCT of the derivatives, a PMT should be able to choose mathematical tasks and
design appropriate instructional strategies to facilitate students’ learning about different
meanings of the derivative. The current Vietnamese high school mathematics curriculum
(MOET, 2008) pays a special attention to the geometrical and physical meanings of the
derivative while the analytical meaning and the associations between different meanings of
the derivative have not been emphasized.
KCC: recognizing the role of the derivative in school mathematics curriculum
KCC is knowledge that combines an awareness of a particular content of the curriculum and
the teaching of that content. It is important for PMTs to know the role of the derivative in
the school mathematics curriculum. In our study, we focus on the different meanings of the
derivative.
HCK: identifying mathematical ideas related to the derivative
HCK is defined as awareness of how mathematical topics are related to each other in a
curriculum, and of the connections among these topics. As part of the HCK of the derivative,
PMTs should know mathematical ideas related to the derivative in order to solve a given
problem. For example, the relationships among the derivative, the instantaneous velocity
and the slope of the tangent of a curve are the mathematical ideas that can be used to solve a
problem related to the physical meaning of the derivative.
Research Design
Context
This research can be considered as the first study of the assessment and development of
PMTs’ mathematical knowledge for teaching in Vietnam. Participants of the study are 70
PMTs studying at three different universities in Vietnam (a four year program). These
PMTs had studied differential calculus in the first three semesters of their undergraduate
program, and they had subsequently completed other courses related to mathematical
analysis. They had also studied the subjects related to the teaching of mathematics.

Minh, Lien 127
Questionnaires and interviews

The research instrument was a questionnaire that consisted of three problems related to the
geometric, physical and analytical meanings of the derivative. Each problem included six
tasks, designed in accordance with the model MKT for assessing teachers’ knowledge for
teaching. In each of these three problems, each task referred to a type of knowledge among
six different types of teachers’ knowledge of the model MKT, with a focus on the CCK,
SCK, KCS and KCT. In addition, an interview with some PMTs was done after they had
completed the questionnaire.
Due to the limited scope of the paper, we only introduce here one of the three problems
given in the questionnaire. This problem mentions the geometric meaning of the derivative.
A problem
Below is the graph of a function y  f ( x) defined on an interval  a; b  :
i) Based on the graph of function, give comments on the existence of the derivative of
the function at the points x  1, x  0, and x  1 .
ii) Assume that there are three students who propose the following comments:
Student A: The function is differentiable at the points x  1 and x  1 because its graph is a
continuous curve. In addition, f '(1), f '(0) and f '(1) are strictly positive since the graph of
function is above the x-axis.
Student B: The function is not differentiable at x  1 and x  1 since its graph seems to be
“broken” at these two points.
Student C: The function is differentiable at x  1 and x  1 since its graph has the tangent
lines on the left and right sides at the points (1;1) and (1;1) .
Please give comments on these three students’ answers, analyse the accuracy of these answers
and explain.
iii) 1. At what points is the instantaneous rate of change of y with respect to x equal to
zero? Explain.
2. Please anticipate students’ common responses (right or wrong) to the above

question and students’ difficulties on this task. Give the most reasons for these
students’ common responses and difficulties.
iv) Assume that you aim to strengthen students’ understanding of the geometric
meaning of the derivative. What problem will you give to students? Explain why this
problem is appropriate for the above goal?
v) In your opinion, this problem could be used to measure what content area in the
curriculum?
vi) In your opinion, what mathematical ideas could be used to answer the above
questions?
Figure 2. A problem from the questionnaire
Based on the definition of each type of knowledge of the model MKT, we classified six
tasks in the above problem as shown in the following table:
Table 1. Components of MKT elicited by each of the questions given in the problem 1
Types of knowledge Tasks Indicators

Defining the concept of
derivative and identifying
different meanings of the
CCK
i) derivative in different contexts.
Ability to analyze and comment

on right and wrong solutions
SCK ii)
given by students
Ability to recognize the

associations between different
iii.1)
meanings of the derivative.
Anticipating students’ common

answers, predicting and
KCS iii.2) interpreting students’difficulties
and misconceptions
Choosing and designing

appropriate mathematical tasks
KCT iv) for strengthening students’
understanding of different
meanings of the derivative.
Recognizing the role of the

KCC v) derivative in school
mathematics curriculum.

Minh, Lien 129
Identifying mathematical ideas

HCK vi)
related to the derivative.
These six tasks were coded by the two authors of this paper. In the following table, we
illustrated the coding of the task iii.1). Other tasks were coded by using the similar
technique.
Table 2. Illustration of the coding of the task iii.1)
Codes Description
4 Giving correct answers and explanations (the
instantaneous rate of change of y with respect to x is
equal to zero at the point x  0 )
3 Giving correct answers and explanations (the
instantaneous rate of change of y with respect to x is
equal to zero at the point x  0 ), but there are still
some inaccurate arguments.
2 Giving an correct result (the instantaneous rate of
change of y with respect to x is equal to zero at the
point x  0 ), but not having provided explanations or
giving an incorrect explanation.
1 Not having given a correct response, but having
some adequate ideas for finding an explanation.
0 Not having given any response or giving an
incorrect response to the task.
Results
The results of teachers’ knowledge are presented in terms of six types of knowledge of the
model MKT, that is, CCK, SCK, KCS, KCT, KCC and HCK.
Prospective mathematics teachers’ CCK for teaching the derivative
As seen in Table 3, for the task i), 45.72 % of PMTs were able to give partially right
comments on the existence of the derivative of the function at the points x  1, x  0 and
x  1 . The number of PMTs were able to fully give exact comments and explanation is very
small (5.72%). Especially, there were 22.85% (code 0) of the PMTs who did not give any
response to this task or offered incorrect explanations. This means that many PMTs haven’t
acquired a robust understanding of the geometric meaning of the derivative.
Table 3. Codes regarding the PMTs’ written explanations for the task i)
Codes Illustrative example Frequency %
The graph of function is “broken“ at the points x  1 and x  1 , the

4 function is not differentiable at these points since there is no tangent 5.
line. The function is differentiable at x  0 since we can draw a
tangent line at this point. 4

Since the function is “broken“ at the points x  1 and x  1 , it is not

differentiable at x  1 and x  1 . The function is differentiable at
x  0.
3 32 45.
Based on the function graph, we can rewrite the function as f ( x)  x 2

if x   ; 1  1;   and f ( x)   x2  2 if x   1;1 . The function
f ( x) is continuous at x  1 , x  0 and x  1 but the function is
differentiable at x  0 and it is not differentiable at x  1 and x  1 .
2 17 24.
The derivatives of the function at the points x  1 and x  0 are

equal to zero because the function admits the minimum values at the
points x  1 , x  1 and x  0 .
1 1 1.
The derivative of the function at each point x  1 , x  0 is either

equal to zero or undefined.
0 16 22.
Prospective mathematics teachers’ SCK for teaching the derivative

Table 4 shows whether or not the PMTs were able to identify the association between the
physical meaning (instantaneous rates of change) and the geometric meaning of the
derivative (smooth or non-smooth curves). As seen in Table 4, more than half of the PMTs
(48.58 %+ 7.14 % = 55.72 %) were not able to give a correct answer to the task iii.1) or
offered an incorrect explanation. Only five (7.14 %) of the PMTs offered exact solutions

Minh, Lien 131
and explanations for this task. It can be stated that most of the PMTs haven’t adequate SCK
of the association between the physical and geometric meanings of the derivative.
For each of the other four types of teachers’ knowledge (KCS, KCT, KCC, HCK), we also
made a table categorising students’ written responses according to the given codes. Due to
the limited scope of the paper, we only summarize some main results related to the students’
KCS and KCT.
Table 4. Codes regarding the PMTs’ written explanations for the task iii.1)
Codes Illustrative example Frequency %

The instantaneous rate of change of y with respect to x is equal to zero
at the point x  0 since f '( x)  0 at x  0 . The instantaneous rate of
change is the derivative of f ( x)  0 at x  x0 .
4
5
At the point x  0 the instantaneous rate of change of y with respect to

x is equal to zero since the instantaneous rate of change of y with
respect to x is lim f ( x  h)  f ( x) . According to the problem, the
h0 h
function is differentiable at the point x  0 .
3 19 2
At x  0 the instantaneous rate of change of y with respect to x is equal

to zero since at that point the function y has an extremum.
2 7 1
The instantaneous rate of change of y with respect to x is exactly the

derivative of y with respect to x, that means
f ( x0  h)  f ( x0 )
y '  f '( x)  lim . Based on the graph, at the points  1;1
h0 h
and 1;1 the instantaneous rate of change of y with respect to x  0
1 5
(because these are the extremum points of the function).

At the extremum points (smooth).

0 34 4
Regarding the prospective mathematics teachers’ KCS, we found that there were few PMTs
who could give adequate explanations for the three students’ responses in the task ii). It can
be stated that, for the most part, prospective mathematics teachers’ KCS was not at an
adequate level. Concerning the teachers’ KCT, for the task iv), approximately half of PMTs
were able to offer a type of problem that could be used to strengthen the geometric meaning
of the derivative. Fifteen (21.42 %) of the PMTs offered at least one appropriate exercise
with explanations that could be used to strengthen students’ understanding of the geometric
meaning of the derivative.
Conclusion and Discussion
In this study, we examined Vietnamese PMTs’ knowledge for teaching the derivative in
terms of six types of knowledge of the model MKT. As a result of the study, it was
observed that many Vietnamese PMTs haven’t acquired a good understanding of the
geometric meaning of the derivative, although the derivative is an important topic of the
high school mathematics curriculum. The findings also indicate that the prospective
mathematics teachers’ SCK was below the level expected for teaching aspects of the
geometric meaning of the derivative. This result is similar to prospective teachers’ KCS and
KCT, in which they exhibited many difficulties and gaps in the understanding of students’
learning of the derivative.
These findings provide us with first evidence of Vietnamese PMTs’ inadequate
understanding of mathematics for teaching the derivative. In particular, the prospective
mathematics teachers’ PCK is not at an adequate level. The primary results obtained from
this study could be partially interpreted by examining the current professional development
programs for PMTs in Vietnam. In fact, although Vietnamese PMTs take courses on
mathematics education throughout their undergraduate education, these courses traditionally
focus on rules, techniques and procedural knowledge for teaching mathematics. The aspects
of the SCK, KCS and KCT or the epistemology of a mathematical concept seem to be less
analysed in these courses. Therefore, we suggest that the content and duration of these
courses on mathematics instruction should be reviewed and modified.
References
Ball, D. L., Thames, M. H., & Phelps, G. (2008). Content knowledge for teaching: What
makes it special? Journal of Teacher Education, 59(5), 389–407.
Hill, H. C., Ball, D. L., & Schilling, S. G. (2008). Unpacking "pedagogical content
knowledge": Conceptualizing and measuring teachers’ topic-specific knowledge of
students. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 39(4), 372–400.

Minh, Lien 133
MOET (2008). Standards for school mathematics. Hanoi: Vietnam Education Publishing
House.
Pino-Fan, L. R., Godino, J. D., & Font, V. (2018). Assessing key epistemic features of
didactic-mathematical knowledge of prospective teachers: the case of the derivative.
Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 21(1): 63-94.
Shulman, L. S. (1986). Those who understand: Knowledge growth in teaching. Educational
Researcher, 15(2), 4–14.
Tran Kiem Minh

College of Education, Hue University
34 Le Loi, Hue City, Vietnam.
kiemminh@gmail.com
Le Thi Bach Lien

Quang Binh University
312 Ly Thuong Kiet, Dong Hoi City, Quang Binh, Vietnam.
lethibachliendhqb@gmail.com

134 Strengths of “Lesson Designing Map”: From an Analysis of Descriptions Written by Preservice
Teachers Who Learned How to Draw the Map
STRENGTHS OF “LESSON DESIGNING MAP”: FROM AN

ANALYSIS OF DESCRIPTIONS WRITTEN BY PRESERVICE
TEACHERS WHO LEARNED HOW TO DRAW THE MAP
Tadashi Misono, Shimane University, Japan
Yuki Watanabe, Tokyo University of Science, Japan
Introduction
Developing lesson plans are an important phase in lesson studies. In fact, Fernandez &
Yoshida (2004) describes the end product of the first step in lesson study process is lesson
plan.
Lesson plans can be represented in various formats, of which the timeline format (see
Figure 1) is popular in Japan. This format contains information about aspects such as
activities, tasks, support, feedback, and evaluation. These are arranged chronologically as
per the activities involved in imparting the lesson. This type of lesson plan is very useful for
teachers because it facilitates designing and moderating the lessons.
However, it has a few drawbacks. First, it is difficult to represent changes in students’
concepts or schemas over the course of the lesson. Second, it is difficult to connect students’
prior knowledge, tasks tackled in the lesson, concept generation, and objectives with the
lesson structure. Therefore, lessons using timeline-formatted lesson plans tend to be teacher
centered while lessons must be learner centered and knowledge centered (Bransford, Brown
& Cocking, 2000).
To resolve the problems mentioned above, we developed the “Lesson Designing Map”
(LDM) (Misono, 2014; Misono & Watanabe, 2017). Figure 2 shows an example of an
LDM. The LDM includes lesson objectives, students’ prior knowledge, activities, support
by the teacher, and students’ thinking. Using the LDM enables teachers to design structured
lessons by connecting all these elements.
Objective: To find the angle of the slope in a triangle
Activities Teacher support

1. Explain the task
To find the angle of the slope of the bridge using the following data
Length: 1700.4m Height: 44.7m
2. Draw a triangle on a smaller scale and measure -To draw an accurate figure
the angle of the scale (group work)
3. Share ideas
- The slope is about 3 degrees
4. Summarize the lesson
Figure 1. An Example of Lesson Plan in Timeline Format

Misono, Watanabe 135
Figure 2. An Example of LDM
Previous Study
The authors (Misono & Watanabe, 2017) have tried to evaluate the effectiveness of lesson
designs by using LDMs. As a pilot study, an interview was conducted with an elementary
teacher. She drew an LDM to design a 3rd-grade mathematics class. She pointed out that
she became aware of the importance of students’ prior knowledge when drawing the LDM
compared to her usual way of planning lessons.
The result of our previous study was valuable because we asked some questions of a
professional elementary teacher. However, we could not generalize the result because the
sample size was very small. Therefore, we must evaluate the effectiveness of creating the
LDM with a larger sample size.
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to clarify the transition of perception of LDM by preservice
teachers who took a course of elementary mathematics pedagogy. In this course, they
learned to draw the LDM and to create the lesson plan based on the LDM.
Method and Overview of the Target Course
The elementary mathematics pedagogy course has 15 lessons in total. Table 1 shows the
course topics.
In Lesson 5, preservice teachers learned what the LDM is and how to draw it. In addition,
the lecturer emphasized the importance of connecting students’ previous knowledge to the
objectives of the lessons by meaningful activities, discussions, or collaborations by students.
After that, small groups of preservice teachers began to draw the LDMs.

In Lesson 6, they continued to draw the LDMs. They also learned about consistency in the
objectives of the lessons and the goals of the tasks tackled by students in those lessons.
In Lesson 7, they revised the LDMs drawn in Lesson 6 by discussion with group members
and the lecturer.
After these lessons, they learned to create lesson plans based on LDMs and they practiced
this in groups. In the final lessons, preservice teachers took microteachings based on the
lesson plan. Their teaching practices were recorded as 5-minute video clips by same group
members. In class, they watched the video clips and were given lesson studies, that is, they
discussed the microteachings of each group.
At the end of the course (after 15 lessons), the preservice teachers briefly summarized what
they had learned with short paragraphs detailing each lesson. Fifty-six preservice teachers
submitted their essays. Data were missing in the summaries of 22 teachers. Therefore, we
analyzed the work of 34 teachers.
We conducted a separate co-occurrence network analysis for preservice teachers’ essays on
three lessons (from Lesson 5 to Lesson 7) with the KH coder (Higuchi, n.d.). The KH coder
is a text mining software. By co-occurrence network analysis, we were able to find
keywords in text data based on the frequencies of words used in the text data and the
strengths of the relationship between such keywords based on some similarity algorithms,
that is, Jaccard index, Cosine similarity, and Euclidean distance. In this study, we used the
Jaccard index to calculate similarities between words.
Table 1. Course Topics in “Elementary Mathematics Pedagogy”
Lesson Topics
1 Introduction
2 New national curriculum in Japan
3
Analysis on contents in an authorized elementary
4
mathematics textbook
5 What is the LDM? How to draw the LDM.
6 Practice in drawing a LDM by group
7 Revising the LDM
8 What is lesson plan? How to create lesson plans.
9 Practice in creating a lesson plan
10 Revising the lesson plan
11 Preparation for microteaching (recording movies)

12 Watching the microteaching movies and lesson studies

13
14
15
We used data related to lesson 5, lesson 6, and lesson 7
Result and Discussion
Figures 3, 4, and 5 show the results of co-occurrence network analysis of preservice teacher
essays.
From the result of Figure 3, we observe that the key word “LDM” has strong relationships
with “previously learned,” “new knowledge,” and “objective.” Therefore, we postulate that
preservice teachers learned that they should connect such concepts by introducing the LDM
and that they also learned that they could create a logical, functional, and meaningful
framework for designing lessons by using the LDM.
Figure 4 shows a few changes in their lesson designing schemas. That is, the keywords such
as “task,” “tackle,” and “goal” were added around the “LDM.” Therefore, they were able to
notice the importance of tasks or problems which enabled them to attain the lessons’
objectives. In addition, they learned the importance of providing children with goals through
tasks or problem-solving.
Finally, Figure 5 shows greater change in their schemas. The frequency of the word “LDM”
had decreased. However, we observed from their essays that they connected “lesson” to
“children,” “teacher,” “knowledge,” “skill,” and “evaluation.”
Figure 3. The Result of Co-occurrence Network Analysis in Lesson 5

Figure 4. The Result of Co-occurrence Network Analysis in Lesson 6
Figure5. The Result of Co-occurrence Network Analysis in Lesson 7

Conclusion
Concepts such as students’ prior knowledge, objectives of the lesson, tasks tackled by
students, abilities needed by students to understand the lesson, and their evaluation are, of
course, very important for lesson designing. However, when designing mathematics lessons,
we must connect such concepts to enhance the effectiveness of the lessons, especially in
generating students’ mathematical concepts. From this study, we found that preservice
teachers could improve their schemas related to lesson designing enormously by teaching
them the LDM.
However, we have not evaluated the quality of their lesson developing skills or their
teaching skills in comparison with lesson designing that only creates lesson plans. Therefore,
we need to verify these points.
Acknowledgement
This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number 16K00964.
References
Bransford, J. D., Brown, A. L., & Cocking, R. R. (2000). How people learn: Brain, mind,
experience, and school. National Academy Press.
Fernandez，C. & Yoshida, M. (2004). Lesson Study: A Japanese Approach To Improving
Mathematics Teaching and Learning, Routledge.
Higuchi, K. (n.d.) KH coder Index Page, http://khc.sourceforge.net/en/ (referred on January
30, 2018)
Misono, T. (2014). The SPECC Model: A New Lesson Model for Mathematical Activities,
International Workshop on Mathematical Literacy of University Level and Transition
from Secondary, pp.136-143.
Misono, T. & Watanabe, Y. (2017). Designing Mathematics Lessons Using the ‘Lesson
Designing Map’, The 15th Annual Hawaii International Conference on Education 2017
Conference Proceedings, pp.2492-2493.
[Tadashi Misono]
[Shimane University, 1060 Nishi-Kawatsu-cho, Matsue, Shimane, Japan]
[misono@edu.shimane-u.ac.jp]
[Yuki Watanabe]
[Tokyo Institute of Technology, 2-12-1 Ookayama, Meguro-ku, Tokyo, Japan]
[wat@citl.titech.ac.jp]

140 A Comparative Analysis of Mathematics Curriculum: The Case of Triangle Sum Theorem
A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF MATHEMATICS

CURRICULUM: THE CASE OF THE TRIANGLE SUM THEOREM
Shogo Murata, University of Tsukuba, Japan
Introduction
School mathematics curriculum today is reformed from content based curriculum to process,
literacy, or competency based curriculum. For example, mathematical practice in the USA
(CCSSI, 2010) and proficiency strands in Australia (ACARA, 2010) are keywords in
process-based curriculum. The standards of these curriculum are specified not only the
content standards focused on mathematical contents but also the process standards focused
on processes acquire mathematical contents. These process aspects of doing mathematics
have been implicit in the previous Japanese mathematics curriculum, but recent Japanese
mathematics curriculum is also being reformed from content-based to process-based.
Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) revised Japanese
national curriculum (MEXT, 2008a; MEXT, 2008b). This curriculum document has explicit
description of the mathematical activities as general process standards.
I use the term ‘curriculum’ as meaning of the intended curriculum. When we consider
curriculum, we generally distinguish three aspects of the curriculum: the intended
curriculum, the implemented curriculum, and the attained curriculum (Travers & Westbury,
1989). Intended curriculum is decided on the level of educational system such as countries,
educational regions, and school districts. In this paper, I especially focus on the intended
curriculum developed by national institution, because recent school mathematics curricula
have been reformed to process-based in many countries as seen from above. Therefore I
deal with intended curriculum and compare national curriculum between Japan and other
country.
In this paper, I compare the geometry curriculum between Japan and the USA to clarify
the characteristics of the curriculum of both countries. Comparing study of curriculum
between Japan and other country has been conducted in recent years. Jones & Fujita (2013)
compared national curriculum documents and textbooks about geometry between Japan and
England. Miyakawa (2017) focused on the nature of proof in lower secondary school
geometry and compared textbooks between Japan and France. I selected the United States
for comparison because both of Japanese national curriculum and the USA common core
curriculum especially emphasize not only mathematical contents but also mathematical
processes. Therefore I analyze curriculum documents and textbooks about geometry
between both countries.
The comparative analysis in this paper is conducted only the Triangle Sum Theorem
(TST: the sum of the interior angles of a triangle is 180 degrees) because this theorem is one
of the most important theorems in geometry curriculum. I understand that the only one case
is not sufficient, but I think that it is also important to investigate the particular theorem

Murata 141
deeply. It seems that clarifying the difference of position about TST between Japan and the
USA has a certain significance.
The purpose of this study is to investigate the characteristics of mathematics curriculum
between Japan and the United States. For this purpose, I analyze curriculum documents and
textbooks in the case of the Triangle Sum Theorem. The research question is: How do the
curriculum differ in Japan and the USA about core geometry?
Materials and Method

The theoretical framework of this study is based on the three domains of mathematical
activity (Noddings, 1985). The first is the informal domain, in which we consider things in
the concrete situations or the real world. The second is the formal domain, in which we deal
with formal objects or procedures such as algorithms, propositions, and proofs. The third is
the metadomain, in which we consider the second domain in order to critique and discuss
formal objects or procedures themselves. When we want to interpret meanings or reasons of
formal objects or procedures, we have activities in the metadomain as well as in the domain
of informal experience. She said that activities in both domains are important.
It is clear, I think, that genuine mathematical activity occurs in all three domains and that mathematical
thinkers work in a variety of modes of knowing all three domains. (Noddings, 1985, p.120)
The reason why I use this framework in order to analyze the curriculum is that the formal
domain and the metadomain correspond to contents and processes respectively. For example,
the theorem that the sum of the interior angles of a triangle is 180 degrees is a mathematical
content. On the other hand, the follow statement about theorem is related to a mathematical
process. The theorem that the sum of the interior angles of a triangle is 180 degrees must to
be explained by deductive method that formal proof not by inductive method such as
measurement or experiments. This is the statement related to the mathematical process to
acquire the properties of angles of a triangle. In this way, mathematical processes could be
characterized statements about theorems. Theorems are formal object but statements about
theorems are meta-formal objects because meta is a prefix which means ‘about’ or ‘from a
higher level’. Although Noddings did not use the three domain of mathematical activity for
curriculum analysis it could be useful when we characterize the difference of mathematical
contents and mathematical processes. For the above reason, I use the three domains of
mathematical activities as framework for curriculum analysis.
Method
Data for analysis: curriculum documents and textbooks
The data for analysis are curriculum documents and mathematics textbooks from Japan and
the USA. Japanese curriculum document is the Course of Study (MEXT, 2008; MEXT,
2008b) and the USA curriculum document is the Common Core State Standards (CCSSI,
2010). The textbooks for analysis are selected for Japan Atarasii Sugaku (New Mathematics)
series published by Tokyo Shoseki (Fujii et al., 2015; Fujii et al., 2016), and for the USA

Holt Mcdougal Mathematic series published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (Bennet et al.,
2012; Burger et al., 2012). These textbooks of each country are based on the Course of
Study in 2008 and the Common Core State Standards in 2010 respectively. The reason why
I select the textbooks is these series are widely shared and could be expressed the features of
textbooks in each country. Although there is no publish data on the market share the series
of Tokyo Shoseki have a large share in Japan, and the series of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
have also a large share in the USA.
Steps of analysis
This analysis consist of three steps. The first step is to examine sentences related to TST in
the curriculum document in each country. It could be clarified which grade TST is
positioned and what was intended. The second step is to examine sentences related to TST
in the textbooks in each country. It could be clarified how are the intention of the
curriculum documents concretely reflected. The third step is to characterize the activities in
the textbooks by the three domains of mathematical activities. It could be clarified which
domain is it corresponded the sentences identified by the second step. By considering the
results of these analysis, I discuss the difference of TST in the curriculum between Japan
and the USA.
Results
In Japan
In Japanese geometry curriculum, TST is positioned to Grade5 and Grade8 (see Table1).
Table1: Description related to TST in Japanese curriculum document (MEXT, 2008a; 2008b)
Grade5. [Mathematical Activities]
d. Activities to inductively think and explain that the sum of the three angles of a triangle
is equal to 180°. Activities to deductively think and explain that the sum of the four angles
of a quadrangle is equal to 360°.
Grade8. B. Geometrical Figures
(1) Through activities like observation, manipulation and experimentation, to be able to
find out the properties of basic plane figures and verify them based on the properties of
parallel lines.
(a) To understand the properties of parallel lines and angles and basing on it, to verify and
explain the properties of geometrical figures.
(b) To know how to find out the properties of angles of polygons based on the properties
of parallel lines and angles of triangle.
Emphasis added by the quoter.

Murata 143
According to these curriculum documents, it is intended that pupils in Grade5 find out the
properties of the angles of a triangle by inductive reasoning and that students in Grade8
prove the properties by deductive reasoning.
The Grade5 textbook is showed that pupils investigate the sum of the three angles of the
triangles by experiment and make sure it by measuring (see Figure.1). This is an activity in
the informal domain (the first domain) because pupils consider things in the concrete
situations or the real world.
Draw some triangles on paper and

investigate the sum of the three
angles of the triangles by tearing
the paper and collecting in one
place.
Draw some triangles on your

notebook and make sure the sum
of the three angles of the triangles
is 180 degrees by measuring the
angles by protractor.
Figure1. Explanation by measurement or experiment (Fujii et al., 2015, p.22)
The Grade8 textbook is showed that students explain the sum of the three angles of a
triangle by formal proof (see Figure2). This is an activity in the formal domain (the second
domain) because students deal with a proposition and a proof which are formal objects or
procedures.
Line BC is extended to D. Line CE is

drawn parallel to AB. If parallel lines
intersect a transversal line, the
corresponding angles are congruent, and
the alternate interior angles are
congruent.
Therefore, ∠a ＝∠a´, ∠b＝∠b´
∠a +∠b +∠c ＝∠a´+∠b´+∠c
＝ 180°
Figure2. Proof of the Triangle Sum Theorem (Fujii et al., 2016, p.100)

In the above explanation, based on the

properties of parallel lines, we have led
the sum of interior angles of a triangle to
be 180°. In this way, proof indicates that a
certain thing holds on the basis of the
properties already known to be correct. The properties of
It is not possible to examine all parallel lines
triangles with actual measurement and ↓
experimental methods, but by proving as The sum of interior
above it can be showed that any triangle angles of a triangle
has a sum of interior angles of 180°.
Figure3. Difference of inductive experiment and deductive proof (Fujii et al., 2016, p.100)
In addition, it is showed that we cannot examine all triangles by the method of
measurements or experiments, but we can explain that the sum of interior angles of any
triangles is 180 degrees by the method of the proof like the one above (see Figure3). This
description is a statement about theorem because they explain the difference of inductive
experiment and deductive proof to consider the formal proof itself. Therefore this is an
activity in the metadomain (the third domain).
In the USA
In the USA curriculum, TST is positioned to Grade8 and Grade9-12 (see Table2).
Table2: Description related to the TST in the USA curriculum document (CCSSI, 2010)
Grade 8, Geometry, CCSS. MATH. CONTENT. 8. G.A.5
Use informal arguments to establish facts about the angle sum and exterior angle of
triangles, about the angles created when parallel lines are cut by a transversal, and the
angle-angle criterion for similarity of triangles. For example, arrange three copies of the
same triangle so that the sum of the three angles appears to form a line, and give an
argument in terms of transversals why this is so.
High School, Geometry, CCSS. MATH. CONTENT. 9-12. G.CO.10
Prove theorems about triangles. Theorems include: measures of interior angles of a
triangle sum to 180°; base angles of isosceles triangles are congruent; the segment joining
midpoints of two sides of a triangles is parallel to the third side and half the length; the
medians of a triangle meet at a point.
Emphasis added by the quoter.
According to this curriculum documents, it is intended that students in Grade8 establish the
properties of the angles of a triangle by using informal argument and prove the properties in
Grade high school
The Grade8 textbook is showed that students investigate the sum of the three angles of
the triangles by experiments (see Figure.4) and use dynamic geometry software and explain

Murata 145
the properties of exterior angles of a polygon .This is an activity in the informal domain (the
first domain).
Figure4. Explanation by experiment (Bennet et al., 2012, p.206)

The geometry textbook in high school is showed that students explain the sum of the
three angles of a triangle by formal proof (see Figure5). This is an activity in the formal
domain (the second domain). The proofs in the USA textbooks are described by flowcharts
not sentences.
Figure5. Proof of the Triangle Sum Theorem (Burger et al., 2012, p.231)
I could identify activities discovering a relationship between the measures of the interior
angles of a triangle and using inductive reasoning to make a conjecture in the USA textbook.
However, the meaning and difference of inductive reasoning and deductive reasoning are
not explicitly mentioned as compared with Japanese textbook. Therefore it cannot be said
that an activity in the metadomain (the third domain) is explicitly positioned. From the
above analysis, activities in all three domains seem to be intended in Japanese geometry
curriculum rather than the USA geometry curriculum.
Discussion and Conclusion

Both Japan and the USA curriculum include experiments of tearing triangle and collecting
one place (e.g. Figure1; Figure4), and proofs of TST by using the properties of parallel lines

(e.g. Figure2; Figure5). In Japanese curriculum, students learn inductive reasoning in

Grade5 with related to TST and learn deductive reasoning in Grade8. On the other hand, in
the USA curricurum, students learn inductive reasoning in Grade8 and learn deductive
reasoning in high school. Although there is a difference in grade, both curriculum focus on
activities in the informal domain and the formal domain. Inductive reasoning is useful when
we discovery a new proposition, but cannot state it is always true. On the other hand, by
deductive reasoning, we can state the proposition is always true. Japanese textbook is
written this difference explicitly (e.g. Figure3). These results suggest that Japanese
curriculum tend to emphasize the justification about a general object in lower secondary
education (Miyakawa, 2017). Although it might be difficult for students to understand the
difference between inductive reasoning and deductive reasoning, meta-mathematical
thinking like this is important for mathematics curriculum oriented toward genuine
mathematical activities.
Japanese textbook includes the figure ‘The properties of parallel lines → The sum of
interior angles of a triangle’ (in Figure3). This figure shows that TST is led from simpler
properties. To inquire simpler properties is related to construct a system. For example, TST
is derived from the properties of a straight line, the properties of parallel lines, and the
construction (drawing) of parallel lines. Figure6 is the case of Euclidean system.
Figure6. A system to reach the Triangle Sum Theorem: the case of Euclid’s Elements
When we are constructing a system, we often mention to the relationships of theorems and
propositions. Therefore, constructing a system could say a statement about theorems and an
activity of the metadomain. But these activities are not explicitly emphasized in curriculum
of both countries.
The research question was: How do the curriculum differ in Japan and the USA about
core geometry? The answer is: activities in all three domains seem to be intended in
Japanese geometry curriculum rather than the USA geometry curriculum. Both Japan and
the USA curriculum include experiments of tearing a triangle and collecting one place and
proofs of TST by using the properties of parallel lines. These results means that these
curriculum focus on activities in the informal domain and in the formal domain. On the

Murata 147
other hand, Japanese curriculum includes activities in the metadomain such as comparing
reasoning and considering the difference between inductive experiments and deductive
proofs. Although activities in the metadomain may be too difficult for students, I think it is
necessary to reconstruct curriculum from the perspective of the metadomain.
References
Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (2010). Australian Curriculum.
Bennet, J. M., Burger, E. B., ... Waits, B. K. (Eds.) (2012). Holt Mcdougal Mathematics
Grade8 (Common Core Edition). Orland: Holt Mifflin Harcourt.
Burger, E. B., Chard, D. J., … Waits, B. K. (Eds.) (2012). Holt Mcdougal Geometry
(Common Core Edition). Orland: Holt Mifflin Harcourt.
Common Core State Standards Initiative (2010). Common Core State Standards for
Mathematics.
Fujii, T., & Matano, H. (Eds.) (2015). Atarashi-Sugaku Grade5. Tokyo: Tokyo Shoseki.
Fujii, T., & Matano, H. (Eds.) (2016). Atarashi-Sugaku Grade8. Tokyo: Tokyo Shoseki.
Fujita, T., & Jones, K. (2014). Reasoning-and-proving in geometry in school mathematics
textbook in Japan. International Journal of Educational Research, 64, 81-91.
Jones, K., & Fujita, T. (2013). Interpretations of national curricula: The case of geometry in
textbooks from England and Japan. ZDM the International Journal on Mathematics
Education, 45(5), 671-683.
Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (2008a). The National
Course of Study in elementary school. Tokyo: Tokyo Shoseki.
Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (2008b). The National
Course of Study in junior high school. Kyoto: Higashiyama Shobou.
Miyakawa, T. (2017). Comparative analysis on the nature of proof to be taught in geometry:
the cases of French and Japanese lower secondary schools. Educational Studies in
Mathematics, 94(1), 37-54.
Noddings, N. (1985). Formal modes of knowing. In E. Eisner (Ed.), Learning and teaching
the ways of knowing: Eighty-fourth yearbook of the National Society for the Study of
Education, Part II (pp.116-132). Illinois: The University of Chicago Press.
Travers, K. J. & Westbury, I. (1989). The IEA study of mathematics I: Analysis of
mathematics curricula. Oxford: Pergamon Preess.
________________________
Shogo Murata
University of Tsukuba
1-1-1 Tennodai, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan
smurata@human.tsukuba.ac.jp

148 The Effect of Daily-Time Pressured Test on Students’ Achievement and Fluid Intelligence
Development
THE EFFECT OF DAILY-TIME PRESSURED TEST ON

STUDENTS’ ACHIEVEMENT AND FLUID INTELLIGENCE
DEVELOPMENT
Wenie L. Nahial, Department of Education, Camiguin Division, Philippines
Laila S. Lomibao, Ph.D., University of Science and Technology of Southern
Philipines, Philippines
Charita A. Luna, Ph.D., University of Science and Technology of Southern
Philippines, Philippines
INTRODUCTION
Tests are usually used to assess and evaluate performance, either for employment, promotion
in work or in school. Job applicants have to undergo a qualifying written test or a
competitive examination. In school, it is used as a tool to measure learning and more
importantly as a process or a combination of tool and process to facilitate learning (Soto,
2015). Administrators examine and use the results of tests as basis to hold teachers
accountable for students learning, and use as the rationale for raising the standards of students’
achievement, such as in the National Achievement Test (NAT) or Professional Regulatory
Commission (PRC). Also, test results were used as basis for teachers and schools’ performance.
However, the National Achievement Test (NAT) results for high school students for
about five years now were all below the 75% standard criterion set by the Department of
Education in terms of achievement level which is the national target. In particular, the
division of Camiguin performance in 2011 to 2015 were 49.91, 54.09, 57.78, 58.67, and
66.55 respectively
To address this issue and in line with the implementation of Enhanced Basic Education Act
2013, the Department of Education encouraged to practice student-centered instructions and adopt
policy guidelines on classroom assessment emphasizing that teachers should employ assessment
methods to help students identify their strengths and weaknesses in order to learn from the
assessment experience. To employ formative assessment for learning and as learning, meaning
assessment practices that scaffold students understanding and achievement (D.O. 8, 2015).
One formative assessment practice which asses students learning as well as enhance
performance was the continuous performance task. Recent researches showed that training
in continuous performance tasks stimulate brain activity leading to improve results as
reflected through intelligence tests. This report supports the claim of Plato many years ago
that training through tests can sharpen the mind. According to Jensen (1969), intelligence is
not fixed, intelligence is influence not just by heredity, but also by its environment. He
stated that environment acts as a threshold variable with respect to IQ and that greater gain
are possible in scholastic performance when instructional techniques are intensive and highly
focused. Klemm (2012) also relate intelligence to working memory for thinking involves
streaming into the brain's "thought engine" chunks of information held in working memory.
He cited the recent Japanese researchers study which tested whether a simple working

Nahial, Lomibao, Luna 149
memory training method could increase the working memory capacity of children ages 6-8
that were trained 10 minutes a day each day for two months. They found out that scores on
the test indicated in all children that working memory correlated with IQ test scores. The
data showed that intelligence scores increased by 9% in the first graders group that had been
given the memory training, and even more evident in the second graders, with a 12% gain in
intelligence score in the memory trained group, compared with a 6% gain in controls. The
lower IQ children showed the greatest gain from memory training. This means that it’s
possible that teachers can train student to think fast to answer the problems with speed,
accuracy and flexibility. Andersson (2008) also found that measures of working memory
predicted accuracy in children’s performances on mathematical word problems even after
variation attributable to intelligence, reading ability, and age differences were controlled.
Similarly, Swanson and Beebe-Frankenberger (2004) found that working memory
significantly predicted mathematical calculation and word problem solving accuracy in
children even after intelligence measures were considered.
Jaeggi, Buschkuehl, Jonides, and Perrig (2008) reported a study that fluid intelligence
can be improved by training on working memory. They revealed that acquiring fluid
intelligence is achieved by giving series of tests. Series of tests refers to the time-pressured
tests administered to the students every class recitation period. Siadat (2011) also suggested
that fluid intelligence can be improved by training on working memory through frequent
and time-pressured tests. He added that fluid intelligence is considered to be one of the most
important factors of learning especially on abstract reasoning and higher-order thinking
skills. He claimed that giving frequent and time-pressured tests to the students have a close
resemblance to continuous performance tasks. He further said that time pressured test
induces stress during test but can increase focused attention, builds students’ concentration
skills on the task and improve memory of relevant information. He added that inducing
stress during tests within the context of learning experience will yield mathematical fluency
of basic skills. Mathematical fluency includes speed, accuracy and flexibility in doing
mathematical task.
Developing the student’s intellect needs scaffoldings. Note-taking is a kind of
scaffolding in the learning environment like the classrooms. Maxwell (1994) claimed that
note-taking can improve student’s achievement. This claim can be attributed to the Theory
of Writing in which the student is given the opportunity to relate the classroom instruction
in his own ways and ideas. Visande (2004) and Pauk (2001) that rewriting offers the
opportunity to practice and review the past works and concepts. Similarly, when one writes
the concepts and processes, it passes through the brain, hence, it would contribute to the
development of fluid intelligence.
Researchers and educators also suggested that asking students to create pictures in his
mind of they read or heard, like illustrating mathematical problems; explaining how to do
something involves making sense of information; playing games; and encouraging active
reading like talking out loud and asking questions about the reading material can help
enhanced working memory. Active reading strategies can help with forming long-term
memories too. Chunking information into smaller bites, help make connections, or form

Development
associations that connect the different details he’s trying to remember. Finding ways to
connect information helps with forming and retrieving long-term memory. It also helps with
working memory, which is what we use to hold and compare new and old memories.
Based on these aforementioned views, the researches aimed to explore how daily-time
pressured test with scaffolding using note-taking, and working memory enhancer activities
influence students’ achievement and fluid intelligence.
Methodology
This study used a pretest -posttest quasi-experimental control group design. Two
intact heterogeneous sections of the Grade 10 classes from Sagay National High School in
Bonbon, Sagay, Camiguin were used as participants of the study. One of the two sections
was randomly assigned as the experimental group and control group. Prior to experiment, a
validated teacher-made 32-item word problems in exponential and logarithmic functions
pre-test was given. The experiment was conducted for two quarters and post-test were given
after. The experimental and control groups received the same lesson every day within the
timeframe of the study with the one of the researchers as teacher. The experimental group
was taught using working memory training such as group activities that requires students
read problems exercises using active reading strategies then illustrate the problem to create
a visual picture, in analyzing the problem they were asked chunk the information by
identifying the given and what is asked on the problem and talking notes on the conditions
given to help them make connections to previous concept learn and apply it to solve the
problem. Then they were asked to explain how they make sense of information and solve
the problem when they present their solution in class. Some other times games were
introduce during the drills. And all activities and exercises were time bound. Students were
also required to take notes on the solutions presented for each problem. Every day after the
activities, students were given formative assessment through time-pressure tests. While in
the control group, students were taught using conventional method, that is through structured
discussion, group activities, seatwork, boardworks and a test were given in each end of the week.
The tables below show the results of the analysis of the data gathered in the study.
Table 1: Means and Standard Deviations of the Pretest and Posttest Scores of the
Participants in the Problem-Solving Achievement Test in Exponential and Logarithmic
Functions
Experimental Group Control Group
𝑛 = 34 𝑛 = 36
Pretest Posttest Pretest Posttest

Mean 7.76 16.62 7.67 11.89
Standard
2.83 4.51 2.54 2.96
Deviation
Table 2: Summary of the One Way ANCOVA of Unequal N of the Problem-Solving

Achievement Test Scores
Source of Adjusted Sum Mean
df F-ratio Prob.
Variation of Squares Square
Treatment
389.97 1 389.97 26.86 0.001
Between
Error Within 973.16 67 14.52
Total 1363.13 68
0.05 level of significance
Table 1 shows the means and standard deviations of the pretest and posttest scores of
both groups of participants. It can be noted that the means scores are very close, and so are
the standard deviations. This suggests that both groups of participants are almost of the
same level of performance at the start of the experiments. However, the scores of the
participants in the experimental group in the posttest had considerably increased compared
to the control group’s minimal increase. The standard deviations of the posttest scores
suggested that many of the participants in the experimental group had varied effect on their
scores while some of the participants in the control group got scores which are closer to
each other. This result is evidence that better assimilation of concept among the participants
in the experimental group because of their active and responsive working memory response
to the discussion during the treatment period. While in the control group, the score is
verification that they lack assimilation, focus and concentration. The participants in the
experimental group show that daily-time pressured test, together with the scaffoldings
activities such as visual illustration, active reading strategies, games, chunking of
information, making connections, presentation and justification of solutions and note-taking
has developed students’ critical thinking skills and higher assimilation process of the
mathematical concept. This may contribute to students’ ability to think logically and solve
problems in novel situations with speed, accuracy and flexibility.
Table 2 shows the summary of the analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) of the pretest and
posttest scores of the participants of the experimental and control groups in the problem
–solving achievement test in exponential and logarithmic functions. The analysis yielded a
computed F-ratio of 26.86 with a probability value of 0.001 which is less than the critical
value at 0.05 level of significance. This result leads to the rejection of the null hypothesis.
This means that the mean score of the experimental group which is 16.62 is significantly
higher than the mean score of the control group 11.89. This implies that the daily

Development
time-pressured test with enforced students’ visual illustration, active reading strategies,
games, chunking of information, making connections, presentation and justification of
solutions as scaffoldings is effective in training the mind to focus, concentrate, think
critically and logically. This implies further that daily time-pressured test with scaffoldings
can develop fluid intelligence. These findings confirm that training of the mind to achieve
desirable changes is actually a way of developing fluid intelligence (Siadat, 2011). This
study also corroborates the report that fluid intelligence can be improved by daily
time-pressured test (Jaeggi, Buschkuehl, Jonides, and Perrig, 2008). The result also supports
that visual illustration, active reading strategies, games, chunking of information, making
connections, presentation and justification of solutions and note-taking activities in the class
can improve students’ achievement in solving problems and can enhance the flexibility and
mathematical fluency of the students (Maxwell, 1994; Dechosa, 2009).
CONCLUSION
Based on the analysis and findings of the study, the researchers conclude that daily
time-pressured test with scaffoldings using visual illustration, active reading strategies,
games, chunking of information, making connections, presentation and justification of
solutions and enforced note-taking can effectively help in developing student’s fluid
intelligence. Hence, the researchers recommend that school administrators may encourage
their teachers to give daily time-pressured test with note-taking and journal writing to their
students to develop a habit, focus and concentration necessary for critical thinking,
mathematical fluency, flexibility and creativity for high stake assessment, be it national or
international in scope.
REFERENCES
Andersson, U. (2008) British Journal of Educational Psychology. DOI:

10.1348/000709907X209854
Dechosa, R. A. (2009). Note-taking, Listening Skills and Mathematics Achievements of
Grade Six Pupils. Unpublished Thesis. Mindanao University of Science and Technology.
Cagayan de Oro City, Philippines.
Jaeggi, S. M., Buschkuehl, M., Jonides, J. and Perrig, W. J. (2008). Improving Fluid
Intelligence with Training on Working Memory, Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences (PNAS).
Jensen, A. (1969). How Much Can We Boost IQ and Scholastic Achievement. Harvard
Educational Review: Vol. 39, No. 1, pp. 1-123.
https://doi.org/10.17763/haer.39.1.l3u15956627424k7 .

Klemm, W. R. (2012). Training Working Memory: Why and how Make your working.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/memory-medic/201203/training-working-memo
ry-why-and-how memory work for you.
Maxwell, M. (1994). Are the skills we are teaching obsolete? In S. Mioduski & G. Enright
(Eds.),
proceedings of the 13th and 14th Annual Institutes for Learning Assistance Professionals:
1992-1993(pp. 63-77). Tuczon, A.Z.: University Learning Center, University of Arizona.
Pauk, W. (2001). How to study in college., Houghton. Mifflin Company. Academic Success Center,
Oregon State University. success.oregonstate.edu/sites/success.oregonstate.edu/
Siadat, V. M. (2011). Using Mathematics to Improve Fluid Intelligence. Notices in the
American Mathematics Society. Volume 58, Number
3https://www.researchgate.net/publication/275220682
Soto, C. (2015). Assessment literacy and the mathematics teacher. Proceedings of the 7th
ICMI-East Asia Regional Conference on Mathematics Education
Swanson, L & Beebe-Frankenberger, M (2004). Journal of Educational Psychology Vol. 96,
No. 3, 471– 491 DOI: 10.1037/0022-0663.96.3.471
Visande, R. G. (2004) Rewrite-To-Improve: Its Impact on the Performance and Retention on
the College Students in Problem Solving. Unpublished Master’s Thesis, Mindanao
Polytechnic State College, Cagayan de Oro City.
Wenie L. Nahial
Department of Education – Camiguin Division
winenahial@gmail.com
Laila S. Lomibao
University of Science and Technology of Southern Philippines
laila_lomibao@ustp.edu.ph
Charita A. Luna
University of Science and Technology of Southern Philippines
Charita_luna@yahoo.com

154 A Cross-Tools Pirie-Kieren Model for Visualizing the Process of Mathematical Understanding
A CROSS-TOOLS PIRIE-KIEREN MODEL FOR VISUALIZING

THE PROCESS OF MATHEMATICAL UNDERSTANDING
Go Nakamura, Hiroshima University, Japan
Masataka Koyama, Hiroshima University, Japan
PURPOSE
In recent curriculum revision for school mathematics in Japan, the Ministry of Education
emphasizes not only what students understand and can do by mastering basic mathematical
knowledge and skills but also how students use what they understood and acquired by
nurturing their ability of mathematical thinking, judgment, and expression in order to cope
with unfamiliar situations (Ministry of Education, 2017a, 2017b). Therefore, mathematics
teachers are demanded to coordinate students’ self-directive, collaborative, deep learning in
mathematics classes. In this situation surrounding mathematics education and teachers, it is
important to grasp learners’ mathematical understanding because it does not make sense if
mathematics classes are conducted without learners’ mathematical understanding.
In previous studies on mathematical understanding, Pirie and Kieren (1989) insisted the
perspective on a dynamic phenomenon of mathematical understanding, and proposed the
transcendent recursive model consisting eight hierarchical levels in the process of
mathematical understanding. As Koyama (2010) pointed out, understanding something is to
cognitively associate it with an existing schema or a cognitive structure, and understanding
is inherently a personal-mental activity, and complicated and dynamic phenomenon. It is
necessary to capture understanding of individual learner descriptively by using a model
based on the Pirie and Kieren's transcendental recursive theory (1994b) (hereafter “PK
model”). This model is useful in visualizing the process of mathematical understanding.
However, we have such questions “which tool does stumble learners in thinking
mathematically?”, and “which tool does help learners’ mathematical understanding grow
up?” In these questions the word tool means both mathematical viewpoint/idea and
mathematical method/strategy used by learners to deepen their mathematical understanding
in mathematical problem solving.
The purpose of this paper is to address these research questions. For that purpose, we will
extend the PK model to a model which may describe the tool crossing, and capture how
learner’s understanding process progresses in mathematical problem solving. In the
following sections, we overview features of the PK model, and then we extend the PK
model to a cross-tools PK model. With the model, we demonstrate how we can visualize
learner’s mathematical understanding process. Finally, we apply the cross-tools PK model
in mathematics lessons, and discuss its applicability in the teaching and learning activities
of mathematics.
THE PK MODEL FOR MATHEMATICAL UNDERSTANDING
As Koyama (1995) argued, the Pirie and Kieren’s transcendental recursive theory has two
fundamental ideas related to each other. One is philosophy of constructivism because they

Nakamura, Koyama 155
see understanding as a constant process of organizing the structure of one's own knowledge.
The other is the idea of transcendental recursion, which is a methodology to describe the
growth of learners’ understanding from the perspective of constructivism. The PK model
based on their theory functions as eyeglasses to see learners’ experiences in understanding
mathematics and solving mathematical problems.
Features of the PK model

The PK model consists eight levels; the previous level is included in the next level. It
demonstrates dynamic and transcendent nature of learners’ mathematical understanding.
More importantly, the model incorporates three features; don’t need boundaries, folding
back, and the complementarities of acting and expressing. Pirie and Kieren (1994a) stated
about don't need boundaries in the sense that learners don not always need to be aware of
inner level of understanding. The bold rings show that learners' mathematical understanding
beyond them do not need refer to inner forms of understanding, but it is accessible if needed.
The second feature of the model in capturing learner's mathematical understanding process
(hereafter MUP) is folding back in the sense that in facing with a problem or question which
is not immediately solvable, learners need to fold back to an inner level. As a result, learners’
activity is informed and shaped by outer level interests and understandings. Then, their
understanding is deeper than previous. The third feature of the model is the
complementarities of acting and expressing. The growth of learners’ understanding is
regarded as acting (physical or mental activities including subordinate levels) and
expressing (explicitly showing contents and essence of activities to others). Therefore, the
both acting and expressing activities are important to capture learners’ growth of
mathematical understanding. These three features mentioned above are shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1. The PK model (Pirie and Kieren, 1994a, p.176)

Eight levels of mathematical understanding in the PK model

In this paper, regarding the levels of understanding in the PK model, we use the eight levels
defined by Iwata et al. (2016) including items and contents of acting and expressing (Table
1).
Table 1. Items and contents of eight levels in the PK model (Iwata, et al., 2016, p.14)
Content
Level Item
Acting Expressing
Primitive Knowing
1st
Learner has knowledge assumed to be owned and behavior assumed to be able to do.
Image Making Imaging Reimaging
Learner makes a new image A phase of acting with concrete A phase of making a
through working on new things, diagrams, graphs and new image through
2nd
tasks with concrete things, symbols without reflecting on reflecting on the act
diagrams, graphs, and the act
symbols.
Image Having Having the image Describing the image
Learner can clearly express A phase of having the image, A phase of clearly
3rd the features of an image but not being able to express expressing the features
without doing specific act the features clearly of the image
lead to the image.
Predicting properties Recording properties
Property Noticing A phase of trying to predict A phase of being
Learner associates images properties by associating clearly able to express
with each other and notices images with each other or the properties predicted
4th
the difference among images considering differences among
by reflectively grasping images, but not being able to
multiple images possessed. express the properties clearly
Applying the rule Justifying the rule
Formalizing A phase of being able to find a A phase of being able
Leaner finds a rule that works
rule and represent it by symbols to justify the rule
5th in any case without referring without physical models and
to its physical model or concrete images, but not being
concrete image. able to justify the rule yet
Observing Identifying features Defining features
Leaner finds features of the A phase of reflecting on the A phase of clearly
formalized through formalized and finding the expressing the features
6th
correlating multiple features, but not being able to found
formalization and noticing clearly express them yet
their differences.
Inferring the theorem Proving the theorem
Structuring A phase of inferring a certain A phase of proving the
Learner make a structure of proposition from the mutual inferred proposition
7th observed results by finding relationship of observed results,
their mutual relationships and but not being able to prove it
justifying them. yet
Inventising
8th Learner breaks the shell of the previous way of thinking used for this understanding, and create
new questions to grow up new concepts based on the structured understanding.
Note: In this table, the name of First Recognition used in Iwata et al. (2016) is changed to

the name of Primitive Knowing originally proposed by Pirie and Kieren (1994a).
TWO PREVIOUS EXAMPLES OF EXTENDING THE PK MODEL
In this section, we review two examples of extending the PK model in previous studies.
An extended PK model for predicting learners' mathematical understanding
Shimizu (2013) proposed a new way of using the PK model as a teaching principle, and
made learners’ predicted MUP by using arrows, and added teacher’s questions and
interventions on the map in order to encourage learners’ understanding. For example, Figure
2 illustrates how the extension of the PK model is applied to a particular mathematical
content. The model helps a teacher intentionally cause learners’ folding back to deepen their
mathematical understanding. By superimposing the predicted learners’ MUP and the
teaching activities on the PK model, it will be able to design a consistent lesson plan with
questioning plan. In that sense, this extended PK model is a normative model and can be
used as a hypothetical learning trajectory in mathematics lessons.
Figure 2. Prediction of students’ mathematical understanding process by

transcendental recursive model (Shimizu, 2013, p.11)
As a finding obtained by this extension, Shimizu (2013) argued that a teacher can promote
learners' reconstruction of a mathematical problem when they are facing it with teacher’s
supportive questioning in mathematics lesson, and can cause folding back to achieve their
deeper mathematical understanding. This finding illustrates a possibility of extending the
PK model in the context of teacher education. This extension of the PK model woks as a
guiding map of lesson, but it does not work as glasses to capture the learners’ MUP in
mathematics lesson.
An extended PK model for capturing collective mathematical understanding
Martin, Towers & Pirie (2009) said that collective mathematical understanding as

improvisation is like jazz. They observed the mathematical understanding of two cases of
group of students. As a result, both student groups devoted themselves to solving a problem
with the priority always being meaningful engagement in mathematics. Martin, Towers &
Pirie (2009) identified three main elements of the growth of collective mathematical
understanding; the existence of many potential pathways, the development of a collective
structure (striking a groove), and the notion of etiquette and the importance of the group
mind (p.176). Furthermore, they also suggested the importance of considering the property
of the task and the group. The property of the task is open to some extent with various
possible answers. In addition, the task should be at an appropriate mathematical level. About
the property of the group, even if all learners do not contribute to the development of
collective mathematical understanding at every moment, group mindset may be established
if activity is done with appropriate attitude as a set of individual understandings. In order to
create an environment in which collective understanding emerges, the teacher must change
two extreme lessons such as teacher-centered and student-centered.
The arguments lead to the way of active learning of mathematics and extend the PK model
to capture collective mathematics understanding of learners in a group. However, as
mentioned in the above section, understanding is inherently a personal and mental activity.
Martin, Towers & Pirie (2009) also stated the importance of individuals’ mathematical
understanding. But it is not clear; how individuals’ MUP changes by collective
mathematical understanding.
A CROSS-TOOLS PK MODEL
A cross-tools PK model for visualizing the process of learner’s mathematical
understanding
It is important for us to capture individuals' MUP. In this section, we will extend the PK
model from an individuals’ viewpoint in order to have glasses for visualizing the process of
learner’s mathematical understanding in mathematics lesson. The PK model is not sufficient
for us to capture real aspects of the growth of mathematical understanding in terms of tools
used by a learner (Mousley, 2004). It is sure that the PK model can describe the movements
between levels. The movement, however, is one dimensional because it comes and goes on
the axis of the level.
Instead, we use multiple tools in the way of combination. If the PK model included the
crossing movement between tools can be formed, the extended PK model will be helpful for
us to capture the process of learner's mathematical understanding as a two-dimensional
movement.

Figure 3. Cross–tools PK model

Therefore, we propose the cross-tools PK model from such the viewpoint that a learner’s
MUP goes up and down between multiple tools used by the learner. The number of tools
depends on the content of mathematical topic in a lesson, so it can’t be uniquely determined
beforehand.
As an example we will show it using three tools (Figure 3). In the areas of tool A to C, the
original PK model is saved and embedded as it is. Diagonal lines are drawn in each area
from the 2nd level to the 7th level, the lower side represents action, and the upper side
represents expression in each level. Also, the thick dashed line between the 2nd and 3rd
level, the 4th and 5th level, and the 6th and 7th levels corresponds to the don’t need
boundary. For ease of description, the figure is transformed from circular to diamond shape.
We list the features (A) to (E) of the cross-tools PK model which are mainly different from
the extended models in previous studies mentioned above (Table 2). We also set some
description rules for the cross-tools PK model. Table 3 shows the procedure of describing in
the cross-tools PK model.
Table 2. Features of the cross-tools PK model

(A) The model can describe a learners’ MUP with crossing between tools.
The figure 3 represents a form of this model to describe crossing between tools
used in a learner’s MUP.
(B) The model can be modified in responding various stages and contents for learners by
adjusting the number and the naming of tools.
It is possible to change the number of tools according to the mathematical object
and relationship that we want to capture. And in this sense, it is a general purpose
model that the user can change it according to certain purpose.

(C) The model can be used to find learner’s characteristics in terms of tools used by the
learner.
What tools does students use extensively? What kind of mutual transitions or
folding back are doing? These questions become visualized by describing a
learner’s MUP in this model. Then, learner’s information about thinking direction,
the main tool to proceed understanding, and even trend of tool used can be read,
and learner’s characteristics will be found.
(D) The model can be used to intentionally set up tools associated by predicting a
learner’s MUP in mathematics lesson construction and teaching plans.
The model is synonymous with the extend model by Shimizu (2013). But, by
adding a new element of tool in the model, more specific lesson construction and
teaching plan can be made. Furthermore, it can be possible to set up more
intentional interventions.
(E) The model can be used to clarify the viewpoint of instruction in terms of tool when a
mathematics teacher predicts a learner’s MUP.
The teacher’s intention of teaching has large impact on a lesson, so the intention of
teaching becomes clear by predicting and visualizing the learner’s MUP.
Table 3. Procedure of describing in the cross-tools PK model

1. For the 1st level of ‘Primitive Knowing’, plot the point according to the 1st tool used
by the learner
2. From the 2nd level to the 7th level, plot the points focusing on the ‘acting’ and
‘expressing’ of the learner.
3. Plot △ where ‘folding back’ occurs.
4. Plot ☆ where there is an expression that leads to the growth of level of learner’s
mathematical understanding.
5. Be sure to plot all points so that they are connected in a single stroke.
Visualization of leaner’s mathematical understanding process using the cross-tools PK

model

We show one case of a second grade student P of a junior high school when he learned to
draw a graph of a linear function using a proportional function in the lesson on functions
(Table 4 and Figure 4). In using the cross-tools PK model, we describe the process of
learner’s mathematical understanding in consideration of both levels and tools used by the
learner in the lesson. According to the Course of Study for mathematics in Japan (Ministry
of Education, 2017a, 2017b), the topic of functions should be learned in relation to three
tools: formula, table, and graph. In addition, it is necessary to arrange the tools A, B, and C
(Figure 3) so that mutual movement can be described easily as much as possible. Then, we
placed the tool of tables middle between formulas and graphs in the model. In this lesson,
no understanding at the sixth level or higher was observed.
Figure 4. The map of student P in the mathematics lesson:

Drow a graph of a linear function using a proportinal function
Table 4. Levels and tools used by student P in actions and expressions (lesson time is 50 min.)
point time acting & expressing level tool
a 3 He made a table of the proportional y = 2x. PK Table
He made an image by making a table of the linear function
b 6 IM Table
y = 2x + 3.
He completed the correspondence between tables of y = 2x and
c 7 IM Table
y = 2x + 3.
He began to make images by taking points of functions on the
d 8 IM Graph
coordinate plane.
e 9 He corresponded the table and the point to each other. IM Graph
f 11 He traced each point with his fingers. IH Graph

g 12 He drew a straight line. IH Graph

He moved the graph on the electronic blackboard and compare
h 15 PN Graph
them.
He looked at his mathematics textbooks and tried to capture
i 16 IH Formula
meanings sentences and expressions written in the textbooks.
He listened to other students' presentations and describe the
j 17 IH Formula
results.
He solved a given exercise. Even it was a different formula, he
k 18 PN Formula
could answer it.
He checked his pairs' answers with each other. He could explain
l 20 PN Formula
his answer to the other.
In an exercise, he tried to answer by using a proportional graph
m 22 PN Graph
described in the textbook.
Because it did not work, he looked at the graph of the previous
n 23 IH Graph
exercise.
He confirmed with his fingers that all points move from each
o 25 PN Graph
their corresponding points in a constant distance.
p 27 He drew a graph with confidence. PN Graph
He looked at the moving of graph on the electronic blackboard
q 28 F Graph
and told his pair how to write the graph.
When the teacher called on him, he explained his answer to all
r 30 friends in the class by using the generalized expression of F Formula
y = ax + b.
He solved the problems shown on electronic blackboard and in
s 33 F Formula
textbook by looking at the formula.
He formally solved exercises drawing a graph by looking at only
t 37 F Graph
a and b in the y = ax + b.
u 45 He looked back at the content and wrote in his own words. F Formula
Since the aim of the lesson was to draw a graph of a linear function, in Figure 4 you can see
that graphs were used at many points. Tables were used only at the initial levels. On the
other hand, it is obvious that the tools crossed between graphs and formulas. This fact
shows us that the tool of table worked as a subsidiary means to make images. As his level of
understanding progressed, it turns out that the table was not necessary for the student P. At
point h, he moved back to the level of image making about the textbook’s expression from
the graph on the electronic blackboard. Likewise, at point m, he looked at the problem and
checked his image of the graph. Both of them are folding back and the points h and m are
added with the triangle sign △. Through the action of tracing with his fingers at point o, he
was able to draw a straight line with confidence at point p. In other words, the action at
point o gave him confidence to advance his understanding. In that sense point o is described
by the star sign ☆. By visualizing the learners' MUP in this way, it is possible for
mathematics teacher to find important tools, give appropriate supports for individuals, and

improve mathematics lesson. This aspect of learner’s MUP cannot be described by using
previous extended PK models.
APPLICATION OF THE CROSS-TOOLS PK MODEL IN MATHEMATICS
LESSONS
In this section, we apply the cross-tools PK model in mathematics lessons, and discuss its
applicability in the teaching and learning activities of mathematics. We observed a series of
second grade mathematics lesson on the topics of linear functions in a junior high school.
We had one veteran teacher and his 94 students in two classes for one week. First, we
interviewed in advance to know the teacher’s intention of each lesson in teaching
mathematics. Second, we gave the students a questionnaire to get information about their
self-evaluation of understanding the mathematical topic in each lesson. Collected data
includes the record of interview with the teacher and the script of action and expression of
his students in two classes. In this paper, we will examine the relationship between the
teacher’s intention and his student’s MUP described by the cross-tools PK model.
Figure 5. Let’s find the equation of the linear function from the line graph (1)

Figure 6. Let’s find the equation of the linear function from the line graph (2)
Figure 5 and Figure 6 show two different students’ MUP described by the cross-tools PK
model in successive lesson in which these students answered positively to a questionnaire
about the self-evaluation of understanding the mathematical topic. The tool of tables was
never appeared in these MUP. The fact is consistent with the teacher’s intention of the
lesson. The student’s MUP in Figure 6 is almost on the left side of the figure. In these
successive lessons, the student progressed his MUP with tools of formulas without using
other tools. Furthermore, in the map on the left side of Figure 6, teacher’s intention was
shown clearly. When we interviewed him in advance, he said that “today’s lesson is drill
only to master previous lesson content!” He continued, “If my students can’t do this, they
can’t understand the further content.” This example shows that the teacher’s intention of
lesson and his students’ mathematical understanding progressed in the same direction.
CONCLUSION
Learners to live in future society should cope with unknown situations. Therefore, learners
should be encouraged to look back on the solution process in order to consider other
possible solution strategies. It is folding back and helps learners to establish mathematical
connection by focusing learner’s attention on commonality among different mathematical
expressions. We argued that learner’s MUP should proceed through various tools crossing
in order to connect mathematical meanings and expressions. In order to make learners have
experience of establishing mathematical connection, it is useful for teachers to predict
learner's MUP by using the cross-tools PK model. Thus, it is possible to construct a
mathematics lesson in which teachers intentionally focus on commonality among different
mathematical expressions. In this paper, we proposed glasses for seeing more closely look
at aspects of learner's MUP by extending the original PK model to the cross-tools PK model
in terms of tools used by learners. The cross-tools PK model has two roles; the one is

glasses to see the learner’s MUP in mathematics lessons and the other is map to plan the
teaching and learning mathematics in lessons.
References
Iwata, K. & Yasunaga, M. (2016). Clarifying the levels of mathematical understanding
based on the Pirie and Kieren’s “transcendent recursive theory”. Journal of Fukuoka
University of Education, 65(3), 1-14. (In Japanese)
Koyama, M. (1995). Characterizing eight modes of the transcendent recursive model of
understanding mathematics. Journal of Japan Academic Society of Mathematics
Education: Research in Mathematics Education, 1, 19-28.
Koyama, M. (2010). Research on the process model of mathematical understanding in
primary mathematics education. Seibunshinsha Publisher. (In Japanese)
Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan. (2017a). Course of
study for primary school mathematics. Ministry of Education. (In Japanese)
Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan. (2017b). Course of
study for junior high school mathematics. Ministry of Education. (In Japanese)
Martin, L., Towers, J. & Pirie, S. (2006). Collective mathematical understanding as
improvisation. Mathematical thinking and learning, 8(2), 149-183.
Mousley, J. (2004). An aspect of mathematical understanding: The notion of “connected
knowing”. Proceedings of PME28 Conference, 3, 377-384.
Pirie, S. & Kieren, T. (1989). A recursive theory of mathematical understanding. For the
Learning of Mathematics, .9(3), 7–11.
Pirie, S. & Kieren, T. (1994a). Growth in mathematical understanding: How can we
characterise it and how can we represent it? Educational Studies in Mathematics, 26,
165–190.
Pirie, S. & Kieren, T. (1994b). Beyond metaphor: Formalising in mathematical
understanding within constructivist environments. For the Learning of Mathematics,
14(1), 39–43.
Shimizu, H. (2013). The normative application of “transcendent recursive model” (3):
Application to the lesson for problem solving learning. Journal of Japan Academic
Society of Mathematics Education: Research in Mathematics Education, 19(1), 9-15. (In
Japanese)
Go Nakamura
Graduate School of Education, Hiroshima University
1-1-1 Kagamiyama, Higashi-Hiroshima, 739-8524 Japan
m176282@hiroshima-u.ac.jp
Masataka Koyama
Graduate School of Education, Hiroshima University
1-1-1 Kagamiyama, Higashi-Hiroshima, 739-8524 Japan
mkoyama@hiroshima-u.ac.j

166 Using the Co-Construction Approach to Improve the Quality of Mathematics Learning Through Play in
Japanese Preschools: A Case Study
USING THE CO-CONSTRUCTION APPROACH TO IMPROVE

THE QUALITY OF MATHEMATICS LEARNING THROUGH
PLAY IN JAPANESE PRESCHOOLS: A CASE STUDY
Nagisa Nakawa, Kanto-Gakuin University, Japan
Introduction
Recently, early childhood mathematics education research has become a contentious issue
in the international community (e.g. Lin, et al., 2013; Brandt, 2013; Clements & Sarama,
2009). However, Japanese early mathematics instruction still lags behind current trends in
the field of education. This is partially because Japanese preschools typically do not teach
mathematics as a subject. The author and her team, working on a developmental project,
implemented mathematical games in preschools and conducted an analysis to improve the
quality of mathematics education in Japan. The present article, therefore, reports on the
partial outcomes of the project for preschool mathematics education in Japan. The article
will discuss how the quality of children’s numerical learning through play differed
according to the teachers’ instructional approach at two different preschools, utilising a
typology of development theories developed by Montada (2008).
Japanese preschools and the MTPPTP project

An important philosophy permeating Japanese preschools is that of learning through play, a
concept which originated with Froebel (2015) and which has been implemented, with some
modifications, in the Japanese educational context for a long time (Ministry of Education,
Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology [MEXT], 2008; 2017a; 2017b). Play has been
regarded as important for children’s cognitive, affective, and physical development
(Gmitrova, 2003; Watson, Linkie-Nixon, Wilson, & Capage, 1999; Bredekamp & Copple,
2009; Frost, Wortham, & Reifel, 2012; Smith, 2010; Weisbert et al. 2013; Lillard et al.
2013). Recently, the new Course of Study for Kindergarten (MEXT, 2017a) re-emphasised
the importance of imparting mathematics education to every child. The project, called the
MTPPTP project (Development of the Elementary Mathematics Education Training
Program for Preschool Teachers and Parents), aims to develop a suitable mathematics
curriculum for Japanese preschools, promote professional development and training for
in-service preschool teachers, and enhance the capacity of communities—including
parents—to provide quality mathematics education. In 2016-2017, we implemented various
play-based mathematics activities in preschools to examine their effectiveness, prior to
beginning the training and professional development activities for teachers and parents. The
present article examines in detail a numerical activity which was conducted as a part of the
MTPPTP project.

Nakawa 167
Theoretical framework
Vogel (2013) developed a typology of development theories with reference to Montada
(2008), and this framework is useful for analysing Japanese instructional practices in
mathematics. Table 1 displays the typology of development theories supplemented by
educational approaches. Vogel (2013) stated that educational approaches can adhere to
different models, guiding the actual pedagogical work, the formation of learning
environments, and everyday interactions among children and their learning environment.
There are four models and approaches to understand the interactions between subject and
environment: interactionist transactional systemic models which facilitate co-construction,
actional and constructivist models based on self-education, exogenist models which focus
on (cooperative) mediation, and endogenist models which are based on self-development.
Table 1. A typology of development theories (Montada, 2008, p.10) supplemented by educational

approaches according to Fthenakis et al. (2009, p. 19) (translated by Vogel, 2013)
Environment
Active Inactive
Active Interactionist transactional Actional and constructivist
systemic models models
Subject →approach to co-construction →approach of self-education
Inactive Exogenist models Endogenist models
→(cooperative) approach →approach of self-development
of mediation
(Vogel, 2013, p. 210)
In the interactionist transactional systemic model based on co-construction, both children

and their environment—including teachers, friends, and other educational facilities such as
mathematical games—should be active in learning.
Methodology
The author modified a number game, called The robber and the thief, which was developed
by Wittmann and Müller (2012) and is suitable for the Japanese context. The robber and the
thief is used for teaching addition and subtraction to grade 1 children in Germany. The
modified game sheet for preschool, which we used, is shown in Figure 1; this is a game
called The rabbit and the turtle.
In the modified game, the children were divided into two groups. They took turns rolling a
large dice to move their game piece along the board, and competed to see which group
could reach ‘home’ the fastest. The purpose of the game is to familiarise the children with

the numbers 1-20, to read the dice correctly, and (for advanced learners) to add and subtract.
In the Japanese context, grade 1 children in the primary school learn the numbers 1-20;
however, it is beneficial for children in preschools to gain some experience in using these
numbers even if they do not completely understand the concept yet.
Figure 1. The rabbit and the turtle game board.

In our project, we produced a written format for each play activity, as follows:
(1) Setting a problem/environment within the activity: The children are divided into two
groups and they sit down forming a semi-circle. They can either sit on a chair or on the
floor. A big sheet displaying the game board is put up. Before starting the game, the
teacher tells the children an old folktale about the rabbit and the turtle (i.e. the tortoise
and the hare).
(2) Preparation/materials needed: A large die and the game board (shown in Figure 1).
(3) Purpose of the activity: Subitising numbers on the dice, reading/recognising
numerals from 1 to 20, reading numbers in Japanese on the game board, counting up
and down, and adding and subtracting if possible.
(4) Class/group organisation:
(i) Each child comes to the front and reads the number after throwing the die.
(ii) The teacher should take note of the children who can count up/down and/or
add/subtract.
(iii) The teacher should make sure that all the children participate in the activity.
(iv) The teacher should observe and record the children’s behaviours and speech.
(5) Implementation of the activity:
(i) The teacher tells the story of the rabbit and the turtle. For example, s/he can say
‘There is a rabbit and a turtle. They play together. They are going home now. Let’s

Nakawa 169
play and see which one can get home faster by throwing the dice. Let’s form two
groups’.
(ii) After the children are in two groups, the teacher can say ‘One by one, come to the
front and throw the dice. When you see the number, please read it aloud. If you are in
the rabbit group, you should move backwards along the numbers. If you are in the
turtle group, you should move forwards. If you reach home first, your group wins’.
(iii) Children start the game. The piece should be placed at numeral 10, which is
shown in blue in the figure 1. Numeral 1 is home for the rabbit group and numeral
20 for the turtle group. The group will win the game if the piece reaches home first.
If they finish within a short time, they can play another round.
The participants in the present study were children from two classes of five- to six-year-old
children at two different preschools. The study was conducted in August and September
2016. Preschool A was a public school located in urban Tokyo where some of the children
were not Japanese (e.g. there were Congolese, Filipino, and Chinese children in the class).
In preschool A, there were no mathematics-related activities, but the principal was
interested in preschool mathematics education and thus agreed to participate in the present
study. Preschool B was a public Kodomo-en or certified childcare centre in urban
Kumamoto City in southern Japan which offers education, nursing, and care for preschool
children in a unified manner. A large playroom for all the children at preschool B has
designated spaces for mathematics free play. They intend to foster children’s mathematical
abilities through free play and activities from our daily lives At both research sites, the
teachers understood the importance of play for young children’s learning and development.
Since it is difficult to quantitatively measure the extent of young children’s engagement in a
learning activity, the author decided to use a qualitative research method in order to identify
which of the models shown in Table 1 should be applied. The data from the children’s and
teachers’ conversations were recorded and later transcribed. We also took notes and held
informal discussions with the teachers when both activities were finished.
Learning through play in preschool A and B
In preschool A, initially, the teacher had everyone sit in two rows. The teacher told them the
story of The rabbit and the turtle and explained the rules of the game. She divided the
children into two groups, A and B. Next, they started the game in a different part of the
classroom. The two groups played the game for 10-15 minutes, with each group playing
three rounds of the game. The teacher controlled the groups by dividing each into smaller
groups of rabbits and turtles. In group A, the children enjoyed the game but some did not
want to continue playing it, while others did. In the third round, some children appeared to
have lost interest in the game. The children in group B displayed better concentration than
the children in group A. The children expressed their impressions of the game by saying, for
example, ‘I want to play more’, and ‘I want to play one more round’ when they won, or ‘I
feel frustrated’ when they lost.

In preschool B, since it was the summer holiday at the time of the study, the class had
children of different ages mixed together from their two regular classes, although our focus
was on the five- to six-year-old children. The teacher narrated the story of The rabbit and
the turtle using small stuffed toys.
Teacher: It seems that a rabbit and a turtle want to have a race.

Teacher (as the turtle): Well, I am not good at running.
Teacher (as the rabbit): Wow, this is a dice! I have a good idea. Let’s see which one of us can
get home faster.
Teacher (as the turtle): Well, that’s a good idea, but I am not good at running.
Teacher (as the rabbit): Let’s run back home using the dice!
Teacher (as the turtle): Wow, that sounds fun.
Teacher (as the rabbit): But if I go home alone, I will feel lonely.
Teacher (as the turtle): Yeah, it would be good if someone else could go with each of us…
Teacher: Hey, everyone, can we go together?
After this story, the children divided themselves into two groups of rabbits and turtles and
sat down. The teacher gave the stuffed toy to the children one at a time to clarify whose turn
it was to throw the dice. The older children voluntarily assisted the younger children
verbally and with gestures when they needed help. Moreover, some counting mistakes were
discovered and corrected among the children without the teacher’s assistance. After one
hour, the first round of the game had not yet finished, and therefore, the teacher introduced a
special rule that the children could move their pieces by twice the number they had rolled.
The rabbit group won the game, making the turtle group sad. Towards the conclusion of the
game, the teacher encouraged the turtle group to throw the dice to get the turtle home on the
game board.
The children’s engagement in mathematical play and the teachers’ facilitation

In preschool A, the teacher regulated the way in which the pieces were moved forward on
the game sheet, saying that the children should count spaces one-by-one when moving.
Thus, the children followed the teacher’s instructions for counting using the number
displayed on the dice. As a result, they did not pay attention to the numerals 1-20 written on
the game board and ended up ignoring counting down. All appeared to be able to identify
the numbers 1-6 as they used the dice, while there was only one instance where the children
took notice of the numbers 1-20. A girl put her piece on the number 15 and murmured, ‘I
landed on 50’. The teacher corrected her by saying that it was not 50, but 15.
In preschool B, the children shouted to count up/down in situations where addition and
subtraction could have been used. When the number had to be carried over, such as in 7+6,
or borrowed, such as in 13-4, they successfully counted up/down. In some cases, we
observed how quickly the children answered a subtraction question. Although we were
worried that the children may have had calculation problems concerning subtraction, some

Nakawa 171
of them did well. They did not use their fingers and did not try to guess the answer, so we
assumed that they calculated it mentally, although we did not have any way to verify this.
It became apparent that there were two clear distinctions in the teachers’ classroom
management techniques and the values which drove those techniques. In preschool A, the
teacher presided over the entire activity, including pointing to each child, asking which
number s/he saw on the dice, and directing the movement of the piece on the game sheet.
The teacher, moreover, made sure that the children took turns in order, and that they moved
the correct number of spaces on the game board. Due to the teacher’s directions, the
children became demotivated during the activity, looked around, and started to do other
things. In preschool B, the teacher allowed children more liberty to independently use
mathematics and respected each child’s approach. Some children added and subtracted,
whereas others (who were not yet proficient at addition or subtraction) counted up/down
and moved their piece one space at a time on the game board. Furthermore, when one action
was completed, the teacher asked the children to watch their friends’ activities carefully.
Thus, the teaching style affected the quality of the children’s mathematical learning, even
though both teachers understood that play is essential for children’s development.
Why was the co-construction approach utilised in one preschool but not in the other?
In preschool B, unlike in preschool A (where the teacher controlled the children very
strictly), the co-construction approach was utilised. In other words, based on the data
provided in Table 1, the approach used in preschool A was that of mediation in the
exogenist model. In preschool B, the teacher allowed the children to form their own groups
for the game and did not control how the children moved their game pieces during the
activity. The learning process and its outcome thus differed significantly between the two
schools. The children at preschool B could carry over (in addition) and subtract during the
game, but the children in preschool A could not, because they were told to move one space
at a time and were not allowed the opportunity to improve their mathematical competency.
Consequently, the exogenist approach was used in preschool A, which showed a
pedagogical challenge and influenced the children’s numerical competency. Based on the
four models, it can be said that the learning environment, especially the instructional
methods of the teacher, should always be active; therefore, the ideal approaches are
co-construction and exogenist. However, the study revealed that these two approaches can
lead to gaps in children’s learning processes and motivation.
References
Brandt, B. (2013). Everyday pedagogical practices in mathematical play situation in German
''kindergarten.'' Educational Studies in Mathematics, 84(2), 227-248.
Bredekamp, S., & Copple, C. (2009). Developmentally appropriate practice in early
childhood
programs (Rev. ed.). Washington, DC: National Association for the Education of Young
Children.

Clements, D. H., & Sarama, J. (2009). Learning and teaching early math: The learning
trajectories approach. New York: Routledge.
Fthenakis, W. E., Schmitt, A., Daut, M., Eitel, A., & Wendell, A. (2009). Natur-Wissen
schaffen.
[Nature-knowledge producing] (Frühe mathematische Bildung, Vol. 2). Troisdorf:
Bildungsverlag
EINS. 
Froebel, F. (2015). The education of man. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications.
Frost, J. L., Wortham, S., & Reifel, S. (2012). Play and child development (4th ed.). Upper
Saddle
River, NJ: Prentice Hall/Merrill. 
Gmitrova, V. (2003). The impact of teacher-directed and child-directed pretend play on
cognitive
competence in kindergarten children. Early Childhood Education Journal, 30, 241-246.
Lillard, A. S., Lerner, M. D., Hopkins, E. J., Dore, R. A., Smith, E. D., & Palmquist, C. M.
(2013).
The impact of pretend play on children’s development: A review of the evidence.
Psychological
Bulletin, 139, 1-34.
Lin, F., Tsamir, P., Tirosh, D., & Revenson, E. (2013). Windows to early childhood
mathematics education. In A. M. Linzmeyer & A. Heinz (Eds.), Proceedings of the 37th
Conference of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education,
Vol.1 (pp. 125-154). Kiel, Germany.
Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology, Japan (MEXT). (2017a).
The elementary school course of study. Tokyo, Japan: MEXT. Retrieved from
http://www.mext.go.jp/component/a_menu/education/micro_detail/__icsFiles/afieldfile/2
017/05/12/1384661_4_2.pdf on 26th May 2017
Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology, Japan (MEXT). (2017b).
The course of study for kindergarten. Tokyo, Japan: MEXT. Retrieved from
017/05/12/1384661_3_2.pdf on 26th May 2017
Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology, Japan (MEXT). (2008).
The kindergarten course of study. Tokyo, Japan: MEXT.
Montada, L. (2008). Fragen, konzepte, perspektiven [Questions, concepts, perspectives]. In R.
Oerter & L. Montada (Eds.), Entwicklungspsychologie (6 vollständig überarbeitete
Auflageth ed., pp. 3-48). Weinheim, Germany: Beltz.
Smith, P. K. (2010). Children and play: Understanding children’s worlds. Chichester,
England: Wiley.

Nakawa 173
Vogel, R. (2013). Mathematical situations of play and exploration. Educational Studies in

Watson, A. C., Linkie-Nixon, C., Wilson, A., & Capage, L. (1999). Social interaction skills
and theory of mind in young children. Developmental Psychology, 35, 386-391.
Weisbert, D. S., Zosh, J. M., Hirsh-Pasek, K., & Golinkoff, R. M. (2013). Talking it up: Play,
language development, and the role of adult support. American Journal of Play, 6(1),
39–54.
Wittmann, C. E., & Müller, N. G. (2012). Das Zahlenbuch 1 [The number book 1]. Ernst
Klett Verlag GmbH, Germany.
Acknowledgements
I would like to express my gratitude to the teachers and principal of the preschools where
this study was conducted. In addition, the study was funded by the Japan Society for the
Promotion of Science research grant no. 15H02911. Finally, I would like to thank Editage
(www.editage.jp) for English language editing.
Nagisa Nakawa
Kanto-Gakuin University, Kanazawa-ku, Yokohama, Japan
nagisa@kanto-gakuin.ac.jp

174 High School Students’ Covariational Reasoning in Interpreting Dynamic Situations
HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS’ COVARIATIONAL REASONING IN

INTERPRETING DYNAMIC SITUATIONS
Duyen Thi Nguyen, Nhung Thi Dang, An Thi Tan Nguyen, Nhu Thi Quynh Nguyen,
Dung Tran, Hue University of Education, Vietnam
1. Introduction
In recent years, school mathematics has increased its emphasis on functions and functional
relationships in dynamic situations (Carlson, Jacobs, Coe, Larsen, & Hu, 2002). Secondary
school mathematics curricula support the promotion of conceptual understanding on
functions including patterns of change to help student understand the fundamental ideas of
calculus (Zeytun, Cetinkaya, & Erbas, 2010). However, research has suggested that
undergraduate students show their weak understanding of functions while entry-level
university courses do little to address this deficiency. Research on students’ understanding
of functions has revealed that even high-performing students have difficulty modeling
functional relationships of dynamic functional events. Their difficulties resulted from the
lack of abilities in imagining and coordinating the simultaneous changes in variables,
namely in determining the rate of change of one variable as it continuously varies in a
dependent relationship with another variable (Carlson et al., 2002). This type of abilities is
known as covariational reasoning, which involves imagining and coordinating the changes
in two quantities simultaneously (Carlson et al., 2002).
Dynamic functional situations are recommended to be used in order to promote students’
understanding about the relationship between the rate of change and covariant aspects of
functions (Carlson et al., 2002). Many studies were conducted to investigate undergraduate
students’ covariational reasoning abilities (e.g., Carlson et al., 2002; Johnson, McClintock, &
Hornbein, 2017) and prospective and in-service teachers’ covariational reasoning
(Yemen-Karpuzcu, Ulusoy, & Işıksal-Bostan 2017; Zeytun et al., 2010), paucity of research
is done to explore secondary school students’ covariational reasoning and little is known
about their reasoning about the covariant aspects of function in dynamic situations. Therefore,
this paper has explored high school students’ covariational reasoning in solving tasks about
dynamic situations involving two simultaneously changing quantities. The focus was on
students’ ability to reason about covarying quantities and their difficulties in interpreting
dynamic functional situations.
2. Literature Review and Theoretical Framework
Studies have suggested that covariational reasoning plays an important role on interpreting
dynamic events and understanding major concepts of calculus (Carlson et al., 2002;
Yemen-Karpuzcu et al., 2017; Zeytun et al., 2010). The concept of rate of change is
foundational to capture covariational reasoning associated with dynamic functional
relationships (Thompson, 1994). The word “rate” is utilized to imply the average rate of
change in a subinterval and the instantaneous rate of change in its entire domain (Carlson et
al., 2002). According to Thompson (1994), an image of rate involves the changes of some
quantities, the coordination of two quantities, and the simultaneous covariation of two

Nguyen, Dang, Tan Nguyen, Quynh Nguyen, Tran 175
quantities. The concept of covariation is described as “holding in mind a sustained image of

two quantities’ values simultaneously”. The mental activities take place in developmental
way, from the coordination of two quantities to continuous coordination of both quantities
for some duration of time (Saldanha & Thompson, 1998).
Various studies has revealed that the covariation view of functions is essential for comprehending
basic concepts of calculus and statistics, such as slope, limit, derivative, integral, and line of best fit
(Cottrill et al., 1996; Nagle, Casey, & Moore‐Russo, 2017; Thompson, 1994; Zandieh, 2000).
Cottrill and colleagues (1996) recommended that students should be introduced to the informal
notion of the “values of a function approaching a limiting value as the values in the domain
approach some quantity” as they get accustomed to the concept of limit. Constructing a scheme
involving the coordination of two processes (as 𝑥 → 𝑎, 𝑓(𝑥) → 𝐿 is reconstructed to obtain a
process described as |𝑥 − 𝑎| < 𝛿 implies |𝑓(𝑥) − 𝐿| < 𝜀) and using existential and universal
quantification makes the concept of limit accessible to students. The scheme of covariant
approach was also emphasized in Zandieh’s framework for analyzing students’
understanding of derivative. Zandieh (2000) stated that “the derivative function acts a
process of passing through infinitely many input values and for each determining an output
value given by the limit of the difference quotient at that point”. The statement of Zandieh
emphasized the notion that the derivative function is obtained from covarying the input
values of the derivative function with the rate of change values of the original function.
Nagle and colleagues (2017) asserted that students’ experiences with covariation of linear
functions might help their interpretation of the relationship among noncollinear data points
as they sought to make sense of the line of best fit.
In mathematics classes, the covarying quantities are described through dynamic functional
situations (e.g., how speed varies with time, how the height of water in a bottle varies with volume,
how distance varies with height or width of the Farris wheel). The covariant aspect of functions
describing the relationships under dynamic events is emphasized when considering how one
variable changes by visualizing the changes in the other variable. Carlson and colleagues (2002)
defined covariational reasoning as cognitive activities involved in coordinating two varying
quantities while attending to the ways in which they change in relation to each other. These
researchers developed a covariational reasoning framework to examine students and
teachers’ reasoning about quantities that covary when they interpret models of dynamic
situations. Carlson and colleagues (2002) described five covariational reasoning levels and
supported mental actions categorized in those levels. According to these researchers, the
mental actions of the covariation framework provide a general mean of classifying
behaviors exhibited when students try to solve covariation tasks.
Table 1. Mental Actions and Corresponding Behaviors in the Covariation Framework (Carlson et
al., 2002)
Mental Action Description of Mental Action Behaviors
 Labeling the axes with verbal
Mental Action
Coordinating the value of one indications of coordinating the two
1
variable with changes in the other. variables (e.g., y changes with changes
in x).

 Constructing an increasing straight

Mental Action Coordinating the direction of change line.
2 of one variable with changes in the  Verbalizing an awareness of the
other variable. direction of change of the output while
considering changes in the input.
 Plotting points/constructing secant
Coordinating the amount of change
Mental Action lines.
of one variable with changes in the
3  Verbalizing an awareness of the
other variable.
amount of change of the output while
considering changes in the input.
 Constructing contiguous secant lines
Coordinating the average rate of for the domain.
Mental Action
change of the function with uniform  Verbalizing an awareness of the rate of
4
increments of change in the input change of the output (with respect to
variable. the input) while considering uniform
increments of the input.
Coordinating the instantaneous rate  Constructing a smooth curve with clear
indications of concavity changes.
of
 Verbalizing an awareness of the
Mental Action change of the function with
instantaneous changes in the rate of
5 continuous changes in the
change for the entire domain of the
independent variable for the entire
function (direction of concavities and
domain of function.
inflection points are correct).
Carlson and colleagues (2002) also developed a framework to examine undergraduate
students’ reasoning about quantities that covary when interpreting models of dynamic
situations. It includes five levels associated with mental actions. These levels range from
Coordination, Direction, Quantitative Coordination, Average Rate, to Instantaneous Rate.
According to Carlson and colleagues (2002), one’s covariational reasoning reaches a given
level of development when it supports the mental actions associated with that level and all
lower levels.
Table 2. Covariational Reasoning Level (Carlson et al., 2002; Yemen-Karpuzcu et al., 2017)
Level 1. Coordination Coordinating the value of one variable with changes in the other variable.
Coordinating the direction of one variable with changes in the other
Level 2. Direction
variable.
Level 3. Quantitative Coordinating the amount of one variable with changes in the other
Coordination variable.
Level 4. Average Coordinating the average rate of change of the function with uniform
Rate increments of change in the input variable.
Coordinating the instantaneous rate of change of the function with the
Level 5.
continuous changes in the independent variable for the entire domain of
Instantaneous Rate
the function.
3. Methodology
The setting
This study used a qualitative research approach. Observations and interviews formed the
corpus of data. Observation of a group of 12th graders from a high school where they worked

on covariation tasks, then interviews on five of them were conducted to investigate the
approaches used to solve these tasks.
Participants
The case study was conducted with a volunteer sample of 20 12th graders who engaged in an
advanced mathematics curriculum in Vietnam. These students have learned most topics in
calculus, such as limit, derivative and integral. Most of them got 70% - 100% correct on the
mathematics finals before participating in this study. These students independently spent
one hour to solve each of four tasks. They were asked to write their thoughts when
responding to these tasks.
Research Instrument
Four covariation tasks were assigned to the participants. The first of these tasks was the
Bollte Problem adapted from the study of Carlson and colleagues (2002). The second task
was used to examine the students’ choices about the shape of vases associating with the
given volume-height graphs. The third task included the students’ predictions about the
height of a sunflower as it grows and the last focused on students’ covariational reasoning
on aircrafts’ landing.
Data Analysis
Students’ written responses and interviews formed the corpus of data. A priori coding using
the covariational reasoning framework (Carlson et al., 2002) was performed. We focused on
students’ solutions to the tasks on worksheets and their responses when asked to describe
the way they tackled these tasks to get an indication of covariational reasoning. We then
classified students’ covariational reasoning according to mental actions and corresponding
behaviors as reported in the framework. For space restriction, we only focused on the
students’ responding to the first two tasks about the relationship between height and volume
of water when poured into a vase.
4. Results
The students expressed diverse abilities to reason about covarying quantities, encompassing
all five levels of covariational reasoning. Their levels of covariational reasoning were listed
in the following table:
Table 3. Students’ level of covariational reasoning
3. Quantitative 4. Average 5. Instantaneous
Level 1. Coordination 2. Direction
Coordination Rate Rate
Number 5 8 2 2 3
Percent 25% 40% 10% 10% 15%
Data showed that most of students demonstrated covariational reasoning abilities at low
levels. For example, in one part of the first task, five students were able to realize that
changes in the volume leads to changes in the height but they did not point out the direction
of the volume-height relationship. All of them drew incorrect volume-height graphs and did
not label the axes. They also provided inadequate explanations for constructing these graphs.

These students could not draw the correct vases for the given volume-height graphs.
Therefore, their levels of covariation reasoning were coded at the Coordination level.
8/20 students attained the Direction level of covaritional reasoning when they were aware of
the direction of the change in the height as considering the changes in the volume of water.
Most of them asserted that as more water was added, the height of the water in the vase
increased. They said that the volume-height graph was generated from an increasing
function. Then they drew the graph as a straight line with a positive slope but could not
explain their construction correctly (Figure 1.a.). Because the vase was a truncated cone, the
correct volume-height graph was a convex smooth curve (Firgure 1.b).
Figure 1.a Firgure 1.b

Two students demonstrated covariational reasoning abilities at the Quantitative
Coordination level. These students were able to coordinate the amount of changes in the
height with the amount of changes in the volume. However, they were not aware of the rate
of change in height with respect to the volume while considering uniform increments of
water. The students stated that the speed of the water levels slowed down as the body of the
vase gets wider from bottom to top. They tried to imagine how the height changed when
considering the same increase in the amount of water. Therefore, the students drew a correct
curve with a positive slope (Figure 2.a). They could draw correct vases for most of the given
volume-height graphs in the second task.
Two students got the Average Rate level of covariational reasoning when they used the
average rate of change of the height with respect to the volume, with the same amount of
water, to explain their rationale for constructing the graphs. They utilized mathematics
terms such as ∆𝑣 and ∆ℎ when considering the volume-height relationships. These
students tried to construct the correct graphs by considering the uniform increment of the
volume of water but could not provide reasonable explanations for the shape of the graph
(Figure 2.b).

Figure 2.a Figure 2.b

Three students attained the Instantaneous Rate level. They created accurate height-volume
graphs to determine the relationship of the two covarying quantities and drew objects from
the given height-volume graphs. They considered functional relationships between the
height and the volume, then used calculus concepts, such as first derivative, second
derivative and curve’s slope as well as tangent line to explain the graphs. They noticed the
instantaneous rate of change of the height with respect to decreasing amount of water. They
∆ℎ
estimated the ratio when ∆𝑣 approached zero. The students determined whether the
∆𝑣
first derivative function was increasing or decreasing to decide whether the second
derivative was positive or negative. The result determined the shape of the graph, concaving
down or up (Figure 3). These students also provided the same explanations for drawing the
vases that matching to the given volume-height graphs.
Figure 3
5. Discussion
Although the study was carried out with a small sample of high school students, the results
supported the findings of those conducted with undergraduate students (Johnson et al., 2017)
and prospective (Yemen-Karpuzcu et al., 2017) as well as in-service teachers (Zeytun et al.,
2010). The findings of this research showed that most high school students attained low
levels of covariational reasoning though they had prior knowledge of calculus. Most of them
could generate correct solutions when coping with covariation tasks but provided unclear
explanations when asked to share their problem solving strategies. The results pointed out
that most students had difficulties constructing and interpreting graphs to show the
relationship between two covarying quantities because they could not utilize prior
knowledge of calculus effectively. Most of them did not use the concept of instantaneous
rate of change to model given situations, instead they utilized visual images to get solutions.

The calculus concepts rarely appeared in the students’ thoughts when they explored these
covariation tasks. The findings of this study also suggested that methods in teaching and
learning calculus need to be reformed in order to help high school students develop
covariational reasoning abilities and have a deep understanding of calculus. The
covariational reasoning framework of Carlson and colleagues (2002) was used to code data.
However, some students’ behaviors and explanations were different from the descriptions in
this framework. We adapted the framework of covariational reasoning by using some terms
in calculus, such as first and second derivative as well as curve’s slope to model functional
relationships in dynamic situations.
References
Carlson, M., Jacobs, S., Coe, E., Larsen, S., & Hsu, E. (2002). Applying covariational
reasoning while modeling dynamic events. Journal for Research in Mathematics
Education, 33(5), 352-378.
Cottrill, J., Dubinsky, E., Nichols, D., Schwingendorf, K., Thomas, K., & Vidakovic, D.
(1996). Understanding the limit concept: Beginning with a coordinated process
scheme. Journal of mathematical behavior, 15(2), 167-192.
Johnson, H. L., McClintock, E., & Hornbein, P. (2017). Ferris wheels and filling bottles: a
case of a student’s transfer of covariational reasoning across tasks with different
backgrounds and features. ZDM, 49(6), 851-864.Nagle, C., Casey, S., & Moore‐Russo, D.
(2017). Slope and Line of Best Fit: A Transfer of Knowledge Case Study. School Science
and Mathematics, 117(1-2), 13-26.
Nagle, C., Casey, S., & Moore‐Russo, D. (2017). Slope and Line of Best Fit: A Transfer of
Knowledge Case Study. School Science and Mathematics, 117(1-2), 13-26.
Saldanha, L. & Thompson, P. W. (1998). Re-thinking co-variation from a quantitative
perspectiveSimultaneous continuous variation. In S. B. Berensen, K. R. Dawkins, M.
Blanton, W. N. Coulombe, J. Kolb, K. Norwood & L. Stiff (Eds.), Proceedings of the 20th
Annual Meeting of the North American Chapter of the International Group for the
Psychology of Mathematics Education (Vol. 1, pp. 298–303). Columbus, OH: ERIC
Clearinghouse for Science, Mathematics, and Environmental Education.
Thompson, P. W. (1994). Students, functions, and the undergraduate curriculum. In E.
Dubinsky, A. H. Schoenfeld & J. J. Kaput (Eds.), Research in Collegiate Mathematics
Education 1 (pp. 21–44). Providence, RI: American Mathematical Society.
Yemen-Karpuzcu, S., Ulusoy, F., & Işıksal-Bostan, M. (2017). Prospective Middle School
Mathematics Teachers’ Covariational Reasoning for Interpreting Dynamic Events During
Peer Interactions. International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education, 15(1),
89-108.
Zandieh, M. (2000). A theoretical framework for analyzing student understanding of the
concept of derivative. CBMS Issues in Mathematics Education, 8, 103-127.
Zeytun, A. S., Cetinkaya, B., & Erbas, A. K. (2010). Mathematics Teachers' Covariational
Reasoning Levels and Predictions about Students' Covariational Reasoning
Abilities. Educational Sciences: Theory and Practice, 10(3), 1601-1612.

Acknowledgement: This study was funded by Vietnam National Foundation for Science and
Technology Development (NAFOSTED) under grant number 503.01-2015.02
Duyen Nguyen Thi

Dept of Mathematics
Hue University Of Education
34 Le Loi St, Hue, Vietnam
Email: nguyenthiduyendhsp@gmail.com
Nhung Dang Thi

Dept of Mathematics
Email: nhungle1002toana@gmail.com
An Nguyen Thi Tan

Dept of Mathematics
Email: tanan0704@gmail.com
Nhu Nguyen Thi Quynh

Dept of Mathematics
Email: nhunguyen09021993@gmail.com
Dung Tran
Dept of Mathematics
Email: trandungdhsp@gmail.com

182 Enjoyable Lessons
ENJOYABLE LESSONS
Tdashi Nomachi, Tsuda University, Japan
Hisakazu Katou, Former elementary school teacher, Japan
Black box
I am a member of AMI
(Association of Mathematical
Instruction). Members of AMI
often use a black box in function
classes.
This time, I developed a
user-friendly black box. First I will
explain the structure of this black
box, and then I would like to talk
about function class using black
box.
First of all, prepare a card that

draws on input (water in the figure)
on the front and output(ice in the figure) on the back. After showing the front (water), put
the card from the top, the card rotates and the side of the back (ice) comes out. So I ask the
students what is the function of converting water(input) to ice (output) ? A black box is used
like this.
In Figure 1, the right side is the conventional black box and the left side is the new black
box. The disadvantage of a conventional black box is that the card often does not rotate and
that the card that came out must be removed without failing the next card. So, I changed to
the structure as shown on the left side of Fig. 1. As the card falls diagonally, the card rotates
reliably. Also, I changed the output slope to 2 steps so that the output cards were stacked on
top. As a result, cards can be inserted continuously and usability has improved dramatically.
In addition, it is designed to be easy to store and assemble.
I will explain that a black box is a device that outputs processed data in accordance with
certain rules when there is input. Then I will ask the students the question.
Q1 What is the device corresponding to the function of the next black box

Nomachi, Katou 183
Q2 What is the function of the following black box? Also fill in the "?" part.
I will explain to the students that a function is a device that outputs one number processed
according to certain rules when a number is input. Then I will ask you the next question.
Q3 What is the function of the following function (black box)? Also fill in the "?" part.
From black box to formula

Modify the shape of the black box and combine it with the symbol of the function.
From black box to correspondence table

Simplify the black box and associate it with the correspondence table.
So I will explain that the correspondence table is the same as the black box.
After this, students learn how the function changes according to the correspondence rule
using the correspondence table.

Let's Make polyhedrons with a straw and a pipe cleaner

Polyhedrons have a wide range of applications such as chemistry, physics, biology,
architecture, art, it is important to understand polyhedron. It is easier to understand the
model made with lines than the model made from the surface because the structure of the
polyhedron can be seen. In addition, by students actually making polyhedron, understanding
of polyhedrons will dramatically deepen. Therefore, you can see that it is good to make
various polyhedral line models with cheap materials easily. AMI members have also used
straws and pipe cleaners as a way to do this. I thought about a good way to make a joint
with a pipe cleaner that is a concern, so I would like to introduce how to make a joint. Also,
as making polyhedrons, it is also effective to use rubber bands, so I will also introduce this
How to make a joint

As shown in the following figure 2, I will duplex the pipe cleaner and connect the
tips. I will make as many tips as I need. The important thing here is to align the roots. The
joint made in this way connects the adjacent straw together perfectly. If you insert the tip
tightly into the straw it will be strong.
Diameter of straw
Use a straw with a diameter of 3.5 mm so that the pipe cleaner will not come off. All
materials are low price.
Preparation
Use straws of the same length (5 cm, 6 cm, 7.5 cm) for each solid.
Also use joints made of a pipe cleaner with the same shape (three, four or five forks) for
each solid.
Fig. 2
How to make polyhedrons
The figure above, the root of the joint is the vertex. The straw becomes a solid side.
Make a solid by connecting the straw with a joint. For example, in 3-forks, it refers to three straws.
When the straw is inserted tightly to the root, the solid becomes strong.
Ⅰ Let's make regular polyhedrons.

The length of the straw to use is 5 cm.
They can be made by simple local rule (shape of joint and shape of face) as follows.

Nomachi, Katou 185
ⅰ regular tetrahedron
Let's use four 3-forks and 6 straws. All faces are a equilateral triangle. (Use 6 cm straws
in Ⅲ)
ⅱ Cube
Let's use eight 3-forks and 12 straws. All faces are a square.
ⅲ regular octahedron
Let's use six 4-forks and 12 straws. All faces are a equilateral triangle. (Use 6 cm straws
in Ⅲ)
ⅳ regular dodecahedron
Let's use twenty 3-forks and 30 straws. All faces are a regular pentagon.
ⅴ regular icosahedron
Let's use twelve 5-forks and 30 straws. All faces are a equilateral triangle. (Use 7.5 cm
straws in Ⅲ)
Ⅱ Polyhedron made with rubber bands

If you put a rubber band on the regular polyhedron which you make as if passing
through the midpoint of the side as shown in the picture, three solid bodies made from the
rubber bands are obtained.
ⅰ Put 3 rubber bands on the regular tetrahedron → regular octahedron

ⅱ Put 4 rubber bands on the cube → cubeoctahedron

ⅲ Put 4 rubber bands to the regular octahedron → cubeoctahedron
ⅳ Put 6 rubber bands on the regular dodecahedron → icosidodecahedron

ⅴ Put 6 rubber bands on the regular dodecahedron → icosidodecahedron
Dual polyhedron
For cube and regular octahedron, the number of edges is the same, the number of vertices
and the number of faces are reversed.
Even dodecahedrons and icosahedrons have the same number of edges, the number of
vertices and the number of faces are reversed.
These three-dimensional structures in which the number of vertices and faces are
interchanged are called dual polyhedron.
The dual polyhedron of a regular tetrahedron is a regular tetrahedron.
Ⅲ Make star polyhedrons by overlapping dual polyhedrons － Dual compounds

Ａ Let's make a star octahedron
1 Prepare regular tetrahedrons made of 5 cm long straws and 6 cm long straws.
2 Remove one tip of the joint with a large regular tetrahedron and put the small
tetrahedron insid.
Combine so that the vertex of a small regular tetrahedron appears from the center of the

Nomachi, Katou 187
face in the large regular tetrahedron.

Return the joint you removed.
3 The rubber band is put in a square shape with reference to the model of the photograph.
Use three rubber bands.
4 Attach a rubber band to the straw and shift it to the top to make it a strap
B Let's make a star polyhedron by overlapping a cube and an octahedron

1 Prepare a cube made of 5 cm long straws and a regular octahedron made of 6 cm long
straws.
2 Remove the two tips of the joint with a cube as shown.
3 Put the regular octahedron in the cube.
Combine so that the vertexes of the octahedron come out from the center of the face of
the cube.
4 With reference to the model of the photo, put the rubber band in the form of a regular
hexagon to the solid. Use four rubber bands.
5 Attach a rubber band to the straw and shift it to the top to make it a strap.

C Let's make a star polyhedron by overlapping a regular dodecahedron and a regular

icosahedrons.
1 Prepare a regular dodecahedron made of 5 cm long straws and a regular icosahedron
made of 7.5 cm long straws.
2 Remove the five tips of the joints so that the regular dodecahedron is opened.
3 Place a regular icosahedron in the regular dodecahedron.
Combine so that the vertexes of the regular icosahedron come out from the center of the
face of the regular dodecahedron.
4 Put the rubber band to the equatorial plane of the solid with reference to the model.
Use 6 rubber bands. Keep rubber bads well extended in advance.
Graph of the derivative and how to use the differential ruler

For example, it can be explained that the derivative of a logarithmic function y = log e x
is an inverse proportional function y = 1⁄x as calculating according to the definition of a
derivative, but intuitively it is hard to understand. However, drawing this derivative with
this differential ruler makes this convincing. This is also my own experience. Members of
AMI use variously modified differential rulers, but in general it seems that differential rulers
are not well known. Here we introduce the simplest differential ruler using a transparent
plate and its usage.
What is a derivative?
The derivative f ′ (a) represents the tangent slope at x = a. Because the derivative f ′ (x)
represents the tangent slope at each point x, let's say it the slope function.
Then, from seeking tangent slope mi at the point xi on the graph of f(xi ), we can draw a
graph of the derivative If we connect smoothly the point (xi ,mi ). Then by drawing a graph
of the derivative in this way, let's outlook what kind of function it is.
To do so, it is necessary that the tangent slope at x = a is obtained easily. Differential
ruler is a tool for that.
Measurement of the slope of the line by the differential ruler

Nomachi, Katou 189
In the differential ruler, scale is attached to the vertical axis the width of the slit as a
unit. The slope m of the straight line is "the amount of change in y when the amount of
change in x is one",
Applying a differential ruler as shown in Fig. 4, you read the right-hand side scale of the
slit.
It is a slope m of the line. The slope of the straight line l in Fig. 4 is 0.8.
Measurement of the slope of the tangent by differential ruler
You see a small part of the curve

through the slit.
Since the small part of the curve
appears to be straight line, you
measure the slope of the line by
differential ruler.
You adjust the reference point of differential ruler to the point A. At that time you keep
parallel the vertical line of the slit to the y-axis. Then you read the right-hand side scale of
the slit. That value is the tangent slope in point A on the curve, Because a little curve at the
slit is regarded as a straight line.
Tangent slope in Fig. 6 is 2
When curve in the slit does not appear to straight line, you correct at a rough estimate the

value of the scale that is read in the manner described above.

Question Draw the outline of the graph of y=f'(x) using the differential ruler, when the
graph of y=f(x) is the shape as follows.
At the intersection of the vertical line and the graph, measure the gradient of the tangent
in order by a differential ruler.
Place a point on the same vertical line for the value of the slope in the lower coordinates.
If you connect the points smoothly, you get a graph of the derivative.
A sufficient graph is obtained to know the characteristics of the derivative

Nomachi, Katou 191
 



 

 



  

Nomachi, Katou 193
Software to understand elementary school mathematics

It is wonderful if elementary school students understand mathematics well, including
meanings. Therefore, Mr. Kato considered software that is not just a calculated drill. When
the correct answer is entered the reason is indicated in the calculation algorithm and tile
diagram.
First screen (insert CD into drive)
I will explain how to use it when "Division" is selected on the screen above.
Select "Happy Division" on the screen above.

The problem you did last time is displayed on the screen below.
If you press the "Start" button on the screen above, problems will appear on the screen.

Put the answer (5 on the screen above) and press the OK button.
As you press the OK button, calculations along the way and the diagram are shown.
The good point of this software is to find out how to calculate division and meaning.
When the answer becomes 5, the correct mark is displayed.

Press the "Next" button to go to the next question.
When you made a mistake, then?

Nomachi, Katou 195
"Try again, Fight!" Comes out. You repeat until you get the right answer. You think about
yourself and come to the answer.
Other exercises can be done in the same way.

196 The Case Method on Prospective Arithmetic Teacher’s View of Assessment in Action
THE CASE METHOD ON PROSPECTIVE ARITHMETIC

TEACHER'S VIEW OF ASSESSMENT IN ACTION
Yutaka OHARA, Kanto-Gakuin University, JAPAN
1. INTRODUCTION
Over the past few decades, a considerable number of studies have been conducted on the
professional development of prospective teachers. Especially, the study on Case Method
which is one pedagogical approach to educate practitioners goes deep into the heart of
practical training for arithmetic/mathematics teachers. Contrary to the traditional method,
Case Method consists in presenting novice teachers with putting them in the role of a
decision maker facing non routine authentic problems. This method can narrow the gap
between teaching theory and classroom practice, and should be special interest to a majority
of teacher educators. A few numbers of studies have been made on Case Method in the field
of mathematics teacher education (e.g. Barnett, 1998, Walen & Williams, 2000). According
to Ohara (2009), the process of Case Method consists of three levels: individual thinking,
small group discussion, and whole class discourse. Figure 1 summarizes the flow of
activities in previous research (Ohara,2013). On the other hand, teachers' views on
assessment practice come in predisposed to be rigid (Atjonen,2014). In fact, their beliefs
about teaching and assessment are a very important issue in a teacher training course.
Specially, little attention has been given to the assessment in action that means a short-time
formative decision-making to actualize the flexible immediate feedback in classroom. This
article is intended as an investigation to care these situations.
Figure 1. Process of Case Method

Ohara 197
The purpose of this paper is twofold: 1) to investigate effects of Case Method for
prospective arithmetic teacher’s view of assessment in classroom, and 2) to describe the
flexibility to change their treating of student’s naïve conception via Case Method. For first
purpose, a questionnaire was conducted as a preliminary survey on prospective arithmetic
teachers, and it was accomplished statistically by comparing between Pre/ Post test score.
For second purpose, to follow up on their thinking, some examinees from that survey were
selected for semi-structural interview survey that proceeded flexibly according to the
subject's reactions.
2. METHODOLOGY
The outline of investigation as follows;
(1) Participants
54 prospective arithmetic teachers from undergraduate school (private university) were
selected for this research. The reason why undergraduate pupils are selected as subjects is
that they had no formal teaching experience without their private mathematics tutoring.
(2) Didactical experiment;
Case analyzing and discussing were performed in four hours. At first, each student thought
to take care of the case, and found the way to tackle the case in each small group. Then, they
shared and discussed how to treat it in whole class. Also in which phase, they considered
the case handling like his/her school teacher. In each case, pupils are presented with an
episode which is short and lacking in detail. If they have any question, they asked the
supervisor (author) to obtain the additional data needed to perform the task. The supervisor
gave out pertinent facts only as the participants ask for them, considering the importance of
gathering pertinent information. According to Pigors(1980), this style called Incident
Process that is developed in Massachusetts Institute of Technology to cope with complex
issues for effective inquiry.
(3) Key Features of Cases
In this time, we posed two cases which treated of midpoint of unit fractions (Case 1) , and
volume of cylinder solid (Case 2) as shown figure 2 and figure 3. Each case described a
situation in which the prospective teachers had to respond to naïve conceptions of
elementary school pupils. The cases exhibited three features. i) Cases are recognized as
being problematic and incomplete to make a decision as a responsible teacher. ii) Cases may
be excluded in a scenarios and be based on the non-routine experience in teacher's realistic
practice. iii) Cases do not provide explicit closed answers to illustrate how to think
professionally. Then the participants were asked to interpret what the pupils might have had
in mind, and describe how they would respond to them as an arithmetic teacher. Especially,
in this research, we ask for the assessment in classroom and immediate feedback of pupil's
naive conception.
(4) Data collection

Data were gathered in June 2015. Two types of data were collected before/after handling
two cases. Prospective arithmetic teachers participated in didactic experiment for 4 weeks.
1) Questionnaire investigation; the questionnaire has two parts. Part A is to identify their
view on assessment in arithmetic. In this part, there are six questions for their belief as
follows. These questions are based on empirical findings in Assessment in Action (Dearn et
al 1995).
Q1. Arithmetic teacher should evaluate every individual pupil for development.
Q2. Assessment is integrated with instruction once in a while.
Q3. Pupil's active participation should be evaluated flexibly.
Q4. The performance of pupils must be assessed continuously.
Q5. A process of understanding arithmetic is not important.
Q6. Teachers assess pupil's naïve conception openly.
Part B is the cases to check the interpretation, evaluation, and support for pupils in class.
Two cases were observed by participants, they were asked to respond in each case. While
the problem in Case 1 is my original, problem in Case 2 refers to Tirosh et al (2001).
Figure 2. Case 1 in Lesson
Figure 3. Case 2 in Lesson

Ohara 199
Odd-numbered questions are focus on object of assessment, and even-numbered are focus
on method of assessment. In theory of formative assessment, evaluation and instruction are
unified in practice, and the teacher's role is revising and feedback for pupils. So this view
supports pupils’ proactive learning that it should be modified in line with constructivist
view (Ohara, 2003, Black & Wiliam, 2009). All items were rated on a one to four
Likert-scale. Four choices for answers were provided: “yes” (score is “4”), “maybe yes”
(“3”), “maybe no” (“2”), and “no” (“1”). The same questionnaire was implemented before
and after the engaging cases.
2) Semi-structural interviews; after questionnaire investigation, some typical participants
were interviewed, and the interviews were audio-recorded, and transcribed.
3. RESULTS OF QUESTIONNAIRE INVESTIGATION

(1) Results of Part A and Discussion
A summary of the responses is shown in Table 1. The mean score and standard deviation
are as follows: The t-test revealed that there was a significant difference in the Pre/Post test
score only for Q3 (t (53) = 2.69, p < .05) , and Q6 (t (53) = 3.12, p < .05).The major
tendencies shown in Table 1 could be interpreted in two ways. Firstly, the engaging cases
was effective in helping prospective arithmetic teachers to change their view of assessment
more open minded and flexible. These results can be conceived of as a kind of getting needs
of formative decision-making to actualize the immediate feedback in classroom. Secondly,
they might keep believing that process assessment is essential to the arithmetic lessons.
These findings are necessary to be tested ones step further.
Table 1. Results of questions on their beliefs
N = 54 Before After
Q1 3.25 (0.49) 3.16 (0.52)
Q2(R) 2.61 (0.41) 2.83 (0.67)
Q3 2.13 (0.69) 2.78 (0.85) *
Q4 3.18 (0.54) 3.26 (0.29)
Q5(R) 2.82 (0.31) 2.88 (0.23)
Q6 2.94 (0.88) 3.36 (0.59) *
( (R) indicates a Reversal item, * p < .05, SD is in bracket )
(2) Results of Part B and Discussion
A summary of the responses to Part B is shown in the following tables. It might be inferred
from these responses to the two tasks that although they accept a pupil’s naïve conceptions,
they might not wish to accept these advanced issues.
Table 2. Results of Part B in Pre-test Table 3. Results of Part B in Post-test

N = 54 Yes No N = 54 Yes No
Task 1-1 36 18 Task 1-1 42 12
Task 2-1 20 34 Task 2-1 46 8

Tables 4 and 5 show various interpretations of the two cases. Subjects were allowed to write
more than one answer in Tasks 1-2 and 2-2. Approximately one-third of them did not
indicate any actions regarding Takumi’s & Satomi’s conceptions in both pre tests.
Table 4. Results of Task 1-2 in Pre test

Encourage him to Suggest him to Explain that magnitude Blank
N = 54 reduce them to a convert the fractions of denominator is not (no response)
common denominator to decimals magnitude of a number and so forth
Responses 28 17 11 14
(Multiple answers allowed)
Table 5. Results of Task 1-2 in Post test

Encourage him to Suggest him to Recommend it to write Blank
N =54 reduce them to a convert the fractions these fractions on the (no response)
common denominator to decimals number line and so forth
Table 6. Results of Task 2-2 in Pre test

Suggest her to compare Encourage her to Ask whether she Blank
N = 54 the volume of solids calculate the volume confuse the surface (no response)
using water or sand of two cylinders area with the volume and so forth
Table 7. Results of Task 2-2 in Post test

Suggest her to compare Encourage her to Ask whether she Blank
N = 54 the volume of solids calculate the volume confuse the surface (no response)
using water or sand of two cylinders area with the volume and so forth
On the whole, it seems that most of them do not have sufficient confidence in regard to
accepting a pupils’ naïve conception. The analysis of Tasks 1-1 and 2-1 were conducted to
determine whether the difference among prospective teachers’ views was statistically
significant. According to the x2 (Chi-squared) test for each result, the x2 values were 0.01 in
table 8, and 6.29 in table 9. In this paper, Yates's correction for continuity is used in analysis.
The differences of the views was statistically significant (p < .05) on post test.
Table 8. Results of Task 1-1, 2-1 in Pre test Table 9. Results of Task 1-1, 2-1 in Post test
Acceptability of Acceptability of
( Case 1 conception ( Case 1 conception
Pre test Post test
Posi Nega Posi Nega
Acceptability Posi 14 6 Acceptability Posi 39▲ 7

of Case 2 of Case 2
conception Nega 22 12 conception Nega 3 5▼

Ohara 201
Certainly, we immediately see that the Positive-Positive category is larger than the other
categories in table 9. The results indicate that most prospective arithmetic teachers tend to
change their view to accept pupils' naive conception. Although we have gained statistical
insights into prospective arithmetic teachers’ views through their descriptions of the two
cases, the features of their assessment in action are not concretely known. Furthermore, their
responses might depend on their views of assessment as well as on the particularity of cases.
Therefore, we conducted a more qualitative investigation using a semi-structural interview
that proceeded according to the subjects’ reactions, and this is reported in the next section.
4. RESULTS OF SEMI-STRUCTURED INTERVIEW

(1) Outline of Interview
A qualitative method is particularly suitable for demonstrating the reasons behind changing
their belief. The four subjects were selected based on their responses to Tasks 1-1 and 1-2.
The results of these tasks showed the possibility that a participant who answered from
(Negative (N)-Negative (N)) to (Positive (P)/Positive (P)) might feel some unusual impacts.
Protocols were analyzed from two viewpoints: (a) the basis of their assessment in action,
and (b) whether their views remained the same or changed because of discussions.
(2) Two Dialogues and Discussion
Insufficient space is available to provide all the results of the two interviews. Regularly, the
subjects were selected based on their similar replies to the Tasks. To demonstrate the
features of results, we outline two episodes with PT1 and PT2 which showed too much
interesting dispositions.
PT1, who belongs to the Pre(N,N)-Post(P, P) category, needed to check "the aim of lesson in
case 1" and "assumed basic knowledge of her" through the incident process. He pointed out
the linearity as the nature of this case, and draw the number line and percentage. When
asked to explain the reason for accepting Takumi’s idea in the class, PT1 said, “Because we
can not teach consciously one by one on every detail...so I might do through this eccentric
idea beside aim of the lesson.” This utterance is construed integrative to the results of
questionnaire in pre test. During the interview, his interpretation appeared most directly in
the following dialogue.
PT1: Such an interesting question often comes in the real classroom. Amazing! I don't know
what I can follow up with lesson plan. In truth, the background of Takumi's idea is the
fractional function, isn't it?
Int.: Do you think so?
PT1: If in-depth study, I praise his idea very highly in front of other pupils... well....but the
graph
of inverse proportion may be too difficult for them. So we appraise only his good sense.

In contrast, PT2, who belongs to Pre (P, N)-Post (P, P) category, required the information
"spare time in lesson for her" and "her character trait" through the incident process. Beyond
initial questions, he emphasized actual measurement and said “The teacher must possibly
support the pupil's interest.” PT2 began to take care of Satomi's confusion the surface area
with the volume by using water.
PT2: Because this viewpoint is interesting in arithmetic, ha ! ha ! I would like to pick it up and
demonstrate by all means.
Int.: hmmm, what plan is that?
PT2: Simple calculation πr 2 ℎ is not sufficient.. it will not be active....If there is an enough
material in the classroom, such as gummed cloth tape, I want to substantiate it
immediately.
During the the interview, PT2 paid a lot of attention to feed back into class, in contrast to
PT1 who just praises the Satomi’s naïve conception individually. These dialogues describe
how PT2 assess a pupils’ awareness in comparison to the formal contents, and put the
assessment in whole classroom practice for expanding the content to learn flexibly.
5. CONCLUDING REMARKS
This paper investigated the impacts of Case Method on arithmetic teacher’s view of
assessment in classroom, and explored the flexibility to change their treating of student’s
naïve conception via Case Method. The results of qestionnaire shows that prospective
arithmetic teachers change their view of assessment more open minded and adaptable,
beyond that the results of interview demonstrates the pliable consciousness for pupils’action
in two Cases. From what has been discussed, we discerned the following two key findings:
(a) Case Method set prospective arithmetic teacher’s view of assessment in classroom more
flexible which means extemporarily, and (b) Case Method encourage their belief to deal
with unexpected naïve conception in authentic classroom. These results basically show
desirable impacts of Case method in elementary teacher training. It merits mention here that
these findings require further discussion for quality of engaging cases during lesson. It is
due to methodological boundary in my article. Associated with these, the long-term
maintenance of advisable flexibility remains as a matter to be discussed further. Additional
research will be needed on a variety of data.
Acknowledgement
A part of this research was supported by Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research, MEXT
(No.16K04714). In completing this paper, I am grateful to all the undergraduate student
who have studied to become elementary school teachers in a new age. Many thanks for their
affable cooperation.

Ohara 203
References
Atjonen, P.(2014) Teachers' Views of Their Assessment Practice,Curriculum Journal,
25(2),238-259.
Barnett,C.S.(1998) Mathematics Case Methods Project, Journal of Mathematics Teacher
Education, 1(3), 349-56.
Black, P. J., Wiliam, D. (2009) “Developing the Theory of Formative Assessment”,
Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability, 21(1), 5–31.
Dean, C., Tonack, D., & Robinson S.(1995) Assessment in Action: Collaborative Action
Research Focused on Mathematics and Science Assessments. Reports of Twenty-Three
Teacher-Research Projects. Mid-continent Regional Educational Laboratory.
Ohara,Y.(2003) Prospective Teachers’ Comprehension of Students’ Naive Conception in
Mathematical Problem Solving: The Case of Linear Function, International Journal of
Curriculum Development and Practice 5(1), 91–102.
Ohara, Y. (2009) Research on Case Method for Japanese Prospective Teachers : Focus on
Numeracy, NUE Journal of International Educational Cooperation, vol.4, 37-41.
Ohara,Y.(2013) The Impacts of Case Method on Prospective Mathematics Teacher
Training, Proceedings of 6th East Asia Regional Conference on Mathematics Education
(EARCOME 6), vo.3, 296-305.
Pigors, P., Pigors, F. (1980) The Pigors Incident Process of Case Study. Instructional design
library, vol.29, Educational Technology Publications.
Tirosh,D. Stavy,R., & Tsamir, P. (2001).Using the Intuitive Rules Theory as a Basis for
Educating Teachers. Making Sense of Mathematics Teacher Education, 73-85.
Walen,S.B.,Williams,S.R.(2000) Validating Classroom Issues: Case Method in Support of
Teacher Change, Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 3(1), 3-26.
Yutaka OHARA
Kanto-Gakuin University,
1-50-1 Mutsuura-Higashi, Kanazawa-ku,Yokohama-Shi, 236-8501, JAPAN
yohara@kanto-gakuin.ac.jp

204 The Investigation of Thai Secondary Students’ Perceptions of Infinity
THE INVESTIGATION OF THAI SECONDARY STUDENTS’

PERCEPTIONS OF INFINITY
Cherdsak Pakdeeviroch, Mahidol University, Thailand
Artorn Nokkaew, Mahidol University, Thailand
Wararat Wongkia, Mahidol University, Thailand
Focus of the study

How do we construct the infinity concept? This question is interesting because nothing in
the real world is infinite. Lakoff and Núñez (2000) theorized that human beings embodied
mathematics concept by using cognitive mechanism inferential mapping from the elements
that we perceived in the real world to our mind. Namely, even though there is no infinite
entity in the real world where we live in, we are able to conceptualize the infinity concept
by metaphorical process from an action that our bodies participating with, a physical
domain, extending to a conceptual domain which is the infinity idea. Therefore, an
understanding involving what infinity is and what a representation of infinity is of human
beings is valuable for teachers and educators as a knowledge resource.
This study aims to investigate students’ perception of infinity focusing on Thai upper
secondary students which has not been studied. The findings of this study would suggest us
about the perceptions of infinity guiding by the real world particularly within Asian context.
Research question
What are the concepts of infinity perceived by the Thai upper secondary students?
Methodology
There were two parts of this study. The first part was a survey of the Thai upper secondary
students’ perceptions of infinity by using a questionnaire. The second part was an
investigation of Thai upper secondary students’ perceptions of infinite through a
semi-structure interview. In each part, the methods to collect and analyze the data were
shown as following.
The Part I: A survey of the Thai upper secondary students’ perceptions of infinite by using a
questionnaire
Participants of the part I
The participants were 163 voluntary upper secondary students (15 – 18 years old) who were
studying in grade 10, 11, and 12 of the program emphasizing on science and mathematics.
The characteristics of the participants are shown in Table 1.
Table 1. The characteristics of participants
Numbers of
Grades Ages Study program School type Genders Total
students
15-16 Male 42
10 Science-Math Public school 51
years old Female 9
11 16-17 Science-Math Public school Male 14 46

Pakdeeviroch, Nokkaew, Wongkia 205
years old Female 32

17-18 Male 37
12 Science-Math Public school 66
years old Female 29
Total number of participants 163
Data collection of the part I

The infinity perceptions of the participants were gathered by using the questionnaire. There
were two open-ended questions as shown in Table 2. Participants were arked to respond to
all questions individually for 15 minutes. Furthermore, all forms of answers, such as phrases,
or pictures, were allowed to answer.
Table 2. The open-ended questions in the questionnaire
Items Questions
1 What is the meaning of the word INFINITY?
Please describe based in your understanding.
2 What is the example of infinity in your experience?
Data analysis of the part I

The responses of the participants in the first question were mainly focused. The descriptive
statistics was applied. The frequency and proportion of descriptive responses of the
participants would be presented and categorized. Moreover, the clusters of the examples in
question 2 corresponding to the metaphor of the infinite entity would be presented and
categorized in the similar way.
The Part II: An investigation of Thai upper secondary students’ perceptions of infinity
through a semi-structure interview
This section describes the methods to investigate how the Thai upper secondary students
perceive infinity gathering by the interview.
Participants of the part II
There were 11 voluntary students who were participated in the first part of the study. There
were 3 male students and 8 female students as shown in Table 3.
Table 3. The characteristics of voluntary participants in the part II
Names Ages (years old) Gender Grades
Sarah 16 Female 10
Chi 15 Male 10
Aon 17 Male 11
Prim 17 Female 11
Yanee 16 Female 11
Film 17 Female 11
Jo 18 Male 12
Mon 18 Female 12
Rose 18 Female 12
Garnet 17 Female 12
Teresa 18 Female 12
*Names have been change to protect confidentiality

Data collection of the part II

The semi-structure interview was conducted individually with the participants. The
open-ended questions were used to elicit participants’ perceptions involving individual
explanation of infinity understanding. The two open-ended questions from the questionnaire
were employed again in the interview. Moreover, the questions associated with the infinite
sets comparison were applied in the interview as well. The sequence of questions and time
duration of each interview were flexible because there were the emerging questions
occurred during the interview once students responded the interesting answers. The
interview questions were shown in Table 4.
Table 4. The interview questions
Items Questions
1 Could you describe the meaning of the word “Infinity” based on your understanding?
2 What is an example of the infinity in your daily life?
3 Please compare the numbers of elements of the given sets
3.1 {2, 4, 6, 8, 10, …} and {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, …}
𝟏 𝟐 𝟑 𝟒 𝟓
3.2 { , , , , , …} and {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, …}
𝟐 𝟑 𝟒 𝟓 𝟔
3.3 The set of rational numbers belong to the closed intervals [1, 2] and the set of
rational numbers belong to the closed intervals [2, 3]
3.4 The set of rational numbers belong to the closed intervals [1, 2] and the set of
rational numbers belong to the closed intervals [1, 3]
3.5 The set of all points in segment A and the set of all points in segment B
A B
Data analysis of the part II

The data from the interview was analyzed following the Braun and Clark’s model of
thematic analysis (2013) shown in Figure 1. At the step 1, we thoroughly transcribed and
repeatedly read the transcriptions many times. We also think about what was happen in the
interview during transcribing and reading. At step 2, line-by-line coding method was
applied to generate the tentative codes and they were defined the meaning by three
researchers as investigators triangulation.
After that, at the step 3, the refinement of the tentative codes such as rename the codes,
combining the similar codes, and so on was conducted several times by making a consensus
among three researchers. At the step 4, the investigators triangulation was used again to
validate the tentative themes. Moreover, some additional data, for example pictures and
texts that were individually expressed by participant were regarded to either support or
against the themes as methodological triangulation and came up with the certain themes.
The four themes of infinity perceptions of upper secondary students were established
including a procedural perception, a numerical perception, a topological perception, and
an emotional perception.

The step 5 was the themes definition step. The four emerging themes were defined
meaningfully describing the particular attributions. Lastly, at the step 6, a reporting the
results which were the upper secondary students’ perceptions of infinity.
Results of the study

The findings from the part I
The students’ responses on the first question (Table 2) are presented in the various forms.
Table 5 shows the responses of the students answering this question and Figure 1 shows the
proportion of the responses.
Table 5 The responses of the participants
Grades Responses Frequencies
10 Inexhaustible 42
Infinite, unlimited, massive or countless number 20
Endless counting, ongoing counting 16
Unidentified and unobservable number 7
Symbol ∞ 1
Table 5 The responses of the participants (cont.)

Grades
Responses Frequencies
(Ages)
11 Inexhaustible 45
Endless and ongoing 17
Infinite number (Both positive and negative) 7
Symbol ∞ 4
Unobservable number 2
Freedom 1
12 Inexhaustible 65
Endless and ongoing 29
Infinite number (Both too large and too small) 16
Unidentified and unobservable number 13
Boundless 5
Freedom 2
Symbol ∞ 2

Figure 1. the proportions of participants’ answers on the question 1 of Table 2
Table 5 and Figure 1 show that there is a variety of participants’ responses involving the
infinity ideas within group. Meanwhile, the proportions of descriptive responses between
groups are rather close. In other words, students with the same grade revealed several
descriptions to explain the meanings of the word ‘infinity’. However, even they studied in
different grades, they still commonly described the meaning of infinity. The most common
description and the highest proportion of students describing of infinity was that infinity is
an inexhaustible thing. Furthermore, the participants often described their ideas toward the
infinity understanding by using two or three attributions of infinity together in order to
make their descriptions more clearly. The examples of participants’ responses were shown
below.
Student with grade 10 (Male): “Endless number, it can go on and on
inexhaustibly”
Student with grade 11 (Female): “An ongoing process without end and
uncertainty”
Student with grade 12 (Female): “Any number such that it is uncountable or it is
boundless”
The second question (Table 2) is used to explore the metaphor of infinity when students
attempt to relate their real life experiences to infinity understanding. Because of the finding
from the first question, we consider the responses of students without considering the grade
differences. The clusters of responses of students associated with the examples of infinity in
daily life are shown in Table 6.
Table 6. The clusters of examples
Clusters of examples related to infinity Frequencies Proportions
1 The elements 29 0.19
(e.g., Light, Water, Air)
2 The emotions 25 0.15
(e.g., Love, Feeling, Thinking)

3 Some things with very small size and very massive quantity 24 0.14
(e.g., Stone, Sand, Star, Sugar, Salt, Oxygen atom, and Hair)
4 The endless processes 24 0.14
(e.g., Orbit of the planet, Pi, Indivisibility, Infinite sequences)
5 A number 18 0.11
6 Time 15 0.09
7 Immensity or enormousness 14 0.09
(e.g., Galaxy, Space, Sky, Earth)
8 None 14 0.09
Total 163 1
As shown in Table 6, the students’ responses are categorized into eight clusters without
applying a theoretical framework. Based on the findings which are the responses of upper
secondary students in the two open-ended questions, we conclude that there are no distinct
infinity perceptions among different grades.
The findings from the part II
There are four perceptions of infinity including a procedural perception, a numerical perception, a
topological perception, and an emotional perception. The evidences that revealed empirically in
each perception were described as well as the theoretical explanations were discussed below.
Procedural perception
The participants’ responses of the first questions (Table 4) suggest that almost all
participants think of infinity as an endless process. For example, ongoing, looping, and
routine process. This kind of perception is defined as a procedural perception. The
examples of the excerpts are shown below.
Rose (1): “It seems to be an ongoing counting which has no an ending
point”
Chi (2): “A finite one, it has an ending point but, infinity, it would go
on and on and has the symbol ‘∞’ which means indefinite
going.
Some of them illustrated in pictures to describe the endless process, such as the numbers in
Figure 2.

Figure 2. The numbers drawn by Aon
Numerical perception
The participants also perceive infinity as quantity. For example, an excerpt below shows the
answer of Jo (3) in the first question in Table 4. as well. So, it means that he perceives
infinity as the quantity.
Jo (3): “What is infinity? … Infinity is value …umm... unlimited values,
continuous values like …unlimited…”
Some of participants describe the meaning of infinity in terms of quantity as similar as Jo (3)
as following excerpts
Mon (4): “Infinity is unlimited… we couldn’t perceive what is the last
number. …Umm… it is very massive”
Film (5): “Infinity … it cannot identify exactly what number is, it is
uncertain quantity”
They explain the infinity as the characteristics of number which are unlimited, uncertain, or
uncountable. This kind of perception is defined as a numerical perception. The numerical
perception of infinity guides the participants to think about infinity associating with the
huge quantities that have comparability and operated ability. For instance, the responses of
Sarah (6) and Chi (7) shown below.
Sarah (6): “A number of elements in both sets are infinite. … So I
replied they are equal infinity”
Chi (7): “… the number of rational numbers in the interval 1-3 is
greater than 1-2. I think [pointed at [1-3]] it should be twice
number of this [pointed at [1-2]]”
However, some participants give the opposite perspectives to Chi (7). They argue that the
infinite entities could not be compared as following.
Garnet (8): “So, if we regard the rational numbers. In this interval
[pointed at [1, 2]] is unlimited and this one [pointed at [1,
3]] is also unlimited …”

Researcher: “What does it mean? Because you mentioned earlier that

[1-3] is wider than [1-2]. Am I wrong? If I conclude that
infinity in [1-2] is less than infinity in [1-3]”
Garnet (9): “… Umm ... I think, it is not true because there is no infinity
which is greater or less than another infinity”
Emotional perception
Another aspect expressed by the participants goes beyond the reality. These dialogues below are the
examples of the responses of the participants in the question 2 in Table 4.
Garnet (10) loveis inexhaustible”
“love EHFDXVH
Yam (11): “Thinking because we can think since the pass until now and
we can think further about this, about that and so on. It ... is
endless”
We define this kind of infinity understanding as an emotional perception. The emotional
perception of infinity is the infinity understanding relating to the feelings and existing
beyond the reality. This perception is appeared in participants’ comments when they attempt
to explain their experiences associated with the infinity.
Topological perception
Throughout the interview, the participants frequently show the responses involving a
boundary perspective which is unbounded, frameless, extended, and unlimited. These
characteristics appear in participants’ answers when they attempt to describe the properties
of particular processes or actions, quantities, and emotions following the infinity ideas. This
kind of participants’ understanding is defined as a topological perception. The examples of
participants’ responses resulted from the topological perception are followed.
Jo (12): “Infinity is a kind of number because it is a kind of quantity
which is theoretically different to other numbers because
infinity has not boundary or frameless”
Sarah (13): “I thought that a big bang is a kind of infinity. I couldn’t
depict any picture to represent this energy because it could
be extended everywhere. [Researcher: How?] It circularly
unbounded expands, has never restricted.
Some participants describe their ideas by drawing a picture. For example, Teresa draw a
picture as shown in Figure 3 during her explanation of the answer in the question 2 in Table
4.

Starting point
Paper margin
Ending
point
Figure 3. The picture drawn by Teresa (Grade 12, Female, 18 years old)
She shows the characteristic of infinity by creating a continuous line on a paper. At the
same time, she verbally explains what she is drawing as following.
Teresa (14): “So, this picture… the line can move on and on until move out
the paper like this [pointed at the endpoint], but actually it has
no bound. It can write inexhaustibly, even it moves out of the
margin.
Consequently, the information from the semi-structure interview suggests that there are four
emerged themes of infinity perceptions of Thai upper secondary students. Furthermore,
students occasionally express more than one perceptions at the same time when dealing with
the infinity idea.
To validate the emerging infinity perceptions, a coherence among the findings of the two
part is considered. Table 7 shows a correspondence between the four infinity perceptions in
the part II and the descriptive responses presented in Table 5.
Conclusion
There are four infinity perceptions of Thai upper secondary students. The definitions of
them are following.
The procedural perception: The infinity understanding perceived by Thai upper
secondary students as an endless ongoing, looping, or
routine process or action with being both continuous and
iterative natures.
The numerical perception: The infinity understanding perceived by Thai upper
secondary students as an unlimited, uncertain, or
uncountable number characterizing to be comparability and
incomparability, operated ability, and singularity.
The emotional perception: The infinity understanding perceived by Thai upper
secondary students as a feeling.
The topological perception: The infinity understanding perceived by Thai upper
secondary students as an unbounded, frameless, or
extended.

According to the study of Singer and Voica (2008), they also studied the infinity
perceptions of students within European context. We find the same infinity perceptions
which are the processional and topological perceptions. They correspond to the procedural
and topological perceptions in this study. However, there is spiritual perception which is
involving the idea of god in their investigation, we didn’t find that perception in Thai
students.
Table 7. The correspondence between the data of the part I and the perceptions of infinity
Grades Descriptive responses Types of infinity perceptions
Inexhaustible Topological
Infinite, unlimited, massive or countless number* Numerical, Topological
Endless counting, ongoing counting* Procedural, Topological
10
Unidentified and unobservable number Numerical
Maximum number Numerical
Symbol ∞ Procedural
Endless and ongoing* Procedural, Topological
Infinite number (Both positive and negative)* Numerical, Topological
11
Unobservable number Numerical
Looping Procedural
Freedom Emotional
Endless and ongoing* Procedural, Topological
Infinite number (Both too large and too small)* Numerical, Topological
Unidentified and unobservable number Numerical
12
Boundless Topological
Looping Procedural
Freedom Emotional
Note – The symbol * means the descriptions that found the coexisted primary infinity perceptions
References
Howitt, D. (2013). Introduction to Qualitative Methods in Psychology. Edinburgh Gate
Harlow, UK: Pearson Education Limited.
Lakoff, L , & Núñez, R 2000 Where Mathematics Comes From … the Embodied Mind Brings
Mathematics into Being. New York Basic Books.
Singer, F M , & Voica, C 2008 Between perception and intuition Learning about infinity
Journal of Mathematical Behavior, 27 3 , 188–205 doi org 10 1016 j jmathb 2008 06 001
Tall, D. (2004). Thinking to three worlds of mathematics. In M. J. Hoines & A. B. Fuglestad
(Eds.), Proceedings of the 28th PME proceedings (pp.281-288). Bergan: PME.

Cherdsak Pakdeeviroch
Mahidol University, Thailand
cherdsakpakdeeviroch@gmail.com
Artorn Nokkaew
artorn.nok@mahidol.edu
Wararat Wongkia
wararat.won@gmail.com

Pearn, Stephens, Pierce 215
INTERVIEWS REVEAL YEAR 8 STUDENTS’ STRUGGLE TO

GENERALISE SOLUTIONS TO REVERSE FRACTION TASKS
Catherine Pearn, The University of Melbourne, Australia
Max Stephens, The University of Melbourne, Australia
Robyn Pierce, The University of Melbourne, Australia
Introduction
The links between fractional knowledge and readiness for algebra have been highlighted by
many researchers such as Wu (2001); Jacobs, Franke, Carpenter, Levi, and Battey, (2007);
Empson, Levi, and Carpenter, (2011) and Siegler and colleagues (2012). This paper focuses
on the final stage of an Australian research study that investigated the links between
fractional competence and algebraic thinking. For our research, algebraic thinking is defined
in terms of students’ capacity to identify an equivalence relationship between a given
collection of objects and the fraction this collection represents of an unknown whole, and
then to operate multiplicatively on both to find the whole. The key research question is:
Does middle years’ students’ fractional competence and reasoning show evidence of
non-symbolic algebraic thinking and its progression towards more traditional algebraic
thinking as experienced in lower secondary classes?
In the initial stage of the research middle years’ students completed two paper and pencil
tests: Fraction Screening Test and a test of algebraic reasoning, the Algebraic Thinking
Questionnaire (Pearn & Stephens, 2015). In the final stage of the research, 45 students from
two schools were interviewed, with 17 students from a Melbourne metropolitan primary
school and 26 Year 8 students (approximately 14 years old) from a Victorian regional
secondary school. Responses to the interview tasks revealed that while some students
struggled to move on from the additive strategies they used in the paper and pencil
assessments while others used more flexible and robust generalisations. This paper will
discuss how the Year 8 students were chosen to be interviewed, the results from the
interviews, and will focus on a case study student who depended on diagrammatic
representations and struggled to generalise her strategies as she attempted to respond to the
questions presented in the interview. The paper will conclude with advice to curriculum
writers and teachers, based on this research, drawing attention to the importance of teachers
recognising the range of strategies likely to be used by students, the limitations of some of
those strategies and the need to foster flexible mathematical thinking to support students’
generalisations.
The Australian Context
In a recent report about the 2015 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study
(TIMMS) study, Thomson, Wernert, O'Grady, & Rodrigues (2016) reported that Australian
Year 8 students were outperformed by students in 12 other countries, including Singapore,
Korea, Chinese Taipei, Hong Kong and Japan. Of concern, is that the Australian Year 8

216 Interviews Reveal Year 8 Students’ Struggle to Generalise Solutions to Reverse Fraction tasks
mathematics score in the 2015 TIMMS study is exactly the same as the score for the 1995
study.
The Australian Curriculum: Mathematics (ACARA, 2016) is divided into three strands:
Number and Algebra, Measurement and Geometry, Statistics and Probability. The substrand
Fractions and Decimals is included within the Number and Algebra strand. The focus of the
Content Descriptions for fractions at Year 7 (see Table 8) is on solving problems involving
addition and subtraction of fractions. For Year 8 the focus is on the four operations. But,
this appears to exclude multiplicative solutions to fraction problems especially those
involving an unknown whole. Algebra is presented in the sub-strand of Pattern and Algebra
also in the Number and Algebra strand. In Year 7 students are expected to be introduced to
the concept of variables and to use letters to represent numbers. So, according to the content
descriptors, the Year 8 students in our study should be confidently solving tasks involving
addition and subtraction of fractions and using letters to represent numbers. The content
descriptors do not contain any reference to the links between fractional knowledge and
algebraic thinking as suggested as being important by researchers such as Kieren (1980),
Lamon (1999), and Wu (2001). This paper will highlight the difficulties students experience
if they cannot understand, use, and generalise fractional structure.
Table 8. Examples of Content Descriptors, Australian Curriculum: Mathematics (ACARA, 2016)
Year Fractions and Decimals Patterns and Algebra
7 Solve problems involving addition and Introduce the concept of variables as a
subtraction of fractions, including those way of representing numbers using
with unrelated denominators letters (ACMNA175)
(ACMNA153)
8 Carry out the four operations with Simplify algebraic expressions involving
rational numbers and integers, using the four operations (ACMNA192)
efficient mental and written strategies
and appropriate digital technologies
(ACMNA183)
The Study
The three reverse fraction tasks (see Figure 3) provided an initial lens into the types of
students’ strategies. These are called reverse fraction tasks as the students need to find the
number of objects representing the whole when they have been given the number of objects
representing a given fractional part. Students would normally be expected to find the
number of objects that represent a fraction of a whole. While 86% of the Year 8 students (n
= 118) gave correct responses to Reverse Fraction Task 1, 53% and 71% were successful
with Reverse Fraction Task 2 and Reverse Fraction Task 3 respectively as shown in Figure
1.

Reverse Fraction Task 1 (86%) Reverse Fraction Task 2 (53%) Reverse Fraction Task 3 (71%)
This collection of 10 counters Susie’s CD collection is 4/7 of This collection of 14 counters
is 2/3 of the number of counters her friend Kay’s. Susie has 12 is 7/6 of the number of counters
I started with. CDs. I started with.
How many CDs does Kay

have? _____
How many counters did I start How many counters did I start
with? Show all your working. with?
Explain how you decided that b. Explain how you decided
your answer is correct. that your answer is correct.
Figure 3. Reverse fraction tasks and percentage correct (n = 118)
The students’ written responses to the three reverse fraction tasks (Figure 3) were analysed
to determine the types of strategies they used to complete each of the tasks. Figure 4 has
examples from Year 8 students for each of the individual classifications for Reverse
Fraction Task 2 shown in the middle column of (Figure 3).
Classification Explanation Example
Diagram Students use explicit partitioning of

dependent diagrams before using additive or
subtractive strategies
Additive/ Students use additive or subtractive

methods without explicit partitioning
subtractive
a diagram. Students find the number
of objects needed to represent the
unit fraction and then use counting or
repeated addition to find the number
of objects needed to find the whole.
Partially Students use both multiplicative and

multiplicative additive methods. In the example,
they calculate the missing fractional
part (3/7) and then add it onto the
original quantity.
Fully Students use fully multiplicative

multiplicative methods. Students find the quantity
represented by the unit fraction using
division and then multiply the
quantity of the unit fraction to find

the whole.
Advanced Students use more advanced

multiplicative multiplicative methods to solve the
reverse fraction questions. These
include the correct use of appropriate
algebraic notation to find the whole,
or a one-step method to find the
whole by dividing the given quantity
by the known fraction.
Figure 4. Year 8 students' strategies used to solve Reverse Fraction Task 2

Ten Year 8 students did not attempt to answer Reverse Fraction Task 1 and eight gave an
incorrect response. For Reverse Fraction Task 2, which has no diagram, 17 Year 8 students
did not attempt the task and 35 gave an incorrect response. Fifteen Year 8 students did not
attempt Reverse Fraction Task 3 while 20 responded incorrectly.
Table 2 shows the percentage of each of the six types of strategies as described in Figure 2.
For example, 107 students gave the correct answer for Reverse Fraction Task 1. Eight
percent used a strategy that was not clear and could not be classified, 4% depended on the
diagram to complete the task, 10% only used an additive strategy, 39% used a partially
multiplicative strategy while 36% used a fully multiplicative strategy. Only one Year 8
student used an advanced multiplicative strategy for Reverse Fraction 1.
Table 2. Percentage of Year 8 students in each category for the three reverse fraction tasks
Response Type Reverse Fraction Reverse Fraction Reverse Fraction
Task 1 (n = 107) Task 2 (n = 63) Task 3 (n = 83)
Not clear 8 2 20
Diagram Dependent 4 6 11
Additive/subtractive 10 6 0
Partially multiplicative 39 8 43
Fully Multiplicative 36 75 22
Advanced Multiplicative 1 3 4
The Structured Interview

Students were only chosen to be interviewed if they had successfully solved at least two of
the three reverse fraction tasks from the Fraction Screening Test shown in Figure 3. The
interview was designed to investigate whether students who had relied on the use of
diagrams or a mix of additive and multiplicative strategies could, as a result of carefully
chosen questions, adopt more consistent multiplicative and generalisable strategies. The
Structured Interview was designed to discriminate between those who needed to use a
diagram in order to conceptualise the problem and others who may have initially used a
diagram but who in the interview were able to demonstrate flexible multiplicative thinking

without relying on diagrammatic representations. In responding to the interview questions

students were encouraged to think about and articulate their responses before writing
anything on paper. They were able to record their responses using words, diagrams and/or
symbolic expressions. In this respect the Structured Interview was designed to provide
opportunities for students to express flexible mathematical thinking as they encountered
greater degrees of generalisation in the questions asked.
The Structured Interview, included reverse fraction tasks similar to those in Figure 3 but
with progressive levels of abstraction, starting from particular instances and becoming
progressively more generalised. The first three questions of the Structured Interview are
shown in Figure 3. These questions use the same three fractions as in the Fraction Screening
Test (Figure 3) but have no diagrams and with different quantities for each of the fractions.
1. Imagine that I gave you 12 2. Susie has 8 CDs. Her CD 3. Imagine that I gave you 21
counters which is 2/3 of the collection is 4/7 of her friend counters which is 7/6 of the
number of counters I started Kay’s. number of counters I started
with. How many CDs does Kay have? with
How many counters did I start _____ How many counters did I start
with? Explain your thinking. with?
Explain your thinking. Explain your thinking.
Figure 5. Questions 1- 3, Structured Interview
In a second set of three questions the first part of the question used one of the given
fractions with a new quantity; and the second part of the question started with: “If I gave
you any number of counters which is also a (given fraction) of the number I started with,
what would you need to do to find the number of counters I started with?” Question 4, in
Figure 4, is an example of this set of questions.
4a. If I gave you 18 counters, which is 2/3 of 4b. If I gave you any number of counters,
the number of counters I started with, how which is also 2/3 of the number I started with,
would you find the number of counters I started what would you need to do to find the number
with? of counters I started with?
Figure 6. Questions 4a and 4b, Structured Interview

If students satisfactorily completed the first six questions of the Structured Interview, they
were presented with Question 7 (Figure 5), which required them to use a generalisable
method.
What if I gave you any number of counters, and they represented any fraction of the number of
counters I started with, how would you work out the number of counters I started with?
Can you tell me what you would do? Please write your explanation in your own words.
Figure 7. Question 7, Structured Interview

Where the original three fractions from Figure 3 were used with different known quantities
(Figure 3), we were interested to see whether students’ solution strategies replicated

strategies they had used in their written responses to the Fraction Screening Test (Pearn &
Stephens, 201?) or whether the interview questions induced them to change to more
generalisable multiplicative methods. In particular, we needed to ascertain whether students
who had relied on additive or subtractive methods, with or without a diagram, were able to
use multiplicative methods once the diagrams were no longer provided.
Administration of the interview
Twenty-six Year 8 students, from a regional Victorian secondary school, participated in the
Structured Interview. These students had successfully solved at least two of the three
reverse fraction tasks in Figure 3 and were chosen so that their strategies illustrated a range
of the strategies shown in Figure 2. Six students used additive strategies to solve the reverse
fraction tasks, 13 students used a mix of multiplicative and additive methods and seven
students used only multiplicative methods. Equal numbers of males and females were
interviewed.
The Structured Interview was conducted at the school with four experienced interviewers
(see Figures 3, 4 and 5). At the start of the interview students were shown a copy of their
responses to the three original reverse fraction tasks. This was then left on the table for
students to refer to, if required. The record of interview consisted of a three-page document
which included the questions and space for students to record their answers and to explain
their thinking. Students were encouraged to think about, and articulate, their response before
writing anything on paper. Students, for example, who were unable to answer Questions 4b,
5b, or 6b were not expected to answer Question 7. Each interview took approximately 15
minutes per student. Students were free to correct their written responses to interview
questions. Students were free to exit the interview at any point.
Each question from the Structured Interviews was classified individually and then scored
using the same categories as given for the examples in Figure 2. Table 3 shows the number
of Year 8 students using each of the five solution strategies for Questions 1 – 3 of the
Structured Interview.
Table 3: Number of students using strategies for Questions 1 - 3, Structured Interview (n = 26)
Question Diagram Additive/ Partially Fully Advanced
dependent Subtractive multiplicative Multiplicative Multiplicative
1 2 1 9 13 1
2 4 0 5 16 1
3 4 0 6 15 1
The five categories in Table 3 were established using the six-step process of the thematic
analysis approach suggested by Braun & Clarke (2006). While one student used
additive/subtractive strategies for two questions of the Structured Interview it was not the
dominant solution method for this student. Most students who were interviewed could be
classified as using one of the four dominant strategies: Diagram Dependent, Partially
Multiplicative, Fully Multiplicative and Advanced Multiplicative. In the next section the

focus will be on Violet who successfully used diagrams with a variety of strategies for the
three reverse fraction tasks.
Case Study: Violet
Violet was chosen to be interviewed as she had successfully used diagrams in her solutions
to the three reverse fraction tasks. While she depended on the diagrams she used a variety of
strategies to complete the tasks. For Reverse Fraction Task 1, shown in Figure 8, Violet
appears to use a multiplicative strategy.
Figure 8. Violet's response to Reverse Fraction 1, Fraction Screening Test

Violet circled five of the dots given in the diagram and wrote the symbol for one-half above
the circled dots. While her written explanation was brief it demonstrated that she knew that
one-third was represented by five dots and she multiplied five by three to show that
three-thirds or one-whole was equal to 15 counters
No diagram was given for Reverse Fraction Task 2 so Violet drew her own diagrams to
solve the task shown in Figure 7. She initially drew three rows of four circles, drew around
four groups of three circles, wrote 12 on the left-hand side of her drawing and the fraction
four-sevenths on the right-hand side of the drawing indicating that one-seventh was three
CDs although this was not specifically stated. She then replicated the three rows of four
circles, drew around the groups of three and added another three groups of three circles. The
total from the three rows of seven circles (21) is written in the top right-hand corner of
Figure 7. Violet used the diagrams with a partially multiplicative strategy where she drew
the initial four groups of three circles to represent four-sevenths then drew another three
groups of three circles to represent the extra three-sevenths needed to represent
seven-sevenths or the whole.


As shown in Figure 8, Violet had several attempts at circling sets of dots in her attempt to
solve Reverse Fraction Task 3. Her written explanation is an attempt to explain how she
decided that her answer was correct. It is unclear how she determined that one-sixth was
represented by two dots but she multiplied six by two to get 12 (6/6) and seven by two to get
14 which was originally stated as representing seven-sixths. There is an element of
uncertainty in her response as she has written: “started with 12?”.

Violet’s responses to the three reverse fraction tasks in Figures 6 – 8 suggest that she is able
to use multiplicative thinking. However, Figure 7 raises a question as to whether her
thinking is diagram dependent. The Structured Interview was intended to present all
questions to students without a diagram.
Structured Interview
In the Structured Interview Violet continues to rely on the use of diagrams or drawings in
her attempts to find the number of objects that represent the whole if given the number of
objects representing given fractional parts. In Figure 9 Violet has drawn three rows of six
circles, drawn around two of those rows to indicate two-thirds. She correctly wrote that the
initial number was 18 counters. She writes that: “Both 12 and 18 are divisible by 3 and 6”
referring to the number of groups (three) and the number in each group (six).

Figure 11. Violet's response to Question 1, Structured Interview

Violet’s initial attempt using a diagram in Question 2 is incorrect as shown on the left-hand
side of Figure 10. She initially drew an array of five rows of four dots then crossed out one
dot from each row. She then added two more rows of three dots to make seven rows of three
dots. Violet then drew an additional array of seven rows of three dots before attempting to
circle groups of seven dots. She circled three groups of seven dots, four groups of eight dots
and one group of five dots. At this stage, she was encouraged by the interviewer to re-read
the question.
As shown on the right-hand side of Figure 10, Violet then correctly drew a row of eight
circles to represent the four-sevenths, and divided these eight circles into four equal groups,
writing the fraction four-sevenths beside the drawing. She then added a further four groups
of two circles underneath the first diagram, crossed out one group of two circles, leaving
three groups with two circles to represent three-sevenths and correctly stated that the total is
14 CDs.
Figure 12. Violet's responses to Question 2, Structured Interview

In Question 3 (Figure 11) Violet initially draws four rows of seven dots, correctly
partitioned the 21 dots into seven groups of three and recognises that is equivalent to one
and one-sixth and correctly stated that there were 18 counters in the whole group.
Figure 13. Violet's responses to Question 3, Structured Interview

In Question 4a, where 18 counters represented the fraction two-thirds, Violet constructed
four diagrams (Figure 14) where the first, second and fourth are incorrect. In the first
diagram, she draws three rows of six circles and draws around each row stating that they are
one-third. In the second diagram, she again draws three rows of six dots and attempts to
divide these in two parts but unfortunately she ends up with one group of seven dots and
one of 11 dots. The third diagram shows three groups of nine, but only after many
corrections have been made. The fourth diagram shows three rows of seven dots, which she
divided into three groups of seven, then wrote the answer as 14, which is two of the seven
groups or two-thirds of the 21 dots she drew.
Figure 14. Violet's response to Question 4a, Structured Interview

After finally succeeding with Question 4a using the third diagram, Violet correctly uses an
additive solution for Question 4b which asked about ‘any number of counters’ representing
two-thirds saying: “You would half the number and then add the result to the number you
started with”.
In Question 5 (Figure 15) Violet correctly finds one quarter of 20 by halving and halving
again but represents this as three equivalent expressions. In this question, she started to
draw a diagram which she then scribbled out before using a partially multiplicative method
to correctly determine three-sevenths as 15 (5  3) and then calculate the whole by adding
three-sevenths to the original four-sevenths, which she wrote as 15 + 20 = 35.
Figure 15. Violet's response to Question 5, Structured Interview

Violet was unable to complete any further questions from the Structured Interview.
However, it is evident that Violet has difficulty in creating an appropriate diagram to
represent the number relationships required by the task, often requiring several attempts.
She provided a partially multiplicative solution for the partly generalised task where ‘any
number’ of counters’ represented two-thirds but could not offer a solution for the
generalised version of ‘any number of counters’ for either four-seventh or seven-sixths. As
the numbers change and became bigger for the two-thirds questions Violet’s diagrams
became more complex requiring several attempts to partition the numbers. As the fractions

become more complex, such as four-sevenths and seven-sixths, and the numbers larger,
students like Violet who rely on diagrams to partition the numbers, encounter greater
difficulty. Proficient multiplicative thinking is needed to partition the numbers to find the
appropriate unit fraction and from there to scale up to the whole. Violet’s interview case
study shows that her reliance on diagrams to execute these steps provides limited success
and becomes more problematic; failing to recognise an underlying structure from which a
generalised solution can be constructed.
For Year 8 students like Violet, efficient mental and written strategies (referred to in Table 1)
are necessary to support generalisation and provide a bridge to algebraic thinking.
Australia’s Year 8 TIMMS performance discussed earlier is unlikely to improve while there
are many students like Violet who lack efficient mental and written strategies to deal
successfully with number and fraction questions. The challenges experienced by these Year
8 students may seem unusual to teachers in the high-performing countries such as Singapore,
Korea, Hong Kong, Chinese Taipei and Japan. Without probing through structured
interviews and other assessments these difficulties may remain hidden.
Conclusion
For Australian teachers in particular there are clear limitations in the way curriculum
documents are written, particularly in the way that these documents separate content areas
into sub-strands. In this case the separation of the topics: Fractions and Decimals and
Patterns and Algebra. In fact, carefully selected reverse fraction tasks, which are the subject
of this paper and which can serve to guide students towards flexible forms of algebraic
thinking, are not mentioned explicitly in the Australian Curriculum: Mathematics (ACARA,
2016). While these problems are difficult to address in curriculum documents which are
intended to be brief and concise, we suggest that they need to be addressed explicitly in
accompanying teaching advice. That advice needs to attend to the connections between
particular fraction problems, as discussed in this paper, and emergent algebraic thinking;
drawing attention to the varied and flexible forms that emergent algebraic thinking may take,
and how these can be identified and developed.
References
Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority [ACARA] (2016). Australian
Curriculum: Mathematics. V8.3 Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting
Authority. Retrieved from:
http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/mathematics/curriculum/f-10?layout=1
Braun, V. and Clarke, V. (2006) Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research
in Psychology, 3 (2). pp. 77 - 101.
Retrieved from http://eprints.uwe.ac.uk/11735/2/thematic_analysis_revised_-_final.pdf
Empson, S. B., Levi, L., and Carpenter, T. P. (2010). The algebraic nature of fractions:
developing relational thinking in elementary school. In J. Cai and E. Knuth (Eds.), Early
Algebraization: Cognitive, Curricular and Instructional Perspectives. New York: Springer

Jacobs, V., Franke, M., Carpenter, T., Levi, L. & Battey, D. (2007). Professional development
focused on children’s algebraic reasoning in elementary school. Journal for Research in
Mathematics Education 38(3), 258–288.
Kieren, T. E. (1980). The rational number construct: Its elements and mechanisms. In T. E.
Kieren (Ed.), Recent Research on Number Learning (pp. 125-149). Columbus: Ohio State
University.
Lamon, S. J. (1999). Teaching Fractions and Ratios for Understanding: Essential Knowledge
and
Instructional Strategies for Teachers. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates
Pearn, C. & Stephens, M. (2015). Strategies for solving fraction tasks and their link to
algebraic thinking. In M. Marshman, V. Geiger, & A. Bennison (Eds.) Mathematics
Education in the Margins. Proceedings of the 38th annual conference of the Mathematics
Education Research Group of Australasia, pp. 493 – 500. Sunshine Coast: MERGA
Siegler, R., Duncan, G., Davis-Kean, P., Duckworth, K., Claessens, A., Engel, M.,
Susperreguy, M., & Chen, M. (2012). Early predictors of high school mathematics
achievement. Retrieved from
http://pss.sagepub.com/content/early/2012/06/13/0956797612440101
Thomson, S., Wernert, N., O'Grady, E., & Rodrigues, S. (2016). TIMSS 2015: A first look at
Australia's results. Retrieved from https://research.acer.edu.au/timss_2015/1
Wu, H. (2001). How to prepare students for algebra. American Educator, 25(2), 10-17. 211
Catherine Pearn
Melbourne Graduate School of Education, The University of Melbourne
cpearn@unimelb.edu.au
Max Stephens
m.stephens@unimelb.edu.au
Robyn Pierce
rpierce@unimelb.edu.au

Peligro, Lomibao and Luna 227
ERROR ANALYSIS WITH ACTION-PROCESS-OBJECT-SCHEMA

(APOS) THEORY AND LEARNING STYLE: THEIR EFFECTS ON
STUDENTS’ MATHEMATICS PERFORMANCE
Rejohn M. Peligro, PhD., Department of Education, Agusan del Sur Division,

Philippines
Laila S. Lomibao, Ph.D., University of Science and Technology of Southern Philipines,
Philippines
Charita A. Luna, Ph.D., University of Science and Technology of Southern Philippines,
Philippines
ABSTRACT
This study investigated the effects of using error analysis with APOS theory and learning
style on students’ achievement and conceptual understanding. The study employed
quantitative quasi experimental pretest-posttest non-equivalent control group research
design. Two intact classes of Grade 10 students at Prosperidad National High School,
Prosperidad, Agusan del Sur during the first semester of School Year 2016-207 were
randomly assigned as the control group and the other as the experimental group. Prior to the
experiment, the students’ achievement and conceptual understanding level were
pretested. The control group was taught using the conventional mathematics instruction
with group work in answering activity sheets, journal writing and short quizzes while the
experimental group was taught by integrating action-process-object-schema (APOS) theory
in students’ group work tasks and using worktext on APOS with error analysis. Action is
demonstrated through performing the different activities either physical or mental. Error
analysis serves as the Process level. Object level when students point out the error or
misconceptions of a given mathematical solution, and when they corrected the error, they
were finally at the Schema level. After all the coverage was taken, posttest was administered
to both groups. The data collected were analyzed using two-way ANCOVA unequal n’s and
linear regression. Results of the analysis revealed that the group exposed to error analysis
with APOS theory in classroom discussions has better performance both in achievement and
conceptual understanding tests compared to those exposed to traditional method of teaching
with seat work, journal writing and group discussion. Whereas, students’ learning style did
not have effect on their achievement and conceptual understanding scores. Also, the scores
of both groups in achievement and conceptual understanding has no interaction.
Key Terms: APOS theory, learning style, mathematics performance

228 Word Problem Difficulty and Its Treatment Using Ethnomathematics Approach
WORD PROBLEM DIFFICULTY AND ITS TREATMENT USING

ETHNOMATHEMATICS APPROACH
Nur Robiah Nofikusumawati Peni, Hiroshima University, Japan
Introduction
Word problem in Indonesia is used to be part of problem-solving. Word problems itself
has an important role in making mathematics more meaningful and contextual for the
students. Based on the Ministry of Education and Culture (2015), one of the mathematics
objectives in Indonesia is to solve problems that include the ability to understand a problem.
For Indonesian students in elementary school, word problem is harder than the typical
problem (Sumarwati et al., 2014), because they need to understand the problem first then
solve the problem. If the students are misunderstanding the question, then it will affect their
work. In the result, most of the Indonesian students have difficulty in comprehending
mathematical concepts, construct and solve the mathematical representation from a
contextual problem or story problem (Sembiring, R. K., et al., 2008; Arsaythamby, V and
Zubainur, C.M, 2014). Only 8 % of the Indonesian participant in Trends in International
Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) able to solve the word problem. Schoenfeld
(2016) states when the students work on a word problem, they only solve the problem
without understanding the meaning of it which means they never make sense of it.
Ethnomathematics approach is being used to help the students make sense of the problem.
In this approach, the students able to engage in the real-life context by playing where
playing is one of the six universal activities (Bishop, 1991). The activity in
ethnomathematics able to help the students to mathematize their reality based on their daily
activities (Orey & Rosa, 2006). By making a connection with the word problem to the
children`s lives made the learning more meaningful and lasting for them.
The purpose of this paper is to analyze students` difficulty on word problem using
ethnomathematics approach. The research question to address this issue is what are the
difficulties on word problem in ethnomathematics approach based on the Realistic
Mathematics Education (RME) framework in the process of shifting level for the students?
Theory and Research Framework
Verschaffel et al. (2000) defined word problem as any verbal description of problem
situation wherein one or more questions have raised the answer to which can be obtained by
application of mathematical operations to numerical data available in the problem statement.
Caldwell and Goldin (1979) mention in their research relates to variables that have been
shown to affect the difficulty of word problem significantly. It consists of context
familiarity, the number of words, the magnitude of the number, read-ability, sentence length,
vocabulary and verbal clues, the number and type of operation or steps, and sequence of the
operation. Based on the previous studies, the difficulties that can be found related to word
problems are comprehension and translation of the given information in word problems,
making mathematics model, algorithm and concluding. One of the models as a
representative from children`s daily life brings the traditional game as a concrete object for

Peni 229
them to make sense the word problem. The traditional game is called Jakri based on the
local culture was used in the learning activity. Students were asked to making up their own
stories based on the experience of playing the traditional game in word problem topic. The
following framework was developed in design the learning activity process based on the
RME framework. The framework consist of four levels (Gravemeijer, 1994):
 Real situation level as used in the context as a starting point.
 Model-of level where the model is used as a bridge between real and abstract.
 Model-for level where the students will make their own model to reach the last level,
 Formal mathematics which emphasized in generalization among strands.
Figure 16. Conceptual Framework
Methodology
81 grade 4 students from three primary school were appointed as a research subject.
Teaching experiment was designed using ethnomathematics activity, and the lesson process
was deeply analyze using RME framework. During design an instructional activity,
Hypothetical Learning Trajectory (HLT) is being used to describe the sequence of learning
activities. The observation will be compared with the conjectures on the HLT and Actual
Learning Trajectory (ALT). The result of the analysis leads to revisions and improvements
of both unit and the theoretical and empirical foundations. Four activities were conducted to

bridge all levels in RME framework and make them connected each other. Besides that, the
result of these activities also will be used to draw conclusions and to revise the first HLT.
Activity 1: Playing Jakri game and observing the game

In this activity, the students are not only to play the game but also record the score
earned by the players. The Jakri game helps the students not only to do computation but also
to record the data and interpret the data to the next level. Students are divided into four
groups. While the group 1 is playing with the group 2 as a defense and offense team, the
group 3 and 4 need to observe by record the score. This activity is treated as a level 1-real
situation or situational level which is the basic level of emergent modeling where
domain-specific, situational knowledge and strategies are used within the context of the
situation (Wijaya, 2008).
Activity 2: Write your idea based on the certain score
In this activity, students use their data were recorded by themselves during the game.
After playing the game, the students are required to write and explain what happens in Jakri
game based on the specific score randomly chosen by the researcher. This activity bridges
the level 1-real situation to the level 2-model-of which help the students try to interpret and
train them to speak up about their idea about played Jakri game.
Activity 3: Make a new story
Students will try to make their own story based on the same mathematics sentences
from activity 2. This activity bridging the students from level 2-model-of to the level-3
called model-for where students are required to go beyond the context of Jakri game. This
activity is crucial part because it found some of the characteristics of the students during the
shifting process from the level-2 to the level-3.
Activity 4: Let’s find the way
This activity is conducted to see students’ ability to do computation, either mix
operation or word problem. After finding a way, the students are supposed to see the
common number from the word problem they have made. This the way to help the students
to reach the level 4-formal mathematics.
Finding and Discussion
To make sense of word problem, Ronhovde (2009) suggests his action research, a
teacher needs to try to connect the word problem to a real-world situation in teaching
strategies. The real world situation itself is the core level of this study. Put
ethnomathematics content in this real-world situation will help the students to feel the
familiarity of the context. Overall there are four steps in order was conducted in the
classroom during the learning activities as shown in figure 1. All of the steps are connected
each other to bridge the 4 level in RME. The implementation of RME could bridge the gap

Peni 231
occur between teacher and students (Fiangga, 2013). The difficulties of the word problem
are encounter as follows:
Difficulties of Situational Level
By playing, students will have an experience that can be used to build their
understanding of the mathematical concept (Ronhovde, 2009). As mention in the activity 1,
the students were required to do observation during the match. In the HLT, students were
expected to have three possible answers as shown in the following figure.
Figure 17. Possible answer 1

In these figure 2, the possible answer that comes from the student is they will write the
name and the score on record the result. While for figure 3 the students try to make a table
or other representative to present the data and the last figure 4, the students make a story to
present their data.
The result based on Actual Learning Trajectory (ALT) is only possible answer 1&2 appears
in students` worksheet.
Figure 5. Student`s answer in the ALT
Based on the result, the situational level on word problems from the perspective of
ethnomathematics shows that cultural activity (Playing) can enhance students` interest in
learning mathematics because of the new situation that prepared by the teacher. By doing an
action in the classroom can build motivation for the individual students as well. While from
the perspective of realistic mathematics education, this playing and students’ task
(observation the match) will make students got some data which can be represented by
many types of representation. From the data recorded as well, students will explore their
situational knowledge to apply in the different situation. The difficulties that found in this

Peni 233
level is the students are not familiar to be asked for the task, so the result in ALT is not good
as expected in HLT.
Difficulties of Referential Level (model-of)

The results from HLT is following:
• Students within their groups are required to tell what happens during the game based
on the data recorded.
• Investigate the mathematics pattern in the recorded data.
• The teacher tries to guide the students to ask them to try to remember what happened
in the game.
The pattern in the game:
First round: 𝑎 + 𝑐  (additional operation)
Second round: 𝑎 + (𝑏 𝑥 𝑐)  (mix operation)
Where: 𝑎 and 𝑐 are distance; 𝑏 is amount of blows.
*The teacher can give intriguing question such as: “Is it the first distance from second
round?”
• Students realize that there are unitary amounts required in order to get the total points
in the second round.
• At the end of the discussion, the teacher poses the particular pattern of the score and
ask the students to write down their idea “What happen in the game if you find out
this record = 17 + (3 𝑥 5)” and ask them to try to find the total score as
well.
By posing this new score, students are expected to accustom with the game pattern, so it
will easy for students to do this task.
Unfortunately, in the ALT, the students have not reached the stage where they can tell the
story more detail. Students often tell the story directly by mentioning the points and
calculate the result.
Table 9. Students` Categories Responses
Categories of responses in Activity 2_“Tell us your idea”

(Write idea based on certain score)
Yes No
Blank
Direct Modelling Semantic Modelling Unclear

Ex: Ex: Juan plays Do not

Jakri in provide
Telli round 𝐼 = 17, In the first round, Anas got 17 +
first round, answer
(3𝑥15) . 17 the distance, 3 is
Round 𝐼𝐼 = 3𝑥15 then he or
amount of blows, 15 is the
blows the absent.
distance. Total point is 72
Jakri and
got point in
second
round.
Distance Amount of hits
From the perspective of ethnomathematics, use modeling is one way to bring the ideas
of knowledge and action. While regarding the realistic mathematics education, the second
level is entered the same level (asking for write a story based on the certain mathematics
expression). From the table can be seen that some of the students do not provide the
complete story. It is shown that students have difficulty making a mathematical model.
Difficulties of General Level (model-for)
In the HLT, from the previous activity, the students are required to make a new story based
on the same mathematics sentence and try to solve it.
Here is the conjectured students’ thinking:
• The students will make their story based on what they like.
• The students will come up with “17” first about something such as pencil, pen,
flower, etc.
• The students will consider the same part to add.
• The students will think about the unitary amount of the same part, to multiply the
part.
In the class discussion, the teacher guides the students into the conclusion that students need
to put attention in the keyword which is shown as addition, subtraction, multiplication or
division.
The following activity in the class discussion, the teacher, picks some storyline made by the
students and investigates their stories.

Peni 235
While in the ALT can be seen based on these

two examples:
Sipan has 17 candies plus 3 packets
of candy, in those packets, there are 15
candies in each packet. If those candies
operated by addition and multiplication
= 62
Figure 6. Student`s example in the ALT
Three students try to solve it

• A student triangle shape
said “this pattern is same as
the number one” answered
without calculating.
• B student  circle shape said
she just answers with the
same pattern as before, but
for calculating when she tries
to calculate without ignoring
the sequence, she got stuck
and left it as it is.
• The last student 
parallelogram shape said “all
Figure 7. Students` answer in share with whole class of them are an addition.”
For the categorization of students` responses can be seen more detail in the table below.
Table 10. Students` Responses in Activity
Categories of Responses in Activity_“Let’s make your own story”
(Make story based on math sentence)
Yes Multiplicative structure No Blank

(Make it (Does not
Partition Quotitio Repeated
contextualize make sense)
n addition
according to
math
sentence
given)

Com- Hosiana has Ex: Lusi has

bine 9 marbles, 7 pieces of
and she bread. Muna
bought 5 has 13
boxes of breads. 17 +
pencils. There 10 + 12 = 17
are 7 pencils breads
in each box.
And she
bought 3
fishes again.
Do not provide answer or absent.

Total is 9 +
(5 × 7) −
Additive structure
3 = 41
Com-
pare
Chan Ex: Devi has Ex: Putri has

-ge 17 candies. 17 cookies.
She adds She gives 3
more 3 cookies for
packs of one person.
candies.
There are 15
candies in
each pack.
If we add and
multiply, the
total candy is
62
From the perspective of ethnomathematics, the concept becomes broad and regardless
of the game concept. In this level, the focus was shifted from a mathematical point of view
towards strategies of the students (Gravemeijer, 1994). The students tend to provide story
relates to additive structure (change) and multiplicative structure (repeated addition).
Difficulties Formal Level
The last activity is to describe how the students can solve the various types of the word
problem. After finding a way, the students are supposed to see the common part of the word
problem they have made. This helps the students to reach the level 4-formal mathematics.

Peni 237
In the HLT, students are expected to know and understand the word problem and here
the conjectured students’ solutions of the problem
• Students are expected to answer the word problem given.
• Students are supposed to see the common part of their solution.
In the class discussion, the teacher needs to guide the students to see the same part of
their solution and guide the student to generalize the part into the general pattern.
The result of ALT shows that four stories of the students were picked up randomly by
the teacher. In this activity, the teacher put more attention to the students’ way of solving
the problem, so the teacher cannot reach the formal level. If we keep analyzing the student's
answer, they can make a story with the correct math sentence given. From the perspective of
ethnomathematics, this level is a goal of mathematics education where students can
generalize the concept of mathematics. For the realistic mathematics education, this formal
level would compose such kind of mathematics expression 𝑎 + (𝑏 × 𝑐).
Conclusion
As shown in the finding and discussion, this approach helps the students understand the
meaning of problem-based in the game context. But Indonesian students still get influenced
by the pattern of mathematical expression from the game context. So they have such
difficulties in formulating the mathematical model.
References
Arsaythamby, V. and Zubainur, C.M. (2014). How A Realistic Mathematics Educational
Approach Affect Students’ Activities in Primary School, Procedia Social and Behavioral
Sciences, 159, 309–313.
Bishop, A.J. (1991). Mathematics Enculturation: A Cultural Perspective on Mathematics
Education. Dordrecht, Boston, London: Kluwer Academic Publisher.
Caldwell, J.H., Golbin, G.A. (1979). Variable Affecting Word Problem Difficulty in
Elementary School Mathematics, Journal for Research in Mathematics Education
10(5), 323.
Fiangga, S. (2013). Designing Tangram Game Activity as An Introduction to the Concept of
Area Conservation in the Topic of Area Measurement. Master Theses. Surabaya State
University. Surabaya.
Gravemeijer, K.P.E. (1994). Developing realistic mathematics education. Utrecht: CD-Beta
Press/Freudenthal Institute.
Ministry of Education and Culture. (2015). Laporan Hasil Ujian Nasional. Retrieved from
http://www.kemdikbud.go.id/, June 10, 2016.
Orey, D.c., Rosa, M.(2006). Ethnomathematics: Cultural Assertions and Challenges Towards
Pedagogical Action. In the Journal of Mathematics and culture, 1(1),57-58.
Ronhovde, E. (2009). Making Sense of Word Problems. Action Research Projects. Paper 42.
University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Schoenfeld, A.H. (2016). Why are Word Problems So Darned Hard? University of California
Berkeley, CA, USA. Retrieved from
http://www.msri.org/attachments/workshops/454/Alan%20Schoenfeld%20power%20point.
pdf
Sembiring, R. K., Hadi, S., Dolk, M. (2008). Reforming Mathematics Learning in Indonesian
Classroom through RME. ZDM Mathematics Education (40):927-939.
Sumarwati., Subroto, E., Pujosudarmo, S., Nurkamto, J., (2014). The Types of Word
Problem Discourse Structure in Mathematics Textbook Presented in Indonesian for
Primary School Students. In Journal of Education and Practice. Vol. 5(12).
Verschaffel, L., Greer, B., & De Corte, E. (2000). Making Sense of Word Problems. Lisse,
The Netherlands: Swets & Zeitlinger.
Wijaya, A. (2008). Design Research in Mathematics Education: Indonesia Traditional
Games as Means to Support Second Graders’ Learning of Linear Measurement. Master
Theses. Utrecht University. Netherlands.
Nur Robiah Nofikusumawati Peni

Hiroshima University, 1-5-1 Kagamiyama, Higashihiroshima, Hiroshima, Japan
nofipeni@gmail.com

Reaburn, Oates, Dharmadasa, Brideson 239
RELATING FLEXIBILITY IN CONCEPT IMAGE AND

UNDERSTANDING OF LIMITS AND DERIVATIVES
Robyn Reaburn, University of Tasmania, Australia
Greg Oates, University of Tasmania, Australia
Kumudini Dharmadasa, University of Tasmania, Australia
Michael Brideson, University of Tasmania, Australia
Introduction
Mathematics educators accept that if students demonstrate procedural knowledge - how to
get to an answer in mathematics - it does not necessarily imply that these students
understand why the procedure works (e.g. Tall, 1992; Rittle-Johnson & Alibali, 1999;
Hiebert, 2013). In contrast, if students have conceptual knowledge, we consider they do
understand these principles. Conceptual knowledge can be described as “Explicit or implicit
understanding of the principles that govern a domain and of the interrelations between
pieces of knowledge in a domain” (Rittle-Johnson & Alibali, 1999, p. 175). One of the ways
that students demonstrate conceptual knowledge is by procedural flexibility, where students
have “knowledge of multiple ways to solve problems and when to solve them”
(Rittle-Johnson & Star, 2007). Tall and Vinner (1981) defined conceptual understanding of
the necessary procedures as the concept image, the “total cognitive structure that is
associated with the concept” including “all the mental pictures and associated properties and
processes” that are “built up over the years through experiences of all kinds, changing as the
individual meets new stimuli and matures” (p. 152).
This paper considers an example from a wider study investigating students’
understanding of limits and differentiation (Oates, Reaburn, Brideson & Dharmasada, 2017).
This study sought to more fully understand students’ understanding of asymptotes, limits,
differentiation and integration in the context of threshold concepts, originally proposed by
Meyer and Land (2003). Threshold concepts have very specific features; in that once
understood, threshold concepts lead the student to a “transformed way of understanding, or
interpreting, or viewing something without which the learner cannot progress” (Meyer &
Land, 2003, p. 1).
While Meyer and Land (2003) are not mathematicians, they hypothesise from their
observations of Tall’s (1992) work that limits exhibit potential as a threshold concept.
Certainly limits are commonly identified as troublesome, they may be counter-intuitive,
alien, or incoherent to the learner [9, p. 7].Thus our study sought to confirm this suggestion.
The limit is one of the fundamental ideas in calculus and is required for a good
understanding of both derivatives and integrals (Tall, 1992). The formal definition of the
limit is generally given as the “epsilon-delta” definition (see for example Thomas & Finney,
1996, p.70). For a limit to exist at a point in a function, the limit of the function approaching
this point from the right hand side (𝑥 → 𝑎+ ) must be equal to the limit approaching this
point from the left hand side (𝑥 → 𝑎− ). Limits can exist at a point where a function is
undefined or where there is a point discontinuity. While the definition can be learned by rote

240 Relating Flexibility in Concept Image and Understanding of Limits and Derivatives
and used to prove that limits exist, it can be difficult for students to grasp an intuitive
understanding of this definition (Cornu, 1991; Tall, 1992).
The derivative of a function (often known as first principles) is usually defined by the
following limit:
𝑓(𝑥 + 𝑐) − 𝑓(𝑥)
𝑓 ′ (𝑥) = lim
ℎ→0 𝑥+𝑐
This process gives an equation which can be used to find the value of the gradient of the
tangent line at any x-value where the function is differentiable. Functions are not
differentiable when they have holes, sharp points, or step discontinuities. All differentiable
functions are continuous but not all continuous functions are differentiable.
In this paper we consider the responses of three students who volunteered for an
interview following the survey conducted in the wider study by Oates et al. (2017). Students
were asked questions about the graphs of functions as shown in Figure 1. We describe how
students tended to use one of two forms of reasoning when discussing these functions:
imagining tangents; and imagining whether or not the left-hand and right-hand limits agree.
We contend that for a greater understanding, and to minimise errors, students need to be
flexible in linking three concepts together: tangents, the agreement of left-hand and
right-hand limits, and continuity.
Methods
Selection of participants
This research took place at an Australian University. Students in a first year calculus course
in the School of Physical Sciences were sent emails with information about the study and a
link to an anonymous online survey. Out of the total number of students (n = 270), 14
complete surveys were received (5.1%), a notably low response rate which may be due to
the fact that because two of the researchers were lecturers of the first-year calculus courses,
ethical considerations prevented more than minimal promotion of the project by these
lecturers. However, given that the study was largely exploratory in nature, the low response
rate was not seen as unduly affecting the extent of our findings, for which we are not
claiming generalizability.
The survey asked the students for their age, gender and to identify the level of their
last mathematics studies. The students were then asked a series of 16 questions about the
nature of asymptotes, limits and derivatives in a variety of contexts. The questions were
built around examples identified in the literature, for example Tall (1992) and Reaburn
(2016). Responses to the survey questions were reported in Oates et al. (2017), and a full list
of the questions can be found there. This paper extends our findings by reporting on the
results of interviews that examined questions 13 and 14 in more depth (see Figure 1).
Following the anonymous survey, respondents were given an opportunity to volunteer
for an interview. Three students Anna, Bruce and Cathy (pseudonyms; two females, one
male) were randomly selected to be interviewed. To maintain anonymity, these interviews
were carried out by the researchers who were in another faculty to that of the students’

lecturers in the calculus course. These interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed. The
respondents were provided the transcripts for checking prior to any analysis and were also
given the opportunity to read the conclusions we drew from their responses.
The tasks
The participants were asked to examine five graphs and state whether or not (1) limits could
be found for all values of x, and (2) the graphs were differentiable for all values of x. These
graphs are illustrated in Figure 1. Graph D did not include the portion on the y-axis and it
was left to the students to talk about the situation if both y-intercepts were included.
Figure 1. The graphs for the task (Q 13 and 14 in the survey)

Results
All the students were first taken through each graph for them to explain their reasoning
about whether or not the functions had limits for all x-values, and then again to explain their
reasoning about differentiability.
Function A
All three students were confident that Function A has a limit and is differentiable for all
values of x. Their reasoning cited continuity (all), the lack of “sharp points” (Bruce,
therefore showing his awareness that not all continuous functions are differentiable.), and
left-and right-consistency (Cathy). In addition, Cathy referenced the formal definition for
differentiation, when she stated:
I can think of doing this from sort of first principles kind of thing…I can work out the gradient
at any point along here…I’m picturing in my head, um, a secant, which as I narrow the, um, the
distance between x and x plus H, then in other words, as H approaches zero, that’s I’m getting,
I’m getting closer to getting the gradient at an individual point…If it’s differentiable that means
I can find the gradient, and clearly I can find the gradient at any point here.
Function B
Again, all three students were confident the limit did not exist at x = 0 because the left hand
and right hand limits did not agree. However, there reasoning with respect to differentiation
was less clear. Bruce correctly suggested that the function was not differentiable because it
is undefined at x=0, but while Anna and Cathy agreed, and correctly linked their reasoning
to the gradient, their language and reasoning was somewhat vague, for instance Anna stated
that “you can’t find the gradient…which is what the differentiating is doing.”
Function C
All three were confused about the sharp point, with difficulty distinguishing between limits
and differentiability. Anna was initially confident the limit exists for all values of x because
the right hand and left hand limits agree “even at the sharp corner”, but then questioned this
when she considered differentiability, stating that “the function does not exist” there, hence
it’s not differentiable? Bruce initially said the limit does not exist at the sharp point because
there is “a discontinuity” here, but then went on to say that he was not sure, and was even
slower to respond for differentiation:
C is differentiable except for that little corner bit, um, because [pause] I feel like there’s two
answers for this…picture answer is that you couldn’t, you can’t draw a tangent line on that bit,
cause like [pause] F dash.
Cathy was even more equivocal, stating that:
At this point here [indicating the sharp point]…as we are approaching from the left, it is going
to be, would be the value, that the um, that the horizontal line is on the left, but if I come from
the right, we are coming down on the other slope… yeah, I think there is a limit…it depends on
what side you are coming from. Oh no, [pause] it’s still going to be the one value, it is still the
one point [pause]. See what is running through my mind is that I can’t differentiate at that

point…you can say that this kink is, is that X equals 2 and Y equals 3, now does that mean that
um, the limit as x approaches 2 is equal to 3, I want to say yes, but it’s not that differentiable so
I am not sure.
When asked about differentiability she stated:
I could have any line, well, not any, but I could have um, infinite tangents to that kink vertex, so
that means that there isn’t one set gradient or tangent at that point which is the meaning of
differentiable.
Function D
This function proved problematic. Both Anna and Bruce exhibited some confusion over the
x- and y-values with respect to their reasoning. For limits, Anna seemed to believe the limit
did not exist because it was discontinuous, but that there might still be a derivative when she
states: However, she seemed to think that the derivative might exist because the gradient
was zero from both sides when she said:
The gradient is zero across this line here, derivative of zero, these lines here…the function,
takes up two points at the value x=0, on Y-axis, so I’m not sure what that means for the
differentiability of the function…even if it takes up that value at both points, and they’re both
zero regardless and they’re equal, but I’m not sure if you could say that.
Bruce was unsure if the limit is an x-value or a y-value, but then changed his reasoning with
respect to differentiability:
It doesn’t matter there is a break there because, um, from both sides, x still goes to zero. Wait.
[Pause]. Yeah, x still goes to zero from both sides so it doesn’t matter whether x is defined at
that point.”
So it’s not differentiable there (at the Y-axis) because it doesn’t, um [pause] the left and right
limits [pause] won’t agree [pause] wait [pause] I’m getting confused about that [prolonged
pause] I can’t differentiate, but yeah, that’s it. Not differentiable at x equals zero.
Cathy’s thinking about the limit seemed sophisticated. She correctly reasoned that it did not
exist because the right hand and left hand limit did not agree at x=0., stating that “If you get
a different limit depending on what side you are coming from, I think that means that there
isn’t a limit, but you can say that the limit from one side exists.” However, she again
reverted to confused reasoning using tangents for differentiation, saying “What I am
thinking is, okay, um, at the very end of the line, you can sort of rotate the tangent at any,
you can pick any tangent around there, so it’s, which means that it’s not differentiable.”
Function E
All three were much more confident about Function E: all correctly stated that the limit did
exist at the discontinuity because the left- and right-hand limits agree, while it was not
differentiable at that point because it was discontinuous (note Cathy did not consider
differentiability because time ran out in the interview). However Bruce’s language and

reasoning were a little imprecise, and it wasn’t clear he really understood when he cited
“tangents” with respect to the discontinuity:
That’s got the little break there [indicating the hole], and I think that little break doesn’t matter,
the limit still goes to the same point [pause] on both sides.”
“I guess it’s like, it’s just like, it doesn’t exist there so if you can’t have a tangent there [pause]
you can have a tangent for the rest of it.”
Discussion
Anna and Cathy both exhibited elements of procedural thinking with respect to
differentiation, in their application of the gradient of the tangent line to explain their
reasoning. For Function D, this led Anna to reason that maybe the function was
differentiable at x = 0, because the gradient on each side was zero. Cathy’s reasoning was
confident for the earlier functions, even describing the use of the limit in differentiating
from first principles for Function A suggesting she had a clear concept definition at this
point. However, she then had difficulty in separating the ideas of the limit and
differentiability in the function with the sharp point. For Function D she attempted to reason
from the idea of finding a tangent line, but did not apply this reasoning to Function C.
While all three students seemed to recognize the significance of continuity, they
struggled with their understanding of this concept. Anna reasoned from the perspective of
whether or not a function was defined at a certain points, but was unsure how this related to
the function with the sharp point. Bruce and Cathy both suggested that Function C is
discontinuous at the sharp point, confusing limits and differentiation to explain that the limit
does not exist at this point. Bruce also became confused about whether the limit was an
x-value or a y-value in Function D, although he appears to have this correct when he
addresses the problem of differentiability.
Each student demonstrated a range of sometimes conflicting models and approaches to
limits in agreement with literature (e.g. Williams, 1991; Bezuidenhout, 2001; Oehrtman,
2009). However, while their reasoning sometimes seemed correct, the evidence suggests all
three students had limited flexibility in their conceptualization, struggling to visualise the
problem from another perspective when the reasoning used successfully in another function
failed to work in another. This suggests they had ill-formed procedural flexibility
(Rittle-Johnson & Star, 2007), relying on discrete procedures such as calculating gradients.
It further implies limitations in their reasoning, for example with Anna’s use of tangents in
Function D (Oehrtman, 2009). While Cathy showed a range of approaches and at times
sophisticated reasoning, she lacked the flexibility to link these together when her thinking
became confused. In this respect, it seems she has a well-formed concept definition but an
ill-formed concept image (Tall & Vinner, 1981).
In summary, we highlight the following observations from this study, which add to our
previous findings (Oates et al, 2017) and reinforce the consideration of limits as threshold
concepts (Meyer & Land, 2003):
 No student used the formal definition of a limit, instead they appeared to use the
moving concept of a limit (Tall, 1992) which broke down for Function D. This

suggests evidence of an ill-formed concept image, and a reliance on procedural

thinking;
 One student attempted to used reasoning that applied to differentiation from first
principles for a simple quadratic; but she could not extend this her reasoning later on
with a piecewise function;
 The students all used the idea of whether or not a tangent line might exist, but none
stated that the derivative gave a formula for finding the gradient of a tangent, nor did
they extend this idea to places where it might have helped them, or became confused.
Often, they referred to ‘tangents’ and ‘gradients’ in an interchangeable way, and their
language lacked precision. Generally, it seems their approach here was overly
procedural, but this is not clear and needs further investigation;
 All students showed confusion about whether or not a function was continuous, and
none went to the definition, or even the idea that they could draw the function
without lifting their pen off the paper in such cases;
 While students displayed a number of different reasoning approaches at times, they
tended not to try and use more than one type of reasoning, when some flexibility in
applying more than one sort of reasoning could have helped.
Concluding Remarks
This study has confirmed the findings in the literature with respect to the multiple,
sometimes confused conceptualisations students can hold with respect to limits,
differentiation and continuity (e.g. Tall, 1992; Bezuidenhout, 2001; Oehrtman, 2009). In
addition, we have shown that even while students may possess some quite well-formed
concepts and individually correct procedures, they need considerable help linking these
together to develop procedural flexibility. This evidence adds further support to the
understanding of limits as a threshold concept, a possibility first suggested by Meyer and
Land (2003) and strengthened in Oates et al. (2017). Thus we recommend that students be
given multiple opportunities to view functions with different properties, which should in
turn require different approaches. We encourage lecturers to give students difficult
examples that may cause conflicts in their thinking, and more importantly get them to write
about these observations, and discuss their ideas in class. While the lecturer and the notes in
this course both use precise language, it is clear this does not always extend to the students
and thus discussing and writing about it should help reveal conflicts and develop flexibility.
References
Bezuidenhout, J. (2001). Limits and continuity: some conceptions of first-year students.
International Journal of Mathematical Education in Science and Technology, 32(4),
487-500.
Cornu, B. (1991). Limits. In D. Tall (ed.), Advanced mathematical thinking (pp. 153-166).
Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Davis, R., & Vinner, S. (1986). The notion of limit: Some seemingly unavoidable
misconception stages. Journal of Mathematical Behaviour, 5, 281-303.

Hiebert, J. (Ed.). (2013). Conceptual and procedural knowledge: The case of mathematics.
Routledge.
Meyer, J., & Land, R. (2003). Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge: Linkages to
ways of thinking and practising within the disciplines. In C. Rust (ed.), Improving students
learning – Ten years on. Oxford: OCSLD.
Oates, G., Reaburn, R., Brideson, M., & Dharmasada, K. (2017). Understanding of limits and
differentiation as threshold concepts in a first-year mathematics course. In Proceedings of
Brazil Delta ʼ17, The Eleventh Southern Hemisphere Conference on the Teaching and
Learning of Undergraduate Mathematics and Statistics,26 November - 1 December 2017,
Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil: Delta.
Oehrtman, M. (2009). Collapsing dimensions, physical limitation, and other student
metaphors for limit concepts. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 396-426.
Reaburn, R. (2016). Calculus. In G. Hine, R. Reaburn, J. Anderson, L. Galligan, C.
Carmichael, M. Cavanagh, B. Ngu & B. White, Teaching Secondary Mathematics (pp.
355-389). Cambridge University Press: Melbourne, Australia.
Rittle-Johnson, B., & Alibali, M. W. (1999). Conceptual and procedural knowledge of
mathematics: Does one lead to the other?. Journal of educational psychology, 91(1),
175-189.
Rittle-Johnson, B., & Star, J. R. (2007). Does comparing solution methods facilitate
conceptual and procedural knowledge? An experimental study on learning to solve
equations. Journal of Educational Psychology, 99(3), 561-574.
Tall, D. (1992). The transition to advanced mathematical thinking: Functions, limits, infinity,
and proof. In D. Grouws (ed.), Handbook of research on mathematics teaching and
learning (pp. 495-511). New York: MacMillan.
Tall, D., & Vinner, S. (1981). Concept image and concept definition in mathematics with
particular reference to limits and continuity. Educational studies in mathematics, 12(2),
151-169.
Thomas, G., & Finney, R.(1996). Calculus and analytical geometry. New York:
Addison-Wesley Publishing Company.
___________________
Robyn Reaburn
University of Tasmania
School of Education
Box 1307 Launceston
Tasmania
Australia, 7249
Robyn.Reaburn@utas.edu.au
Greg Oates
University of Tasmania

School of Education
Private Bag 1307, Launceston
Tasmania
Australia, 7249
Greg.Oates@utas.edu.au
Kumudini Dharmadasa
Private Bag 37, Hobart
Tasmania
Australia, 7001
Kumudini@utas.edu.au
Michael Brideson
Private Bag 37, Hobart
Tasmania
Australia, 7001
Michael.Brideson@utas.edu.au

248 Impact of Education Reform into Mathematics Education in Cambodia since 2014
IMPACT OF EDUCATION REFORM INTO MATHEMATICS

EDUCATION IN CAMBODIA SINCE 2014
Chan Roath, Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport, Cambodia
Abstract.
In the past two decades, globalization of all fields, especially economics, science,
technology and politics have brought the world to an unprecedented stage of competition
and collaboration. In order to fully engage in a globalized economy, Cambodia needs to
realize our millennium development goals for sustainable development.
These goals call for deep reform of the education sector to develop human resources
embodying the knowledge, skills, attitudes and physical balance necessary for success in
other sectors of the economy.
Cambodia has the goal of developing its economy from a low-income to medium-high
income country by 2030 and a developed country by 2050. To realize this vision, the Royal
Government of Cambodia has to ensure reforms of all sectors, especially health, agriculture,
industry and tourism. The Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport has defined its priority
plan of reforms, especially teacher education and curriculum framework of general and
technical education in order to ensure qualified human resources to serve the all sectors of
the society.
The results from the study on effectiveness and the results of the national examination of
upper secondary schools in 2014 indicated that the quality of general education today is low.
Functional literacy of students is limited even though they have competed primary
education level or lower secondary education level.
Many factors impact the quality of education but curriculum is especially important because
it guides instruction.
This reform effort seek to develop new documents based on current research evidence and
comprehensive consultation, focusing on subjects and sub-subjects and by grade level in
order to ensure effectiveness of teaching and learning and relevance with daily lives.
In order to be successful in a globalized economy, learners need to move beyond knowledge
and comprehension to the higher order skills of application, analysis, synthesis and
evaluation.
Key words: Education reform, curriculum framework, higher order skill, general education,
daily lives.

Roble, Luna 249
WHICH ASSESSMENT MATTERS? THE IMPACT OF

FORMATIVE ASSESSMENTS ON STUDENTS’ SUMMATIVE
ASSESSMENT PERFORMANCE IN INTEGRAL CALCULUS
Dennis B. Roble, University of Science and Technology of Southern Philippines,
Philippines
Charita A. Luna, University of Science and Technology of Southern Philippines,
Philippines
Introduction
Learning Is An Outcome Of Instruction. However, Instruction Need Assessment To
Determine Its Effectiveness. Researches Have Shown That Formative Assessment Can
Improve Students’ Learning More Than Most Instructional Practices (Hattie, 2012).
Empirical Evidence Also Revealed That Implementation Of Well-Crafted Formative
Assessment Increase Students’ Scores, Narrow Achievement Gaps Between Low Achieving
Students And Others (Black & William, 1998). But Which Formative Assessment Can Best
Impact Summative Assessments?
Inevitably, Formative Assessment Is Associated With Summative Assessment
(Fernandes, 2017), Since Formative Assessment Have Important Purposes If Taken On
Regular Basis. It Gathers Information About Students’ Assimilation Of Concepts Discussed
In Class, Provide Important Feedback About Students’ Understanding, Guides Teachers For
Future Instructional Innovation For Higher Mathematical Thinking And Measures Students’
Achievement. In Addition, The Long Term Effect Of Formative Assessment Evidence In
The Summative Assessment Are Used By The School System At The End Of The School
Year For Students’ Promotion. Moreover, When Students Seek Admission In Universities,
They Are Subjected With Assessments To Determine Their Capability For University
Mental Rigors. Fortunately, The Ideas And Concepts That Are Left In The Students’ Minds
Are The Long-Term Effect Of The Instruction Which Made Them Ready For Any
High-Stake Examination (Johnson & Kiviniemi, 2009).
Formative Assessments As Used By Teachers Come In Many Forms During Instruction To
Gauge Their Students’ Learning Against Learning Objectives (Clark, 2013). The Purpose Is
To Refine Instruction Based On Feedback (Cauley & Mcmillan, 2010). It Is Also Function
As Indicator Of Students’ Progress To Address Intervention And Reform For Higher
Performance. To Reach A Higher Performance In Mathematics, Some Scaffoldings Need
To Be Done Through Formative Assessment. These Scaffoldings Are Daily Time-Pressured
Quiz, Homework And Portfolio Which Are Often Used By Classroom Teachers At Present.
Daily Time-Pressured Quiz

250 Which Assessment Matters? The Impact of Formative Assessments on Students’ Summative Assessment
Performance in Integral Calculus
Daily Time-Pressured Quiz As One Of The Formative Assessment Used By Teachers Goes
Beyond Evaluating Students’ Learning And Daily Feedback For Improvement Of
Instruction But It Is Also Used To Hone Students For Future National And International
Assessments. It Is A Fact That All Government Examination Like Board Examination,
Entrance To A University, Scholarship And Others Are Under Time Pressure, And
Examinee Needs Focus, Concentration, And Familiarity. Siadat, (2010) Believed That Fluid
Intelligence Which Is Needed In Any Examination Can Be Acquired Through Training.
Fluid Intelligence Is An Ability Of A Person To Possess Flexibility And Fluency In The
Use Of All His Stored Knowledge, Ability And Skills With Ease In Any Situation And
Circumstances. He Further Said That Battery Of Daily Time-Pressured Quiz Can Develop
Mind Focus And Concentration Which Are Important For Problem Solving, Critical
Thinking, Creativity, Connection And Relationship Of Ideas. If The Mind Is Simulated To
Take Time-Pressured Daily Quiz, The Students’ Mind Is Conditioned To Focus And
Concentrate To Analyse The Tasks At Hand Similar To (Thorndike, 1898) Classical
Conditioning Theory. This Daily Time-Pressured Quiz Is One Of The Scaffolding That
Help Support The Students’ Preparation For High Stake Examination In The Future For
Higher Achievement.
In Addition, Daily Time-Pressured Quiz Gives More Benefit To Students Because It
Develops A Habit Of Studying Lessons Every Day To Prepare For The Test, Improve
Attendance To Participate The Quiz And Help Retain The Concepts Studied For Longer
Period Of Time (Chump, Burler, & Alex, 2003, Johnson, Kiviniemi, 2009, Zarie, 2008)
Portfolio Assessment
Portfolio Is Another Formative Assessment Considered By Most Educators As An
Alternative Assessment. It Comes In Many Forms But In This Study, It Focused On
Content Mathematics Portfolio Design To Demonstrate Mastery Of Essential Skills, Explain
Procedures And Communicate Conceptual Understanding (Fukawa, Connelly Et.Al, 2010).
The Goal Is For The Teacher To See How Students’ Thinking In Integral Calculus Have
Illustrated The Connections Of Concepts And Theories In Solving Problem And Exercises,
So That Students Can View Themselves As Mathematicians (Slenmark, 1994. P. 37).
Open-Ended Problems Are Their Tasks In The Portfolio To Be Solved By Groups For
Brighter Students In Their Group To Help The Slower Ones And Avail The Expertise Of
Consultant As Contended By Vygotsky (1978) Zone Of Proximal Development (ZPD) For
Better Assimilation, Connection And Understanding Of Concepts. Furthermore, Midkiff
And Thomasson (1993) Said That Portfolio Assessment Can Evaluate Both Product And
Process Which Can Be Seen In Students’ Written Work, Since Solution Required Reason
And Justification By Writing The Theorems And Rules Used Appropriately. Also, Portfolio
Encourage Students To Be Responsible Of Their Own Learning Which Motivates Them To
Develop Skill For Life-Long Learning.
Homework
Homework Is Always Given By The Teachers After Instruction For Reinforcement. It Is A
Task Outside Of Classroom Expected To Be Done At Home But Students Prefer To Do It

Roble, Luna 251
In School To Solicit Help From Their Classmates (Cooper, Et.Al, 2006). There Is Positive
Correlation Of Homework And Achievement (Walberg, 1991) That Is Why Many Teachers
Used This Scaffolding To Help Students Assimilate Concept And Process. From
Homework Score, Teachers Can Gauge How Far The Student Understand The Topics
Discussed Although They Asked The Help Of Classmate. Homework Is Handwritten,
Hence Their Minds Are At Work While Doing The Tasks. The Task Allow Students To
Simulate All The Theories Appropriate In The Topics As Well As The Processes To Come
Up To A Product.
Methods
This Study Is Descriptive Which Was Done For 9 Weeks With A Total Of 45 Hours Actual
Instructional Period. The Participants Of The Study Composed 32 Students Of One Section
Of Electronic Communication Engineering (ECE) Taking Up Integral Calculus In School
Year 2016-2017. These Students Were Expected To Take The Board Examination
Conducted By The Professional Regulatory Commission (PRC) After Graduation.
The Mathematics Teacher Of This Class Gave Lecture With A Daily Time-Pressured
Quiz And A Daily Homework. The Portfolio Was Given Once A Week For Nine (9) Weeks.
The Portfolio Was Done By Groups With Leaders. Each Group Leader Were Called By The
Teacher To Check Their Individual Portfolio With A Discussion How To Give Points In
The Rubrics. The Leader Took Leadership In Checking The Portfolio Of Each Member.
When Some Students Have Different Solution But With Correct Answer, The Leader
Consulted The Teacher How To Give Points Using The Rubric. Varied Solutions Are
Encouraged To Develop Creativity Provided No Violation Of Mathematical Rule Were
Committed. A Week Later After Nine (9) Weeks, The Students Were Given The
Departmental Final Examination. The Total Daily Time-Pressured Quiz, Homework, And
Portfolio Scores Were Considered The Formative Assessment While The Final
Departmental Examination Score Is The Summative Assessment.
These Data Collected Were Also Used As Bases Of Students’ Grade For The
Promotion. The Same Data Were Used To Determine Which Formative Assessment Has
The Best Impact On The Students’ Summative Assessment Which Is The Departmental
Examination In Integral Calculus. This Data Collected Was Analyzed Using Mean,
Standard Deviation, And Pearson Product Measurement Correlation And Regression
Analysis.
Results And Discussion

The Results Of The Analysis Of The Data Collected Are Shown In The Following Tables:
Table 1. Mean And Standard Deviation (SD) In Terms Of Scores
Variables Perfect Score Mean Standard Deviation

Daily Time-Pressured Quiz 215

135.81 31.73
(63%)
Homework 167 161.42 3.42
(96.6%)
Portfolio 339 337.29 1.72
(99.7%)
Final Departmental Examination 140 66.84 22.64
(66.2%)
__________________________________________________________________________
______
Table 1 Shows That The Students Mean Score In The Daily Time-Pressured Quiz Is Only
63% Of The Total Points Of 215 Which Reveal That On The Average No One Have Passed
The University Standard Of 70% Passing Percentage. The Highest Score Is 196 And The
Lowest Score Is 82. This Results Shows That If The Basis For Students Grades Is Only The
Short Quizzes, Midterm And Final Examination, Very Few Of The ECE Students Will Pass
The Course. Furthermore, The Standard Deviation Is Very Large Which Means That The
Scores Of The Students Are Widely Dispersed And The Students Are Heterogeneous.
The Same Table Shows The Mean Of Students’ Homework Which Were Scored Using
Rubrics. The Mean Is 96.6% Of The Total Points Of 167. Their Scores Are High Because
They Have Solicited Help From Their Classmates. The Standard Deviation Is 3.42 Which Is
Less Dispersed. The Scores Are More Close To Each Other. The Table Further Show The
Portfolio Assessment Mean Score Which Is 99.7% Of The Total Points 339. The Rubric Of
Each Item Vary. Shorter Solutions Have Lesser Points And Difficult Problems Earned
Bigger Points. This Means That Many Students Did Their Tasks And Have Tried Their Best.
The Standard Deviation Is Very Small Which Means That The Students Were
Homogeneous Because Their Scores Are Very Close To Each Other.
However From The Same Table, The Final Examination Total Points Of 110 And The
Mean Is Only 66.2%, A Little Higher In Percentage Than The Time-Pressured Quizzes
Scores. This Means That The Students’ Ability Have Improved But Still Short Of The
University Standard Of 70%. Although, There Are Two Students Who Got Perfect But
Many Are Below The Mean. The Standard Deviation Of 22.64 Which Revealed That The
Students’ Scores In The Final Departmental Examination Is Widely Dispersed.
To Determine Which Among The Formative Assessments Have The Best Impact On
The Students Departmental Examination, Further Analysis Was Done.
Table 2. Table 2. Relationship Between Students’ Scores In The Formative Test And Final
Examination Performance
Variables Pearson (R) Value P-Value Conclusion

Daily Time-Pressured Quiz 0.626 0.000* Significant
Homework -0.078 0.676 Not Significant
Portfolio 0.272 0.138 Not Significant

Roble, Luna 253
__________________________________________________________________________
______
*Significant At P<0.05 Alpha Level
Table 2 Shows The Relationship Between The Students’ Scores In The Formative
Assessments And The Final Departmental Examination Performance. The Daily
Time-Pressured Quizzes Has A Highest Correlation Of 0.626 With The Departmental Final
Examination Which Is Considered As The Summative Assessment Followed By The
Portfolio Assessment And The Last Is The Homework. The Portfolio Assessment Might
Have Been The Next Higher Correlation Because The Tasks Given To Students Were To
Give Reason Why They Used The Theory In Answering The Open-Ended Questions And It
Allowed Them To Communicate In Written Form. The Homework Negatively Correlate
With Summative Test Because Most Of The Students Got High Scores In Homework But
Low Score In The Summative Test. Their Homework Might Have Been Just Copied From
Their Classmates Without Deeper Thinking And They Did It For Compliance. In Addition,
The Nature Of Doing Their Homework Is Procedural Although It Was Done Handwritten.
Furthermore, Among The Three Formative Assessments, The Daily Time-Pressured

Quiz Showed Significant Relationship As Indicated By The P-Value Of 0.000. This Implies
That Daily Time-Pressured Quiz Possess A Strong Association On The Students Summative
Assessment Performance Which Means That Strong Performance In The Quiz Would
Indicate Good Score In The Final Departmental Examination. Therefore, Students’ Need To
Perform Well In The Daily Time-Pressured Quiz As Compared To Homework And
Portfolio Which Showed No Significant Relationship.
Table 3. Regression Analysis Of The Formative Assessments And The Departmental Final
Examination As The Summative Assessment
Predictors Coefficient SD T-Value P-Value
Constant -228.1 656.2 -5.11 0.277

Daily Time-Pressured Quiz 0.4588 0.1018 4.51 0.0001*
Homework -1.1924 0.9436 -1.26 0.217
Portfolio 2.743 1.855 1.48 0.151
__________________________________________________________________________
_____
S= 17.31 R-Squared = 47.4% R-Square Adj. = 41.5%
*Significant At P<0.05 Alpha Level
Table 3 Shows The Result Of The Regression Analysis Of The Three Formative
Assessments On The Final Departmental Examination As The Summative Assessment. The
Analysis Yielded A T-Value Of 4.51 With A Probability Value Of 0.0001 Which Means
That The Daily Time-Pressured Quiz Is The Best Predictor Among The Three Formative
Assessments. This Implies That When The Mind Has Experienced Simulation Through
Many Activities With Deeper Thinking And Persistence It Hones Their Thoughts To Focus

And Concentrate That Yields A Better Retention Of Ideas. This Results Confirmed Siadat
(2010) Belief That Fluid Intelligence Can Be Acquired Through Training.
The Table Further Revealed That The Portfolio Assessment Has Partly Contributed
41.5% To The Summative Assessment But It Failed To Reach The Significant Level. This
Contribution Is Possible Since Portfolio Demonstrates Essential Skills, Explain Procedure
And Communicate Conceptual Understanding Which Strengthens Retention As Contended
By Fukawa (2010). This Result Confirmed Also Chump Et Al. (2003) That The Students
Who Have Experienced Daily Quizzes Developed A Habit Of Studying Every Day And
Help Retain Concepts For Longer Period Of Time.
Conclusions And Recommendations

Based On The Results Of The Analysis And Findings, The Researchers Concluded That
Daily Time-Pressured Quizzes Have The Best Impact On Students’ Summative Assessment
In Integral Calculus. Although, Homework And Portfolio Are Important Classroom
Reinforcement Activities In The Learning Of Mathematical Concepts, Students Need To
Perform Well In The Daily Time-Pressured Quizzes To Excel In The Summative
Assessment. The Researchers Recommend That Teachers May Use Daily Time-Pressured
Quizzes In Their Classes Because It Enhances Students Summative Assessment Scores,
Encourages Students To Attend Classes Every Meeting, Study Their Lesson Every Day And
Prepare Students For High Stake Examinations. This Study May Be Replicated By Future
Researchers By Adding More Sections Not Only Those Taking Board Examinations After
Graduation. They May Add More Formative Assessment Activities In Comparison To
Daily Time-Pressured Quizzes And Try This Out Also To Senior High Schools Offering
Science, Technology, Engineering And Mathematics (STEM) Track.
References
Black, P., William, D. (1998). “Inside The Black Box”: Raising Standard Through Classroom
Assessment. Phi Delta Kappa 81 (2) 129-48
Cauley, K. And Mcmillan, J. (2010). Formative Assessment Techniques To Support Student
Motivation And Achievement. The Clearing House: A Journal Of Educational Strategies,
Issues And Ideas, 83 (1), 1-6.
Clark, I. (2012). Formative Assessment: Assessment Is For Self-Regulated Learning.
Educational Psychology Review, 24, 205 – 249.
Chump, M. A. Et Al. (2003). To Attend Or Not To Attend: Is That A Good Question? The
Internet TESOL Journal, 8(12). Retrieved March 12, 2010 From
Http://Findarticles.Com/P/Articles/Mi.
Copper, H. Et Al (2006). Does Homework Improve Academic Achievement? A Synthesis Of
Research, 1987 – 2003. Review Of Educational Research, 76 (1), 1-62.
Fernandes, A, Et. Al (2017). Assessing Students’ Understanding Excellent. Mathematics
Teaching In The Middle School.

Roble, Luna 255
Fukawa, Connelly, Et Al. (2010). Using Portfolio Assignments To Assess Students’

Mathematical
Thinking. Mathematics Teacher Vol. 103, No.9.
Hattie, J. (2012). Visible Learning For Teachers Maximizing Impact On Learning, New York
Routledge.
Johnson, B., Kiviniemi, M. (2009). The Effect Online Chapter Quizzes On Examination
Performance In An Undergraduate Social Psychology Course. Teach Psychology, 36 (1)
33-37.
Klenowski, V. (2000). Portfolios: Promoting Teaching. Assessment In Education, Police &
Practice,
7(2), 215-236.
Midkiff, R. B. & Thomasson, R.D. (1993). A Practical Approach To Using Learning Styles In
Mathematics Instruction. Springfield, IL: Thomas Books.
Siadat, V. M. (2010). Using Mathematics To Improve Fluid Intelligence. Notices, AMS.
Stenmark, J.K. (1994). Mathematics Assessment: Myths, Models, Good Questions, And
Practical
Suggestions. Eric Document Reproduction Service No. ED.345-943.
Thorndike, E. (1898). Animal Intelligence. An Experimental Study Of The Associative
Processes In An
Animal. Psychology Review Homograph.
Walberg, H. (1991). Does Homework Help? School Community Journal, 1 (1), 13-15.
Vygotsky, L.S. (1978). Mind In Society: Development Of Higher Psychological Processes, P.
86.
[Dennis B. Roble]
[University of Science and Technology of Southern Philippines, Lapasan Highway,
Cagayan de Oro City, Philippines]
[dennis_roble@ustp.edu.ph]
[Charita A. Luna]
[University of Science and Technology of Southern Philippines, Lapasan Highway,
Cagayan de Oro City, Philippines]
[charita_luna@yahoo.com]

256 Tailoring Instructional Materials to Students’ Contexts Using Contextual Mathematics Stories
TAILORING INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS TO STUDENTS’

CONTEXTS USING CONTEXTUAL MATHEMATICS STORIES
Cherel Marrie A. Romulo, M.S., Ateneo de Manila University, Philippines
Catherine P. Vistro-Yu, Ed. D., Ateneo de Manila University, Philippines
Introduction
The principle positing that learning occurs when students find meaning in the learning
materials they are using has challenged mathematics teachers to explore ways on how
mathematics instructional materials can be made more meaningful to students. In response
to this pursuit, it is essential to relate lessons and learning activities to the students’ contexts.
Several studies emphasize the need for contextualizing the teaching-learning process as well
as the instructional materials to make learning more engaging and meaningful to the
students (e.g. Vygotsky, 1978; Johnson, 2002). However, a bigger challenge in this
endeavor relates to how teachers could successfully integrate both the mathematics content
and students’ experiences and backgrounds, or contexts in general, in the learning materials
and lessons.
The “hows” of contextualizing the teaching-learning process and instructional materials,
however, is in the spotlight, given the debates and criticisms, perhaps because of the reality
that students possess vast personal, situational and conceptual contexts. This calls for
mathematics teachers to design mathematics instructional materials that are flexible enough
to cater to students’ rich and varied backgrounds. How can students’ contexts be integrated
into mathematics learning materials? A rational response to this question involves using
stories that embed students’ contexts in their details.
Contextual mathematics stories as instructional tools
A rich amount of literature and research studies on the integration of stories and storytelling
in mathematics instruction has recently gained attention in the field of mathematics
education. In particular, notable research results agree that stories can help in cultivating
students’ conceptual understanding of mathematical concepts to students (e.g. Austin,
Thompson & Beckman, and Bean, as cited in Koellner, Wallace & Swackhamer, 2009;
Balakrishnan, 2008; Triyani, Putri & Darmawijoyo, 2012 ), and integrating stories in
mathematics instruction creates opportunities for introducing new mathematical
vocabularies (Capraro & Capraro, 2006; Whitin & Wilde, as cited in Koellner, Wallace &
Swackhamer, 2009) and to “make connections among abstract concepts” (Whitin & Wilde,
as cited in Koellner, Wallace & Swackhamer, 2009, p.30). The power of stories to convey
ideas, whether in written or oral forms makes them a potential tool for contextualizing the
teaching and learning of mathematics.
Contextual mathematics story (CMS) refers to a narrative that incorporates in its details
(i.e. settings, characters, events, and dialogues) student’s contexts (e.g. experiences,
perceptions, family, community, culture) and some mathematics concepts. It is an

Romulo, Vistro-Yu 257
instructional material in which the introduction and exploration of mathematical concepts

are situated within the backgrounds of the student.
This study intended to support the teaching principle of contextualizing instructional
materials to make mathematics lessons more understandable and meaningful to students in
the Philippines. Specifically, this study investigated the impact of teaching mathematics
using two CMSs – stories that embed in their details combinatorics concepts and
predominant students’ contexts – on six Grade 9 students’ combinatorial thinking on the
concepts of tree diagrams, Fundamental Counting Principle (FCP), and combinations of n
objects taken r at a time without repetition.
Method
This study used the embedded mixed methods design that included two surveys in Phase I
and a case study in Phase II. In this research design, both the quantitative and qualitative
data were collected simultaneously (in Phase II), analyzed separately, and interpreted in
support of each other (Creswell, 2012).
Participants
Two groups of respondents were identified in this study, namely the cooperating
mathematics teacher, and the students from the three Grade 9 sections under her
mathematics classes.
The cooperating teacher has been teaching junior high school mathematics for five
years. She was conveniently chosen as the teacher-respondent for the study because of her
willingness to use storytelling in her mathematics classes, and for her competence in
teaching mathematics.
The student-respondents of the study were initially composed of 49 Grade 9 students
who belonged to the mathematics classes of the teacher-respondent. Six students were
purposefully chosen from this sample to participate in the six-day case study using defined
criteria.
Procedure
A preliminary demographic and beliefs survey was conducted three months prior to the
implementation of the study to an intact group of 10th grade students to gather data about
students’ contexts (i.e. students’ demographics, the type of socio-economic neighborhood of
the students, and students’ beliefs about when mathematics learning becomes interesting
and meaningful). The data gathered were used in determining the predominant contexts of
the students some of which were then incorporated in the CMSs.
An iteration of the preliminary survey was conducted on 49 Grade 9 students. From this
sample, six students were chosen to participate in the six-day case study using defined
criteria. The selection of the six case study students was purposefully done to match the
students’ contexts to the chosen contexts embedded in the CMSs. Table 1 shows the
distribution of the six case study students’ contexts that are relevant to the CMSs.

The case study was conducted and video-recorded for six consecutive days, with a
60-minute session per day on the average. The six students were taught the combinatorial
concepts by the cooperating teacher through storytelling using the CMSs on the first four
days of the case study. Storytelling guides were used to support the delivery of each CMS
such that the cooperating teacher was provided with scripted “pauses” to engage the
students in the flow of the story and the exploration of the mathematical contents in the
CMSs (e.g. the cooperating teacher solicits
Table 1. The case study subjects’ (N=6) demographic data and beliefs
Contexts Section Category Total
Honors Regular Special
(Sports)
Gender Male 1 1 0 2
Female 1 0 3 4
Mother Tongue* Cebuano 2 1 3 6
Maranao 0 1 0 1
Parents' Mother/father is/are
Occupations
vendor/s 1 1 2 4
construction worker/s 1 0 1 2
Type of The student lives in a neighborhood where
Neighborhood
majority of people are vendors 1 1 2 4
majority of people are construction 1 0 1 2
workers
Perception about Mathematics learning is interesting and meaningful when
meaningful
mathematics the lesson is related to my interests 1 0 3 4
learning** the lesson is related to my prior 2 1 3 6
experiences
the lesson is related to real-life 2 0 2 4
Notes: *One student has another mother tongue in addition to Cebuano.
**Students were asked to check or to leave unchecked each statement to show their agreement or disagreement,
respectively, to the indicated aspect of meaningful mathematics learning. The data shown are the frequencies of “agree”
responses.
interactive discussions from the students on how a certain problem in the story could be
solved, etc.). Non-participant observations were done by the first researcher for all
storytelling sessions using predefined observation forms.
Semi-structured individual interviews were conducted and video-recorded on the last
two days of the case study. The interviews aimed to clarify the conceptual understanding of

the students as shown in their worksheets and displayed in class as well as compare their
responses to the data gathered from the classroom observation.
Research instruments and their validation
The following research instruments were used in the study: a demographic and beliefs
survey, two researcher-written CMSs with storytelling guides, student worksheets for each
CMS, a coding scheme for analyzing the student worksheets, an interview questionnaire and
class observation forms. Review instruments were also used for the ethical consideration of
the study. All research instruments were expert-validated by a mathematics education expert
(and an English teacher for both CMSs) and were pilot-tested then revised prior to
conducting the study. The coding scheme was tested for its inter-rater reliability using
Cohen’s kappa (Zaiontz, 2015).
Contextual Mathematics Stories
The two CMSs were written following Zazkis and Liljedahl’s (2009) framework for shaping
stories and storytelling, the Realistic Mathematics Education (RME) curriculum approach,
and Lockwood’s (2013) Student’s Combinatorial Thinking Model.
The CMS 1 aimed for students to make sense of patterns shown in tree diagrams to
make conjectures about and discover the FCP. In the story, the main character, named
Sophia who was operating her family’s sari-sari1 store, needed to pack a set of
merchandise (i.e. a kilogram of rice, a sachet of coffee, a pack of biscuits, and a sachet of
sugar) that a returning customer would buy. Specifically, she encountered a counting
problem involving C(1,1) x C(2,1) x C(3,1) x C(4,1) . A discussion on how to make (or how
to structure, though the term “structure” was not explicitly mentioned) tree diagrams in
relation to the number of choices and the number of decisions to make in choosing a set of
objects was presented in CMS 1 as Sophia’s thoughts on how she could determine all
possible combinations of the goods2 desired. Sophia explored in the story how to make tree
diagrams consisted of rice and coffee (i.e. C(1,1) x C(2,1) problem), rice, coffee, and
biscuit (i.e. C(1,1) x C(2,1) x C(3,1) problem), and rice, coffee, biscuit, and sugar (i.e. C(1,1)
x C(2,1) x C(3,1) x C(4,1) problem). At the end of the story, Sophia explored two more
counting problems3 for the purpose of testing the conjectures she observed upon solving the
counting problem about merchandise, and for reinventing the FCP.
The CMS 2 was about finding the different combinations of n objects taken r at a time
without repetition. The setting was in a construction site (and shifted to a school setting in
the later part of the story) where the main character, named Ben, was helping his father,
who was a construction worker, in creating a list of groups of workers with two
mason-carpenters and two laborers, given three mason-carpenters and four laborers to
choose from (i.e. C(3,2) x C(4,2)) as requested by a foreman to submit. The plot of CMS 2
revolved around how Ben had reinvented the concept of combinations (based on the
concepts of tree diagrams and FCP) and the procedures on how to use them in solving
counting problems with the help of a classmate named Sophia (the same character and
persona in CMS 1). A combination problem about different ice cream flavors involving
C(5,3) was explored in CMS 2 to introduce the concept of combination as selection of

objects where arrangement is not important. In the later part of the story, Ben and Sophia
explored two more combination problems (i.e. C(8,5) female dancers to lead in the Saludo4
formation, and C(5,3) x C(3,2) ice cream with toppings) before they proceeded to solving
the construction workers problem.
Students’ selected contexts gathered from the survey were embedded in both CMS 1
and CMS 2. The literary details (i.e. setting, characters, events, language) of both stories
were carefully tailored to relate to the backgrounds of the students. Both stories were
written using two languages; the narrations were in English while the dialogues of the
characters were in Cebuano, the mother tongue of the students. The settings of both stories
were also carefully described to reflect the socio-economic neighborhoods of the students.
For CMS 1, the story was set in a sari-sari store to reflect the neighborhood of vendors
where some of the students live. The introductory setting of CMS 2, on the other hand,
reflected the neighborhood of construction workers, where a few of the students live.
Moreover, students’ beliefs that mathematics learning becomes meaningful and interesting
when the lesson is related to their experiences and real-life situations were embedded in the
plot of the story by presenting real-life mathematical problems and realistic experiences (e.g.
determining different groups of merchandise for CMS 1; and determining different
combinations of ice cream flavors or construction workers, and selection of students to lead
the Saludo formation for CMS 2) that were grounded on the students’ realistic contexts5
that they can possibly experience in their daily lives.
Triangulated Results6 and Discussions
The authors chose to present in this paper the triangulated results of the case study to
capture the salient results of both the quantitative and qualitative data succinctly. The
triangulation of students’ answers in their worksheets, interview transcripts, and class
observations showed the following findings.
Tree diagrams as tools or strategies for generating sets of outcomes
One of the most common thinking patterns the students showed was using tree diagrams as
counting tools or a strategy used to generate an enumeration of a complete and correct set of
outcomes of a given permutation or combination problem. The following interview excerpt
with SF17 shows this understanding correctly about tree diagrams:
Problem: Given that there are three brands of biscuits (Magic Flakes, Skyflakes, Fita), continue
the tree diagram that Sophia had initially made.
SF1: For example, rice, we have to connect here, the different choices of goods. It’s like
connecting the choices so that we can create these. [Pointing to the list of the set of outcomes
beside the tree diagram shown in Fig. 1]

Figure 1. SF1’s correct tree diagram showing sets of outcomes of different combinations of goods
composed of rice, a sachet of coffee, and a pack of biscuits
Tree diagrams as verification tools for the solution of counting problems

The six students have developed an understanding of tree diagrams as verification tools for
the solution of counting problems. An interview excerpt with SF1 below explicitly showed
this thinking to answer a combination problem correctly.
Problem: What are the different distinct possibilities to choose a group of 2 mason-carpenters
and 2 laborers, when there are 3 mason-carpenters (Nilo, Pablo, Juan) and 4 laborers (Pedro, Jose,
Mark, Jun) to choose from? Enumerate the list of all possible groups.
Interviewer: After that solution, what else did you do?
SF1: I was wondering if I would also get 18 if I’d make a tree diagram.
⁞ [more dialogue]
Interviewer: So in checking using a tree diagram, you got 18?
SF1: Yes, 18. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. [Counting the list of sets of outcomes
formed in her tree diagram]
Tree diagrams as structured based on the number of decisions to be made and the number
of choices per decision
Procedural and structural understandings about tree diagrams were also evident in the
students’ solutions and reasoning, except for SF3. Their procedural understanding about tree
diagrams involved identifying first the number of decisions to make in a combinatorial task,
and the number of choices per decision. These values then guided how the tree diagram is to
be structured. Although some of the students did not explicitly mention the relationship of
the number of decisions and the number of choices per decision to the structure8 of tree
diagrams, their reasoning during the interviews revealed they understand that the number of
decisions to be made determines the size or the number of “levels” of the tree diagram,
while the number of choices per decision determines the “branching” to be made per level.

The following interview excerpt shows SF6’s correct structural understanding of tree
diagram.
Interviewer: Why is your tree diagram like that? [referring to Fig. 2]
SF6: It’s because, you have sardines first. I wrote them down. I then followed the… I wrote next
the three types, the three types of noodles. Next, I connected three types of juice.
Interviewer: There’s only one juice type.
SF6: Yes. Then from juice, I made branches for two types of coffee.
⁞ [more dialogues]
Interviewer: So, what should determine that a tree diagram has two levels? Three? Four?
SF6: The… ahm. The… the [number of] decisions, Ma’am.
Interviewer: Correct. How about for the number of branches per level?
SF6: In the… the number of choices [per decision].
Figure 2. SF6’s correct tree diagram with 2 x 3 x 1 x 2 structure
The FCP as a multiplication rule to determine the number of outcomes

All students reinvented the FCP by conjecturing and testing the pattern seen on tree
diagrams. The students were successful in reinventing the fundamental counting principle
(FCP) as a rule where the number of choices per decision to make determines the count of
all possibilities of doing a task. Specifically, they conjectured that multiplying the number
of choices (outcomes) per decision to make would yield the number of all possible sets of
outcomes of a counting task. An excerpt in the class discussion shows this thinking
correctly:
Teacher: Did you notice any pattern or rule to solve the number of combinations of the goods?
What is it?
SM4: Multiply the number of choices per item, then you can identify the 24 [refers to the count of
the set of outcomes]. For example, 1 (rice) times 2 (coffees) times 3 (biscuits) times 4 (sugars)
[referring to how he can get 24].
The solutions of the students to the problems involving the application of FCP showed
that they understood how the number of decisions comprises a problem. While only two of

them (SF1 and SF5) had explicitly mentioned that each decision of a type of object
corresponds to a slot, all of them showed solutions to problems involving FCP where slots
had to be made for every corresponding decision to make. This understanding was verified
in the following interview excerpt.
Interviewer: Can you show me the solution using FCP to this problem? [Showing the problem
about determining the number of possible ways to create a set of goods composed of rice, coffee,
biscuit and sugar mentioned in CMS 1]
SF1: [Writes four blank lines and their corresponding labels, fills out each with its corresponding
value, then solves. The completed solution is shown in Fig. 3 below.]
Figure 3. SF1’s correct solution to the C(1,1) x C(2,1) x C(3,1) x C(4,1) problem by applying FCP
Sets with exactly the same elements, regardless of their order, as representing exactly one
combination
The students have initially exhibited a reinvented understanding about combinations of n
objects taken r at a time as a process of “classifying” sets of objects with exactly the same
elements, regardless of their order, as exactly one combination. As a process, combination
involves identifying a set of objects as unique or not when compared to other sets, by
ignoring the importance of arrangement of the elements of each set. With this understanding,
the students were able to identify how many combinations could be made from n objects
taken r at a time (without repetition) by enumerating a set of outcomes (derived from tree
diagrams) and counting the sets that have exactly the same elements, regardless of their
order, as one unique set.
P ( n, r )
The combinations of n objects taken r at a time as defined by the formula C (n, r )  .
r!
All students developed a procedural understanding of combinations of n objects taken r at a
time as C (n, r )  P(n, r )  n(n  1)(n  2)    (n  r  1) ,
r! r!
where P(n,r) is a direct application of FCP. Substantial solutions to combination problems
posed during the storytelling and in the worksheets showed that the students have
understood the combination of n objects taken r at a time (without repetition) as a process
which involved determining first the permutation of n objects taken r at a time (without
repetition) following the FCP, then dividing this by the number of repeats or r!
Students’ solutions and reasoning showed the interaction of counting processes and set of
outcomes, counting processes and formulas, and occasional isolation of formula.

Students’ solutions and reasoning about counting problems and combinatorial concepts
confirmed the interactions of the components of Lockwood’s (2013) Student’s
Combinatorial Thinking Model (see Lockwood (2013) for further discussion about the
model). The interaction of counting processes and set of outcomes was evidently shown in
the students’ explanations about how tree diagrams are structured. By identifying counting
processes (i.e. what should be done to complete a combinatorial task), students were able to
identify a tree diagram as a tool, which involves a series of processes (i.e. identifying the
structure) to generate a complete list of sets of outcomes.
Moreover, by viewing tree diagrams as structured based on a series of counting processes (i.e.
a series of definition of choices are made to determine the set of outcomes), the structure of tree
diagrams reveals the FCP. The understanding of FCP as a rule involves the multiplication of the
number of choices per decision, and representing each decision as a “slot” (e.g. in making decision
A and decision B at the same time, where A has m choices and B has n choices, the solution should
involve two slots, i.e.___x___ where the first slot is for m, and the second slot is for n, or vice
versa). On the other hand, few of the students used formulas/expressions without relating these to
other components. In particular, SM4 has occasionally solved counting problems by applying
formulas as a prime and sufficient solution.
Students referred their explanations of combinatorial concepts to the context of the stories.
One influence of both CMSs common to all students was their utilization of the contexts of
the stories (e.g. problems posed in the stories and explanations of the characters of the
stories about a solution or concept) in explaining combinatorial concepts during the
interviews. For instance, all students cited the ice cream problem (posed in CMS 2) to
explain what they understood about the meaning of combination, and the problem on
determining all possible groups of goods (posed in CMS 1) to explain how to make tree
diagrams and do the FCP.
Errors
Errors that were evident in the students’ solution and explanations included computational
errors9, substitution errors10, structural errors of tree diagrams, errors in discriminating
unique combinations (overcounting), erroneous use of combinatorial vocabularies, and
erroneous list of the sets of outcomes.
A structural error of tree diagrams was shown in SF3’s erroneous structure for a
1x2x3 tree diagram, wherein she illustrated a “linear branching” instead of distributing or
connecting each choice of a particular decision to a common “leaf” preceding it.
Consequently, this erroneous way of making tree diagrams led to an erroneous enumeration
of the sets of outcomes. Further probing during the interviews revealed that SF3 had an
inadequate understanding of the relationship of the number of decisions to make and the
number of choices per decision to the structure of the tree diagram, thus leading her to
committing such an erroneous answer.

Figure 4. SF3’s tree diagram showing erroneous structure and sets of outcomes
A computational error was committed by SF5 when she mistakenly computed 10 x 9 x
10  9  8
8 in as equal to 72, when it should be 720, in the problem involving C(10,3) x
3!
C(5,3). On the other hand, a substitution error happened when SF3 erroneously substituted 6
6 2 3 2
instead of 3 in the expression (i.e. the correct expression should be ) of the
2! 2!
problem C(3,2).
The following tables show the summarized results based on triangulated analyses.
The frequency distribution of each student’s answers when categorized as either correct
or incorrect response is shown in Table 2. It is noteworthy to mention that only 12.50% of
all the students’ answers were found as incorrect.
Table 3 summarizes the findings of this study in terms of the combinatorial thinking
that the six case study students showed in the conceptual understanding they developed. The
frequencies of combinatorial thinking were gathered by revisiting the students’ worksheets
and tallying the occurrences of each understanding as shown in their answers. Every
occurrence of a combinatorial thinking in the worksheets’ answers was compared to the
interviews and classroom observations data to triangulate the presence and correctness of
such understanding.
Table 2. The distribution of the six students’ answers to the worksheets categorized as correct or
incorrect response
Frequency Total
Answers
SF1 SM2 SF3 SM4 SF5 SF6 (N = 120)
Correct Full Credit 19 16 13 15 18 14 95 (79.17%)

Partial Credit 1 1 1 2 1 2 8 (6.67%)
Other Partial Credit 0 0 2 0 0 0 2 (1.67%)
Incorrect 0 3 4 3 1 4 15 (12.50%)
Table 3. The distribution of correct and incorrect combinatorial thinking of the six case study
students based on triangulated analyses
Frequency of
Combinatorial thinking Occurrence Total Percentage
Correct Incorrect Correct Incorrect

Tree with correct structure 26 3 29 90 10

Diagrams
with an explicit list of 14 2 16 87.5 12.5
complete and correct sets of
outcomes
in support to a solution (as 16 2 18 89 11
verification tools)
Reinvention of FCP 31 0 31 100 0
Reinvention of combinations 27 3 30 90 10
Moreover, Table 3 highlights that the students have developed an excellent

understanding of their reinvention of FCP albeit with some errors in understanding tree
diagrams. This excellent understanding of FCP refers back to the students’ successful
identification of the FCP rule as previously discussed. Table 4 summarizes the distribution
of the different types of errors that students showed in their reasoning and worksheet
responses based on triangulated analyses.
Table 4. The distribution of emerging errors committed by the six case study students based on
triangulated analyses
Type of Error Frequency of Emerging Errors
Erroneous tree diagram 3
Erroneous set of outcomes 2
Computation error 2
Substitution error 1
Erroneous use of combinatorial vocabularies 2
Conclusion
This study concludes that teaching the combinatorial concepts investigated in this study
through storytelling using CMSs has developed combinatorial thinking among Grade 9
students, albeit a few incongruent results shown in students’ errors. Furthermore, this study
concludes that facilitating meaningful learning of combinatorial concepts through
storytelling is supported by relating stories to the dominant contexts of the students, such as
their family backgrounds, real-life experiences and situations.
Implication
One implication of this study is for mathematics teachers to make efforts to know their
students (e.g. their personal and family backgrounds). Next, mathematics teachers should
make the utmost efforts to integrate students’ backgrounds (e.g. experiences) into the
instructional materials. Also, since CMSs were found as useful teaching tools in
mathematics especially in introducing new concepts, teachers should thus make efforts to
create and use CMSs as mathematics instructional materials, and integrate storytelling in the
instructional process of mathematics. Lastly, teachers should engage students in
conversations whether formally or informally when conducting storytelling to know more
about the students’ understanding or misconceptions about the lessons.

References
Balakrishnan, C. (2008). Teaching secondary school mathematics through storytelling.
Canada: Simon Fraser University Library. Unpublished Thesis.
Capraro, R. & Capraro, M. M. (2006). Are you really going to read us a story? Learning
geometry through children's mathematics literature. Reading Psychology, 27(1), 21-36.
Creswell, J. W. (2012). Educational research: Planning, conducting, and evaluating
quantitative and qualitative research. Educational Research (Vol. 4).
http://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107415324.004
Johnson, E. B. (2002). Contextual teaching and learning: What it is and why it’s here to stay.
Thousand Oaks, California: Corwin Press, Inc.
Koellner, K., Wallace, F., & Swackhamer, L. (2009). Integrating literature to support
mathematics learning in middle school. Middle School Journal, 41(2), 30-39
Lockwood, E. (2013). A model of students’ combinatorial thinking. Journal of Mathematical
Behavior, 32, 251-265.
Triyani, S., Putri, R. I. I., & Darmawijoyo. (2012). Supporting student’s ability in
understanding Least Common Multiple (LCM) concept using storytelling. IndoMS J.M.E.
3(2), 151-164.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes.
(M. Cole, V. John-Steiner, S. Scribner, & E. Souberman, Eds.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
Zaiontz C. (2015). Real Statistics using excel. Retrieved March 26, 2017, from
http://www.real-statistics.com/reliability/cohens-kappa/
Zazkis, R., & Liljedahl, P. (2009). Teaching mathematics as storytelling. Netherlands: Sense
Publisher.
Acknowledgement
The authors would like to thank the Department of Science and Technology – Science
Education Institute (DOST-SEI) of the Philippines for the financial assistance given to
complete this study.
1 “Sari-sari” stores are the Philippines’ “national” small-scale retailing business. A “sari-sari” store is usually
a room or an adjunct extension of a house, with goods usually comprised of canned goods, noodles, drinks,
candies, crackers and biscuits, breads, food seasonings, vegetables, rice, and common school supplies and
feminine care products. Unlike supermarkets and large-scale grocery stores, most “sari-sari” stores allow
“credits” to their patron buyers.
2 It was given in the story that there was one kind of rice, two brands of coffee (i.e. Nestle, Kopiko), three
brands of biscuits (i.e. Magic Flakes, Skyflakes, Fita), and four variations of sugar packs (i.e. 2BS, 2WS,
5BS, 5WS) to choose from in the store.
3 The problems were about determining the number of all possible sets of goods with (1) a can of sardines and
a pack of noodles, given that there are five brands of sardines and four flavors of noodles to choose from,
and (2) a can of sardines, a pack of noodles, a sachet of juice, and a pack of coffee, given that there are two
brands of sardines, three flavors of noodles, one juice flavor, and two brands of coffee to choose from.
4 Saludo is a cadence marching where students march in group while performing synchronized body gestures.
This is an inter-school competition held anually through the sponsorship of MiloTM Olympics in the
Philippines.

5 Realistic contexts refer to the situations, scenarios and problems that have not necessarily happened to the
students but could possibly exist in their daily life experiences (Balakrishnan, 2008).
6 The authors chose to present the triangulated results of the study with emphasis on the qualitative data to
give concise but in-depth details of the findings.
7 The students’ names presented in this paper are all pseudonyms. The six case study students were named
SF1, SM2, SF3, SM4, SF5, and SF6.
8 The structure of a tree diagram refers to its branches or levels. For example, the tree diagram of C(4,2) x
C(3,2) should have either 6 branches of a 1 x 3 structure (with 1 representing a distinct set from C(4,2), and
3 representing all the distinct combinations from C(3,2)), or 3 branches of a 1 x 6 structure (with 1
representing a distinctsetfrom C(3,2), and 6 representing all the distinct combinations from C(4,2)).
9 Computation error refers to an error committed due to incorrect calculation(s) of the expression.
10 Substitution error refers to an error committed by the students when they incorrectly substituted a value or
values in a counting formula.
Cherel Marrie A. Romulo, M.S.

Ateneo de Manila University, Loyola Heights, Quezon City, Philippines
chealls@yahoo.com
Catherine P. Vistro-Yu, Ed.D.

Ateneo de Manila University, Loyola Heights, Quezon City, Philippines
cvistro-yu@ateneo.edu

Ruwisch, Huang 269
LENGTH MEASUREMENT AND ESTIMATION IN PRIMARY

SCHOOL – A COMPARISON OF THE CURRICULA OF TAIWAN
AND GERMANY
Silke Ruwisch, Leuphana University, Germany
Hsin-Mei E. Huang, University of Taipei, Taiwan R.O.C.
Introduction
Length measurement, which is a fundamental domain for measurement learning, plays a
prominent role in measurement education in most countries (Buys & de Moor, 2008,
Clements, 2003). Nevertheless, researchers all over the world continuously report poor
learning outcomes especially concerning the underlying measurement concepts behind the
measurement procedures (Smith III, van den Heuvel-Panhuizen, & Treppo, 2011). Although
there seems to be a great consistency about the aspects of those concepts (Barrett, Sarama,
& Clements, 2017; Lehrer, 2003; Clarke, Cheeseman, McDonough, & Clarke, 2003), there
may be differences in the curricula and teaching practice of length measurement (Lee &
Smith III, 2011).
The preliminary findings of our research project on length estimation showed differences
between German and Taiwanese children which may be explained by different learning
opportunities on length and on estimation. Most of the studies on estimation focus on one
country with the underlying assumption that the curriculum for measurement estimation will
be similar across countries (Jones, Taylor, & Broadwell, 2009; Ruwisch, Heid, & Weiher,
2017). Our project addresses the German and the Taiwanese contexts as first examples of a
Western and an East Asian culture, because their different cultural-societal context seem to
have influence on mathematics education aspects (Chang, Lin, & Reiss, 2013). We try to get
a deeper insight into similarities and differences in the lengths curriculum, especially
focused on opportunities to learn length estimation.
Theoretical background
Core concept of lengths and its measurement
Length understanding, length measurement, and length estimation are thought to be a
complex concept with different conceptual underpinnings as well as concrete actions.
According to Lehrer (2003), Clarke et al. (2003), Stephan and Clements (2003) and others
the most important foundations are
(1) Understanding of the attribute and its relation to the units used to measure with.
A length must be understood as the distance between two points in the space. The
length of an object can be found by quantifying the distance between its endpoints. In
understanding the attribute a lot of vocabulary also has to be learned: lengths can be
described by different adjectives, especially the comparatives and superlatives have
to be known for comparison. Sometimes a specific name of a length gives a hint,
what to measure, such as perimeter or diameter. Typical misconceptions of the

270 Length Measurement and Estimation in Primary School – A Comparison of the Curricula of Taiwan and
Germany
attribute can be found in measuring wrong parts of an object or in treating the

numbers on the ruler as the measured length.
(2) Logical operations: conservation and transitivity.
The length of a given object isn’t dependent on its location, nor is it variant under
special transformations: movement, division into segments, change of shape, … are
transformation which do not change the lengths (although it sometimes visually
looks as if), whereas other transformations don’t conserve the length, like cutting and
burning a part or eating a part of a sweet string.
The transitivity of the equivalence and order relation are one basis for the
comparisons of lengths, although they are supported by visual aspects: If the objects
are oriented the same way, visual comparison will lead to the right order, although
the students might not have understood the logical operation, yet.
(3) Partitioning into parts.
This is meant to be a mental process in contrast to really subdivide an object by
action. So, the child must be able to partition the length of an object mentally and
he/she must be sure that adding the measures of the parts will give the length of the
whole. The most helpful partitioning for measurement is a regular one, so the parts
should be identical concerning their lengths.
(4) Iterative tiling with identical units and counting them.
The measuring process consists of using a unit (standardized or non-standardized)
iteratively by placing it end to end without gaps or overlaps. Whether a subdivision
of the unit is necessary depends on the precision the measurer looks for. The iterating
process will stop, when the unit is longer than the rest of the to-be-measured object.
If different objects were used as units they must be identical in the attributed
measure – in their lengths. They do not have to look like one another, although this
may support the idea of identical units.
(5) Numerical interpretation of the iteration process.
Either every iteration-step has to be counted during the process, or the number of
different identical units can be counted at the end of the tiling-process. The counted
number has to be understood as the measure. When the unit was subdivided during
the iterative process, the different units have to be counted and documented
separately.
(6) Understanding of measurement tools.
The children need not only the procedural knowledge how to measure and draw with
a ruler, but they need to understand the scaling itself: What do the numbers mean,
what do the different lines on it mean? What’s the difference between a point on the
scale and the measured length which has to be asserted to the distance between two
scale-points. How to measure with a broken ruler, when the starting point isn’t zero?
(7) Measures as the relation between unit and number.
The relation between the unit and the number of units needed to tile a length is

Ruwisch, Huang 271
antiproportional: if the unit gets bigger, the number of necessary units will get
smaller and vice versa. The knowledge about this relation also includes the fact that
the same length can be given in different measures: 3 m = 300 cm, although 300 is a
bigger number than 3. Besides grasping this antiproportional idea by reasoning,
children have to learn the conventional conversions between different standardized
units, including fractions and decimals.
Concerning the learning process, Samara, Clements, Barrett, Van Dine, and McDonel (2011)
differentiated the following seven developmental progressions: (1) pre-length quantity
recognizer, (2) length quantity recognizer, (3) length direct comparer, (4) indirect length
comparer, (5) end-to-end length measurer, (6) length unit relater and repeater, and (7) length
measurer. Clarke et al. (2003) described five stages of development by different growth
points in the early numeracy project: (1) awareness of the attribute and its descriptive
language, (2) compares, orders, and matches objects by length, (3) uses uniform units
appropriately and assigns number and unit to the measure, (4) chooses and uses formal units
for estimating and measuring length with accuracy, and (5) being able to solve a range of
problems involving key concepts of length. Whereas the project mentioned first
concentrates on the early years of schooling (kindergarten to grade 1), the Australian project
tries to grasp the whole development in primary school.
Length estimation
In the sense of Bright (1976) we consider length estimation as being a mental process of
determining a length for an attribute without the aid of measurement tools. Although length
estimation is in general more accurate than the estimates in other measurement areas (Joram,
Subrahmanyam, & Gelman, 1998; Siegel, Goldsmith, and Madson, 1982; Sowder, 1992),
children are even worse than in length measurement. Researchers stress the importance of
strategies (Jones et al., 2009; Huang, 2015) and their conjectures to the underlying
measurement concepts and procedures. The most important estimation strategies (Joram et
al., 1998; Siegel et al., 1982) are mental unit iteration and benchmark comparison (or
reference-point strategy). In the literature decomposition/recomposition also is mentioned.
Of course, this is an important mental ability in estimation processes, but it has to be
combined with one of the two others to get an estimate (Heid 2017). So, we suggest that it is
not an own strategy. The relevant knowledge for the estimation process can be acquired in
school as interventions show (Huang, Hsieh, & Su 2016). Different learning environments
based on different curricula might lead to different knowledge (e.g., different estimation
strategies). Chang, Males, Mosier, and Gonulates (2011) reported that there is no consistent
and straight concept even in the US. Especially the procedure – how to estimate – and the
precision of the estimate were not explicitly addressed and remained open in most situations.
If children should get better estimators, they need to know benchmarks for comparison as
well as opportunities for mental estimation of length.
Curriculum research on length, length measurement, and length estimation

Germany
Concerning the research on curricula, textbooks and other materials with respect to lengths
understanding, there are several studies, we will briefly mention here. They will serve as a
basis for our own analysis.
Tan-Sisman and Aksu (2012) looked for the opportunities to learn length measurement of
Turkish first-graders to fifth-graders. They analyzed the Turkish Mathematics Curriculum
Guide which can be seen as a normative setting for mathematics teaching and learning.
Their results show that – concerning instructional time – about 6 lessons (first grade) to 15
lessons (third grade) are dedicated to learning length measurement. They concluded that
“length measurement seems to be well-organized in terms of the learning objectives, the
scope, and sequence, and the instructional approaches to teaching and learning
process.”(381). Neither textbooks nor teachers’ guides were included in the analysis, so the
results remain on this coarse level of opportunities.
Lee and Smith III (2011) explored the similarities and differences in written curricula
materials of the US and Singapore concerning the introduction and development of length
measurement from kindergarten to grade 3. They used a detailed scheme of coding which
differentiated between conceptual, procedural, and conventional knowledge of length
measurement as well as different textual forms of presentation. Their results show strong
emphasize on procedural aspects in all grades and both countries. Differences could be
found in the focus and organization of the learning materials: Singapore’s curriculum was
more focused in different aspects, whereas the US curriculum provided more diverse access
to the conceptual knowledge.
Chang et al. (2011) explored US textbooks with the special interest in length estimation.
They analyzed which aspects of length estimation were explicit in the textbooks and which
were more implicit and therefore open. The comparison of the openness of four elements of
the estimation process showed that precision was the element with the greatest openness
(about 100 %), whereas start/end – which are the starting point and the endpoint of the
to-be-estimated object – showed the least extend of openness (less than 10 %). The attribute
(40 % to 50 %) and the unit and its use (20 % to 70 %) showed a medium degree of
openness. Especially in using the unit they also found great differences not only between the
three textbook series but within every textbook series.
Research question
The purpose of this study was to examine similarities and differences in Taiwanese and
German elementary written textbooks concerning the treatment of length understanding,
measurement, and estimation. Specifically, we were interested in those aspects which may
lead to different understandings of length estimation.
Q1: On a coarse and organizational level: Are there differences in the main
syllabus—number of units, instructional time—on length learning between Taiwan and
Germany?
Q2: Do procedural aspects also dominate the Taiwanese and the German curriculum as it
has been reported from the USA and Singapore?

Ruwisch, Huang 273
Q3: Which concrete differences in the opportunities to learn length understanding,

measurement, and estimation can be observed between Taiwan and Germany?
Method
Choice of written curricula and scope of analysis
In both countries, elementary school mathematics textbooks were developed on the
curriculum guidelines for compulsory mathematics education mandated by the responsible
ministry that has them licensed (Lan 2005 in Chinese for the Taiwanese procedure; Stöber
2010 in German for the German procedure). We examined four German elementary
textbook series and three from Taiwan.
In 2017, about 30 different primary mathematics textbook series were licensed in Germany.
For our study, we focused on four different series, which were selected through the
following procedure. Ruwisch (2017) identified ten textbook series by asking
publisher–consortia to name and rank their most common textbook series. In consideration
of the size of the publishing house, the named and ranked series, and the number of states in
which the textbook series is licensed, ten textbook series were identified for an analysis
about reasoning. We chose four of these textbook series for the analysis of their length
curriculum: “Denken und Rechnen” (2011-2012) and “Welt der Zahl” (2014-2016) are
well-established, popular, and widespread textbook series. “Das Zahlenbuch” (2012)
although established now for more than 15 years, often is seen as too demanding in the
scope of teachers and can be still called “innovative”. “Flex & Flo” (2014-2015) was
included, because its curriculum is said to be conceptualized for individual learning, a
method which is very popular in German classes at the moment.
In Taiwan, the elementary school mathematics textbooks are predominantly published by
three publishing companies that held the top three market share: Han-Lin Publishing
Company (Han-Lin), Kuang-Hsuan Educational Publishing Group (Kuang-Hsuan), and
Nan-I Enterprise Company (Nan-I). Therefore, we chose all length measurement units for
our analysis from the three versions of these textbook series. Moreover, since German
elementary school covers only grades 1 to 4, and length measurement units are included in
Grades 1 to 4 in Taiwan, thus, the units chosen for the analyses were focused on all the
length measurement units from these grades.
A primary textbook series in both countries normally includes a package for each grade.
Aside from the main textbooks, exercise books, worksheets, and materials, such as cuise-
nnaire rods, can be bought. Teachers will also find a teacher’s guide, additional digital
materials, and diagnostic and testing materials, among others. The additional materials
differ from series to series and are optional for a teacher, so the only materials included in
our analysis are the main textbooks for each grade.
Locating the length content
For the purpose of this first comparison, we focused in both countries on those pages of the
textbooks that were signed as length measurement units by the authors, excluding the units

Germany
involving perimeters of shapes. So our analysis was a first step to come to a deeper analysis
as such of Lee and Smith III (2011).
Coding process of the length content
For coding the different aspects of length content we adopted the coding scheme of Lee and
Smith III (2011, 689). We also differentiated between conceptual and procedural knowledge.
Although Lee and Smith III only published the most common codes of their much broader
coding scheme, these codes seemed a good starting point for adoption to other countries.
The analysis presented here is coarser than the very fine one of Lee and Smith III in one
sense and broader in another one: The coding unit was not the sentence or question but
normally the task, which could contain more than one sentence. Sometimes, there were two
different requests in only one sentence. As a consequence, some tasks got more than one
code, although normally we tried to decide which element is more important in a special
situation. Therefore, we didn’t present frequencies of the codes in this paper, but restricted
ourselves to tendencies. In applying the scheme to our data, we also needed to extend the
coding scheme. BL was added as a conceptual element for tasks that ask students for
exploration and learning the measures of benchmarks or personal reference objects for
estimation. CS is a conceptual code for the definitions of curve versus straight line. A
category for reasoning and justification was added (RJ), which we think is a linking
category between conception, procedure, metacognition, and language. In addition, there
was another procedural code added: DS was coded, if a task involved drawing or showing a
distance by moving hands or fingers on a ruler given.
Results
Syllabus, units and time
In Taiwan, the learning of length measurement started at the first semester of grade 1 in all
textbook series. In every grade, length measurement units were included in the textbooks.
Whereas in grades 1 and 2, two length measurement units were allocated in every textbook
series—one per semester, only one unit was included in all series for grade 3 and 4,
respectively.
Most schools in Germany started length learning in second grade. Only Das Zahlenbuch
gave an opportunity for learning length measurement in grade one, but only by one page in
a book with 132 pages. Nearly every textbook contained one special unit about length
learning per grade – with the exception of Das Zahlenbuch, which offered two units in
grade three and none in grade four.
Table 1. The opportunities for learning length measurement in Germany
Denken und
Grade Flex & Flo Welt der Zahl Zahlenbuch
Rechnen
1/132 = 0.75%
1 — — —
(no time given)
10/133 = 7.5% 6/148 = 4% 2/133 = 1.5% 3/132 = 2.3%
2
~10 (450 min.) ~ 5% ~10 (450 min.) ~ 5% ~5 (225 min.) ~2.5% (no time given)

Ruwisch, Huang 275
7/117 = 6% 8/156 = 5% 9/125 = 7.2% 7/132 = 5.3%

3
~ 8 (360 min.) ~ 5% ~ 8 (360 min.) ~ 5% ~ 8 (360 min.) ~ 5% (no time given)
3/117 = 2.6% 5/144 = 3.5% 4/125 = 3.2%
4 —
~ 8 (360 min.) ~ 5% ~ 4 (180 min.) ~ 2.5% ~ 8 (360 min.) ~ 5%
20/500 = 4% 19/596 = 3.2% 15/416 = 3.6% 11/528 = 2.1%
Total
~ 26 (1170 min.) ~ 22 (990 min.) ~ 21 (945 min.) (no time given)
Note: The first row gives the proportion by the number of pages: Pages of the length measurement unit in
proportion to the whole number of pages. The second row gives the intended teaching time for the unit in
relation to the whole time.
Table 2. The opportunities for learning length measurement in Taiwan
Grade Han-Lin Kuang-Hsuan Nan-I

1 14/ 6 (240 min.) 15/ 7 (280 min.) 15/ 6 (240 min.)
2 22/ 10 (400 min.) 19/ 10 (400 min.) 21/ 10 (400 min.)
3 13/ 5 (200 min.) 8/ 4 (160 min.) 9/ 5 (200 min.)
4 7/ 2 (80 min.) 9/ 5 (200 min.) 11/ 6 (240 min.)
Total 56/ 23 (920 min.) 51/ 26 (1040 min.) 56/ 27 (1080 min.)
Note: The first number represents the total number of pages of the units; the second number
represents the total number of intended class-period and teaching time suggested for the units.
Table 1 and 2 give detailed information about both countries. On the one hand, the total
numbers of pages on length measurement in the Taiwanese textbooks were more than three
times of those contained in the German textbooks. On the other hand, comparing the
intended instructional time in both countries did not reflect this great difference. Obviously,
German teachers refer for a longer period of teaching to the same page of the textbook.
In both countries, most time for learning length is spent in second grade. The comparison
between both countries suggests that length learning in Germany seems to be more
concentrated than in Taiwan: starting in second grade and offering only one unit per grade.
Conceptual versus procedural affordances
In the German textbooks, the total numbers of conceptual codes were nearly the same in all
four series, whereas the number of procedural codes differed. Das Zahlenbuch and Welt der
Zahl had twice as many procedural codes than conceptual ones, Denken und Rechnen and
Flex & Flo got three times as many procedural as conceptual codes.
The Taiwanese textbook series showed little differences in the total numbers of procedural
elements, but differed in the number of conceptual codes among the three different versions.
Whereas Kuang-Hsuan and Nan-I were about close in the number of conceptual codes, the
third series, Han-Lin, only contained about 60 % of the number of Kuang-Hsuan, the series
with the most conceptual elements. Therefore, this textbook series (Han-Lin) contained

Germany
more than twice as many procedural than conceptual elements. The other two have about
one third more procedural than conceptual elements.
Thus, in the German and the Taiwanese curriculum also the procedural affordances
predominated, a tendency which was stronger for the German than the Taiwanese textbook
series.
Main categories of conceptual and procedural affordances
The main concepts in all German textbook series were benchmark learning and reasoning
and justification. The latter normally was combined with benchmark learning (more
conceptual) or with proportional reasoning as in distance-time-relationships and scale (more
procedural). The third most common conceptual category was units can be converted,
normally at the top of a page, on which the students were asked to convert units in the
following tasks.
The main concept involved in all Taiwanese textbook series was units can be converted. It
occured about twice as often as reasoning and justification, which was the second important
conceptual element. Although benchmark learning occurred as the third often coded
element of conceptual categories in Taiwanese textbooks, it was much rarer than the two
mentioned first (about half as frequently as reasoning and justification).
Looking to the procedural elements, the most common one in all series of both countries is
conversion of units.
For the following analysis we differentiated between those procedures that asked for a
concrete measurement action, and more abstract procedures, which were presented on the
symbolic level. In German textbooks only about one third of the tasks asked for concrete
procedures, another third for the conversion of units, and the last third for other
symbolically presented procedures. In Taiwan nearly one half of the coded tasks asked for
concrete and the other half for more abstract procedures, if conversion of units was included
in the latter one.
Concerning the concrete procedures the most common one in both countries was measure
with a ruler, when the object is shorter than the ruler. In Germany draw with a ruler (also
objects shorter than the ruler) and visual estimation were the second and third common ones,
whereas in the Taiwanese textbooks measuring with sufficient non-standard units and visual
estimation and different kinds of direct and visual comparisons were found more often than
drawing activities. No direct comparison was coded in the German textbooks.
The most common abstract procedures in the Taiwanese textbook series were generating the
sum and differences of length given through word descriptions and representations, and
generating sum and differences of length given word descriptions only. In Germany, word
problems with lengths, sometimes with the aid of a representation, also dominate the
abstract procedures—besides the conversion of units—, followed by the comparison or
order of length which were given in a symbolic.

Ruwisch, Huang 277
Discussion and Conclusions

The analysis showed similarities and differences between the countries as well as between
the textbook series concerning the opportunities for learning length understanding,
measurement, and estimation.
The most striking organizational aspect was the late introduction to length measurement in
Germany in grade 2, whereas it was included in every grade in the Taiwanese textbooks as
well as in the international curricula (Barret et al., 2017, Clarke et al., 2003, Lee & Smith III,
2011). This could be due to the separate systems of kindergarten learning and school
instruction in Germany, which didn’t lead to continuous learning trajectories so far. But this
fact does not explain, why there was no length learning in grade 1.
Although all textbooks showed a predominance of procedural aspects over conceptual
elements, this tendency was stronger in the German textbooks. The Taiwanese textbooks
focused much more on conceptual elements than the German did. Although units can be
converted, reasoning and justification and benchmark learning were the most common
conceptual elements in both countries, their importance differed. The Taiwanese textbooks
mainly stressed the idea of conversion, whereas the German textbooks focused more on
benchmark learning. Additionally, the textbook series in both countries contained some
problems involving visual estimation, which is related to length estimation, though the
amounts of the problems were less than those of reasoning and justification. However, how
the students outline these estimation procedures needs further investigation in both
countries.
The comparison of procedural elements showed that both countries very often focused on
unit conversion, measuring with a ruler, and addition and subtraction of length. In the
Taiwanese textbooks more tasks asked for direct comparison and measurement with
nonstandard units, whereas the German textbooks stressed visual estimation. Overall, the
Taiwanese textbooks asked much more for concrete actions, whereas the German textbooks
stressed the more abstract and mental procedures.
In concluding these preliminary findings we have to point out that we ourselves are
examples of cultural differences. Up to now, every person coded the textbooks of her own
country. So the coding procedure has to be done vice versa or perhaps with a person who
can translate Chinese directly to German. We also want to broaden and deepen our analysis
to get a better understanding of the differences. If we take a broader corpus besides the
textbooks, we may get a deeper insight in the differences how teachers and students work
with the textbooks in both countries, and how the denser curriculum in the German
textbooks is implemented differently from the Taiwanese in classrooms. A much deeper
analysis with regard to the coding scheme of Lee and Smith III (2011) as well as qualitative
analyses may help to get a better understanding on the so far superficial suggestion that
German length learning is more abstract and mental than the Taiwanese one and may result
in other length estimation abilities.

Germany
References
Barrett, J. E., Sarama, J. & Clements, D. H. (Eds.) (2017). Children’s measurement: A
longitudinal study of children’s knowledge and learning of length, area, and volume.
Reston, VA: NCTM.
Bright, G. W. (1976). Estimation as Part of Learning to Measure. In D. Nelson & R. E. Reys
(Eds.), Measurement in School Mathematics (pp. 87-104). Reston: NCTM.
Buys, K., & De Moor, E. (2008). Domain description measurement. In M. van den
Heuvel-Panhuizen & K. Buys (Eds.), Young children learn measurement and geometry
(pp. 15–36). Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.
Chang, K. L., Males, L. M., Mosier, A., & Gonulates, F. (2011). Exploring US textbooks’
treatment of the estimation of linear measurements. ZDM Mathematics Education 43(5),
697-708. [DOI: 10.1007/s11858-011-0361-2]
Chang, Y. P., Lin, F. L., & Reiss, K. (2013). How do students learn mathematical proof? A
comparison of geometry designs in German and Taiwanese Textbooks. In C. Margolinas
(Ed.), Proceedings of ICMI Study 22, Task Design in Mathematics Education (pp.
305-314). Oxford, UK: ICMI.
Clarke, D., Cheeseman, J., McDonough, A., & Clarke, B. (2003). Assessing and Developing
Measurement with Young Children. In D. H. Clements (Ed.), Learning and Teaching
Measurement (pp. 68-80). Reston, VA: NCTM.
Clements, D. H. (Ed.) (2003). Learning and Teaching Measurement. Reston, VA: NCTM.
Van den Heuvel-Panhuizen, M. & Buys, K. (Eds.) (2008). Young children learn
measurement and geometry. Rotterdam/Taipei: Sense Publishers.
Heid, L.M. (2017). Das Schätzen von Längen und Fassungsvermögen. Eine Interviewstudie
zu Strategien mit Kindern im 4. Schuljahr. Wiesbaden: Springer Spektrum.
Huang, H.-M. E. (2015). Children's Performance in Estimating the Measurement of Daily
Objects. In K. Beswick, T. Muir & J. Wells (Eds.). Proceedings of 39th Psychology of
Mathematics Education conference, (Vol. 3, pp. 73-80). Hobart, Australia: PME.
Huang, H.-M. E., Hsieh, C.-C., & Su, Y.-H. (2016). The effects of estimation interventions
on children’s measurement estimation performance. In C. Csikos, A. Rausch, & J.
Szitányi (Eds.). Proceedings of the 40th Conference of the international group for the
psychology of mathematics education, Vol., 3, 417-424. Szeged, Hungary: PME.
Jones, G., Taylor, A., & Broadwell, B. (2009). Estimating linear size and scale: Body rulers.
International Journal of Science Education, 31(11), 1495-1509.
Joram, E., Subrahmanyam, K. & Gelman, R. (1998). Measurement estimation: Learning to
map the route from number to quantity and back. Journal of Educational Review, 6,
413-449.
Lan, Shun-Der. (2005). Textbook policy and system. (In Chinese). Taipei, Taiwan: Wu-Nan
Cultural Publishing Enterprise Cooperation Ltd.

Ruwisch, Huang 279
Lee. K. & Smith III, J. P. (2011). What is different across an ocean? How Singapore and US
elementary mathematics curricula introduce and develop length measurement. ZDM
Mathematics Education 43(5), 681–696. [DOI 10.1007/s11858-011-0339-0]
Lehrer, R. (2003). Developing Understanding of Measurement. In J. Kilpatrick, W. G. Martin,
& D. Schifter (Eds.), A Research Companion to Principles and Standards for School
Mathematics (pp. 179-192). Reston, VA: NCTM.
Ruwisch, S., Heid, M., & Weiher, D. F. (2017). Children’s estimation competences in length
and capacity. In Kaur, B., Ho, W. K., Toh, T. L., & Choy, B. H. (Eds.). Proceedings of the
41st Conference of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education,
Vol. 2, p. 75. Singapore: PME.
Ruwisch, S. (2017). Requests for mathematical reasoning in textbooks for primary-level
students. In Kaur, B., Ho, W.K., Toh, T.L., & Choy, B.H. (Eds.). Proceedings of the 41st
Conference of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education, (Vol.
4, pp. 113-120). Singapore: PME.
Samara, J., Clements, D. H., Barrett, J., Van Dine, D. W., & McDonel, J. S. (2011).
Evaluation of a learning trajectory for length in the early years. ZDM Mathematics
Education 43(5), 667-680. [DOI 10.1007/s11858-011-0326-5]
Siegel, A. W.; Goldsmith, L. T. & Madson, C. R. (1982). Skill in Estimation Problems of
Extent and Numerosity. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 13(3), 211-232.
Smith, J. P., van den Heuvel-Panhuizen, M. & Teppo, A. R. (2011). Learning, teaching, and
using measurement: introduction to the issue. ZDM Mathematics Education 43(5),
617-620. [DOI 10.1007/s11858-011-0369-7]
Sowder, J. (1992). Estimation and Number Sense. In D. A. Grouws (Ed.), Handbook of
Research on Mathematics Teaching and Learning (pp. 371-389). Reston: NCTM.
Stephan, M., & Clements, D. H. (2003). Linear and area measurement in prekindergarten to
grade 2. In D. H. Clements, & Bright, G. (Ed.), Learning and Teaching measurement: 2003
Yearbook (pp. 3-16). Reston, VA: NCTM.
Stöber, G. (2010). Schulbuchzulassung in Deutschland. Grundlagen, Verfahrensweisen und
Diskussionen. Schulbuchforschung und -analyse, Eckert. Beiträge 3 (25pp.) http://www.
edumeres.net/urn/urn:nbn:de: 0220-2010-00146.
Tan-Sisman, G. & Aksu, M. (2012). The length measurement in the Turkish mathematics
curriculum: Its potential to contribute to students’ learning. International Journal of
Science and Mathematics Education 10, 363-385.
German textbook series
Das Zahlenbuch. Ed. by E. C. Wittmann & G. N. Müller, vol. 1 (2012) vol. 2 (2012) vol. 3
(2012) vol. 4 (2012) Stuttgart, Leipzig: Klett.
Denken und Rechnen. Developed by G. Buschmeier, E. Buttermann, H. Eidt, J. Hacker, C.
Lack, R. Lammel, & M. Wichmann, Vol. 1 (2011), vol. 2 (2011), vol. 3 (2012), vol. 4
(2012). Braunschweig: Westermann.
Flex & Flo. Ed. By C. Hoffmann & W. Westphal. Vol. 1 (2014) vol. 2 (2014) vol. 3 (2014)
vol. 4 (2015) Braunschweig: Diesterweg.

Germany
Welt der Zahl. Ed. by H.-D. Rinkens, T. Rottmann, & G. Träger, Vol. 1 (2014) vol. 2 (2014)
vol. 3 (2015) vol. 4 (2016). Braunschweig: Schroedel.
Taiwanese textbook series

Han-Lin Publishing Company Ltd. Mathematics. Elementary school mathematics. Vol. 1
(2015), vol. 2 (2016), vol. 3 (2016), vol. 4 (2017), vol. 6 (2016), vol. 8 (2017). (In Chinese).
Tainan, Taiwan: Author.
Kuang-Hsuan Educational Publishing Group. Elementary school mathematics. Vol. 1 (2015),
vol. 2 (2016), vol. 3 (2016), vol. 4 (2017), vol. 6 (2016), vol. 8 (2017). (In Chinese). New
Taipei City, Taiwan: Author.
Nan-I Enterprise Company Ltd. Elementary school mathematics. Vol. 1 (2015), vol. 2 (2016),
vol. 3 (2016), vol. 4 (2017), vol. 5 (2015), vol. 7 (2016). (In Chinese). Tainan, Taiwan:
Author.
Silke Ruwisch
Institute of Mathematics and Mathematics Education
Faculty of Education
Leuphana University Lueneburg
Universitätsallee 1
21335 Lueneburg
Germany
ruwisch@uni.leuphana.de
Hsin-Mei E. Huang
Department of Learning and Materials Design
Faculty of Education
University of Taipei
No. 1, Ai-Guo West Road
Taipei 10048
Taiwan R.O.C.
hhuang22@gmail.com

Sarmiento, Prudente, Lapinid 281
ONLINE HOMEWORK IN A FINANCE COURSE: INFLUENCE ON

STUDENTS’ PERFORMANCE
Celina P. Sarmiento, Philippine Normal University - Manila, Philippines
Maricar S. Prudente, De La Salle University - Manila, Philippines
Minie Rose C. Lapinid, De La Salle University - Manila, Philippines
Abstrct
Homework is a task assigned to students by teachers that are meant to be carried out during
non-instructional time (Bembenutty, 2011). It is an important educational supplement that
continues to grow and expand its educational frontiers (Bembenutty, 2011; Dettmers, et al.,
2011). Homework in mathematics are traditionally paper-and-pencil tasks where students
are given the same items to work on, and are manually graded by the teacher (Zerr, 2007).
Clearly, this process has certain limitations that hinders the learning that students might
achieve in doing homework. For instance, since they are answering the same set of items,
they are prone to plagiarizing or copying homework solutions. Another issue is the tedious
task of individually checking each paper which is added to the many tasks of the teacher and
inevitably delays the feedback to the students.
Thus, in this paper, an exploratory action research was done to investigate how to properly
utilize the features of a Learning Management System (LMS) in administering homework.
Initially, the researchers developed two sets of online homework (Set 1: Simple Interest; Set
2: Simple Discount) through the open access system, MyOpenMath, with certain features
that aims to enhance some of the weakness of traditional homework. The online homework
developed provides immediate feedback by informing students if they were right or wrong
on each item, and gave them unlimited chance to attempt problems that they got wrong.
Moreover, the online homework was designed to administer parallel questions to each
student, that is, problems that measured the same objectives but required a different
computation, thus, they could not simply duplicate the answer of their classmates. Also, the
system automatically graded each submission and provided the teacher with a summary of
the scores through an online gradebook facility.
To test the effectiveness of the homework developed, a counterbalanced mixed method
experimental design with two groups (Group A with 32 students, and Group B with 26
students) and two phases was implemented. On the first phase, Group A participated in the
online homework condition, while Group B was assigned a parallel but paper-and-pencil
homework. Then, for the second phase, the two groups switched treatments. Each group had
the opportunity to be the control and experimental group during the experiment, and
participants received summative tests at the end of each phase, which served as their exam
performance. While homework scores of the students served as the measure of their
homework performance. Qualitative data were also collected to further explain the result of
the experiment. In both phases, the online homework group obtained a significantly higher
homework performance and better mean scores on the tests. Interview results indicated that
students had a greatly positive perception towards online homework and that the set-up of

282 Online Homework in a Finance Course: Influence on Students’ Performance
the online homework forced them to improve their practices in answering homework. It
appears that students appreciated the modern features of MyOpenMath and these motivated
them. Additionally, students reported that taking online homework is a pleasant experience
and that it helped them gain better achievement in the course.
Keywords: Online Homework, Action Research, Performance

Sato 283
LOGARITHMS: TEACHING MATERIALS FOR THE FUTURE

AND AN INTRODUCTION TO POWER FUNCTIONS
Hajime Sato, Meiji University, Japan
Introduction
Logarithms are an important mathematical concept taught in high school mathematics. While they
play an important role in mathematics, their properties are also widely utilized in real world
applications. As such, students are desired to learn the concepts of logarithms and to obtain
hands-on experience with their applications.
The base 10 logarithm frequently arises in science and technology. People are able
to recognize that a difference of 1 unit on a logarithm scale means 10 times, or 1/10 with the
base 10. Similarly, in case of the natural logarithm, a difference of 1 means 2.71828
times or 1/ . This property of logarithms allows us to express from large values to small
values in relatively small intervals. As human activities and scientific research widen the
range of large and small scale targets, it is expected that logarithm expressions will become
increasingly prevalent. In fact, the wide range of visible scales in nature can easily be
imagined when one compares the size of galaxies to the fine scale viruses. In such situations,
expressions using exponents and logarithms are effective. Laplace is known to have said
that “Logarithms by shortening the labours, doubled the life of the astronomer.” (Bremigan
2011)
Students are often requested to become proficient in manipulating logarithms and
in performing calculations using special formulas, such as log log log , or
log log log . Unfortunately, students tend to acquire misconceptions which lead to
incorrect usage of logarithms. Various reasons reason can be said to account for the
appearance of such troubles. Especially performing calculations without appealing to, or
reasoning in terms of, the students’ sensibility is a likely contributing factor. For instance,
students are required to understand logarithms as the inverse of exponentials (Liang, C. B.
and Wood E. 2005). Since high school teachers request students to acquire such technical
skills in preparation for examinations (mainly university entrance examinations, in Japan),
students may not acquire an interest and inherent understanding of logarithms.
Problems in textbook are usually typical, and high school mathematics lessons
centering on logarithms need to improve by illustrating to students the advantages of
logarithmic expressions through the use of phenomena from the real world. Japanese high
school mathematics textbooks are being edited so that students familiarize themselves with
the features, operations, and utilizations of logarithms without mathematics. For instance,
earthquake magnitudes, the brightness of stars, sound intensity units (dB), etc. from the real
world can introduce the logarithm.
We need teaching materials that reflect the nature of the logarithms, while
simultaneously appealing to our innate perceptions. Such teaching materials should
therefore include the following characteristics:

284 Logarithms: Teaching Materials for the Future and an Introduction to Power Functions
1. Consider or handle very large and/or small values.

2. The topic should be familiar to the students. That is, something taken from daily
life, or which students understand the social importance of.
3. The topic should have rich elements of unexpected surprise for the students.
4. Intellectual exploration should be enabled by the teaching materials.
Here we suggest some teaching materials which satisfy the above conditions. Our
materials were chosen to include a sense of obscurity, which we intend will impart a feeling
of discovery through the use of logarithms. Our materials include a certain amount of
uncertainty due to their roots from the real world, where science has grown inductively.
Moreover, since students tend to understand real world phenomena as algebraic functions,
for example as polynomial functions of time (which are relatively easy to handle), our
materials are chosen to present a framework where logarithms can provide an understanding
of a natural phenomenon. Since mathematical rigidity can make students feel cramped when
asked to apply their reasoning to a natural phenomena, we have also tried to utilize a sense
of flexibility. Again, this is done in hopes that students may understand the real world
scientifically by using the inherent nature of logarithmic functions.
Human activity and logarithms

A qualitative understanding of logarithms, that is a "sensory understanding on logarithms,"
can alleviate the sense of resistance to logarithms that students may have. Students also
familiarize themselves with logarithms as an innate provided sense. Table 1 shows an
example.
Table 1. History from the birth of the universe (Date 2009)
Years F•ago My History
1 10^6
Work at JAERI The Birth of Human
being
Gulf War Work at Osaya
Vietnam Era University
10 The World War B¡ 10^7
GraduateF•school
Japan-Russia war
Birthday
Paleozoic
10^2 10^8 Mesozoic
Yedo Era
Precambria
Heiann Era
10^3 Yayoi Era 10^9
Jomon Era
The birth of the earth

10^4 10^10
Big Ban
Pre-Japanese
10^5
inhabitant
Beijing Hara
Using a logarithmic scale, this table represents the time from the lifetime of an
individual to the birth of the universe. It provides a clear way to express important or

Sato 285
meaningful events over a long timeframe. The logarithmic time scale assists students in
understanding the significance of events.
The other famous example regards human perception. It is well known that human
perception is logarithmic. In particular, the Weber-Fechner’s law states that a perceived
intensity is proportional to the logarithm of a given stimulus:
[Threshold of intensity of perceived stimulus]/[a given stimulus] = constant
This law implies that we are able to recognize when a situation has changed through
perceiving a sufficient change in information with respect to the given stimulus. Historically
speaking (regarding Table 1), meaningful information is much more condensed over short
times. We also remark that we are able to find examples in which this law is confirmed.
Earthquakes
East Asia has experienced many disasters from serious earthquakes. For example, serious
earthquakes occurred off the West coast of Northern Sumatra in December 2004 and April
2012, near the East coast of Honshu, Japan, in March 2011 (Tohoku Earthquake), and in
Northern Sumatra, Indonesia, in March 2005. These events have prompted a need for
students to understand earthquakes in a scientific, that is, mathematic fashion.
For students, using logarithms allows them to understand earthquakes without having
to know much about earthquakes’ mechanisms. First, students need an understanding of the
numerical values used to represent the magnitude of earthquakes. They also need an
understanding of the frequency of earthquake occurrences. Logarithms are used extensively
in above cases.
Magnitude of Earthquakes
Students are often interested in the scale of earthquakes in Japan. Nevertheless, there is
currently only one high school mathematics textbook which introduces the Richter scale. Its
4.8 log10
expression is E  104.81.5M or , where M is the magnitude of the
1.5
earthquake
on the Richter scale and E is its energy. It may be caused by the existence of various
definitions for the magnitudes of earthquakes.
Amongst such scales, the moment magnitude (Mw) scale, based on the concept of
seismic moment, is uniformly applicable to all sizes of earthquakes. The moment magnitude
is particularly suitable to express large earthquakes, such as the one which occurred near the
East coast of Honshu in March of 2011. The definition of "moment magnitude" is as
follows:

The moment magnitude of an earthquake is given by the

quantity
MW 
log 10 (  D  S )  9.1 where
1.5
 ：Rock hardness (stiffness factor) (N/m2)
D ：Amount deviated (m)
S ：Area of motion (m2). (Rikanenpyo 2011)
This definition expresses that earthquakes are caused by the release of crustal strain.
Amongst the earthquakes in or near Japan, the earthquake which occurred near the East
coast of Honshu in March 2011 caused great damage. The data used here was obtained from
the United States Geological Survey (USGS). The data correspond to the 796 earthquakes
which were greater than M5.0 and which occurred in the range of North latitude 33.892
degrees to 41.725 degrees, East longitude 136.538 degrees to 145.503 degrees and within the
time interval from 0:00 am on March 1, 2011 to 23:59 on February 28, 2012. Figure 1 shows
the data region, and Figure 2 shows their distribution.
Figure 1. The data collection area
Figure 2. Distribution of epicenters of 796 selected earthquakes

Sato 287
Table 2. Earthquake size

Rank Northern Latitude (degree) East Latitude (degree)H Depth HkmH Magnitude HM)
1 38.297 142.373 29 9.1
2 36.281 141.111 42.6 7.9
3 38.058 144.59 18.6 7.7
4 38.435 142.842 32 7.3
5 38.276 141.588 42 7.1
6 38.034 143.264 23 7
7 39.955 142.205 33 6.7
7 40.273 142.779 30 6.7
7 38.969 143.37 2.8 6.7
Since we can imagine an earthquake's energy through our own real experiences it is
important to know how large earthquakes behave on a logarithm scale. Students should
compare between earthquakes using the size of the scale. That is, a difference of 1 on the
scale means 101.5  10 10 , which is approximately 31 times.
It is very important for students to recognize the difference between the magnitude on
the scale (see Figure 3) and the actual energy of the earthquake. (See Figure 4).
10
The distribution of 796 earthquakes
9
8 Magnitude
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
Rank
0
Figure 3. The distribution of the 796 earthquakes
6E+22
Energy of Eathquake
5E+22
N m
4E+22
3E+22
2E+22
1E+22 Rank
0
Figure 4. Energy of the Earthquakes
These figures also show that larger earthquakes are less frequent. However, this only
gives a qualitative expression of frequency, and a quantitative expression is also needed.

There are varying magnitudes in the earthquakes, from the level in which cups shake
on the table to the level in which buildings break down. The students should here realize
that the use of logarithms is relevant to this fact. They should also understand the difference
between an earthquake with a magnitude 9.1 and an earthquake with a magnitude 7.1, as
mentioned above. We should note that it may not be easy for a large part of high school
students to recognize the difference in energy between two earthquakes. Even if a
small-magnitude earthquake occurs nearby, it may cause a big disaster. Students usually
imagine earthquake magnitudes by the amount of shaking, which they can feel. It should
also be stressed that, in the case of an earthquake with a large magnitude that occurs at a
distant location of the sea, the earthquake can thus create a big tsunami which may cause
tremendous damage to the coast. Here, Figures 3 and 4 can be used to show that an
earthquake with a magnitude of 9.1 has a much larger energy in comparison with
earthquakes of magnitude less than 7.6. This feature will hopefully show an unexpected
characteristic of earthquakes while highlighting the students’ need to both understand and
use logarithmic expressions.
Frequency of Earthquakes
The frequency of occurrence of large earthquakes should also be considered. In
particular, after the occurrence of an earthquake with a large magnitude, the chance that an
earthquake with a similar magnitude soon occurs is a very important question.
As logarithm functions with base (<1) smoothly decrease like the characteristic ”L”
shape, students may guess the distribution of the 796 earthquakes in Figure 3 to
approximated by a logarithm function. In fact, it is approximated by y  6.03 10 0.000128x (see
Figure 5).
Figure 5. The distribution of the 796 earthquakes
The function y  6.03 10 0.000128x approximates well when x  100 . However, near the
y-axis it does not. To understand the phenomena of earthquakes, this error should not be
overlooked. Why this error occurs is due to the fact that mega earthquakes are rare. The fact
that bigger earthquakes occur rarely is expressed mathematically by the logarithm.
Let xi  the rank of the size of the earthquake, yi  the magnitude of the earthquake,

Sato 289
xi log10 X i and yi log10 Yi .

796 796 796
x y
796
x
i 1
i  1965 .27 , y
i 1
i  580.69 , xi 1
i
2
 4996 .99 ,
i 1
i i  1422 .72
Let y  ax  b be an approximating function of xi , yi  where
 xi yi    xi   yi 
796 796 796
796
a
i 1  i 1  i 1   0.07574
2
 xi 2    xi 
796 796
796
i 1  i 1 
and

   
796 2  796  796  796 
 x  y   x  xy 
b
i 1 i  i 1 i   i 1 i  i 1 i i   0.916502
2 .
    x 
796 2 796
796 x
i 1 i  i 1 i 
Then the frequency of earthquakes during March 2011-February 2012 can be approximated
0.07574
by the power function y  x  10 0.9165
Table 3. The sequence of the inherence
Figure 6. Approximation by a power function

From the point of view of mathematical education, there is an important reason why
this distribution should be recognized. Whereas the central limit theorem tells us that many
No. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
distributions
Era tend to be bell-shaped, the distribution
Quaternary Tertiary of the magnitudes of earthquakes is
Mesozoic
quite different. The distribution is called a “power-law distribution.” It is a well-known fact
Million
thatyears 0.01
the magnitude -1.64frequency
and -5.2 of -23.3 -35.4
the earthquakes -56.5
follow a -65
power -145.6
law. -208
ago
Period Holocene Pleistocene Pliocene Miocene Oligocene Eocene Paleocene Cretaceous Jurassic
No. 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
Geological
Era
Columns Paleozoic late
Mesozoic Paleozoic early Precambrian
Earth science classifies the history of the earth as follows.
Million
years -245 -290 -362.5 -408.5 -438.1 -505 -545 -2500 -3500
ago
Table 4. Geological
Period age classification
Triassic Permian (The Geological
Carboniferous Devonian Silurian Society
Ordovician ofCambrian
Japan, Proterozoic
2016) Archean
Examining this table, we find that the period of classifications decreases as we approach the
present time. This is due to the fact that, we may obtain more geological information closer
to the present time than at older times.
Figure 7 The relationship between geological age classification and its time interval
This relation may be approximated by y  3.0391 x  0.05628 . Therefore, geological

columns also may be approximated by a power function, y  x 3.0391 10 0.05628. This function
approximates the real values until around Paleozoic late (see Figure 8).
Figure 8 Approximation by a power function

Power laws
We are able to find power laws not only in nature, but also by examining ancient human
activities. Ozawa (2012) classified ancient keyhole-shaped tumulus (mound tombs) of the

Sato 291
oldest class by comparing their volumes. He found a power law distribution in the size of
the tumulus, which reflected mainly ancient military, political and economic forces. We
simply refer to these tumulus as “ancient tombs.”
The author suggests that ancient tombs of the oldest class should be compared using
their length because the estimation of their volume needs professional knowledge.
Figure 9. Nintoku's ancient tomb(Daisen mounded tomb)

Note. This picture is provided by Sakai Ciity Museum.
Table 5. Ranking of ancient tombs ordered by their sizes (length). (Sakai-city 2016)
S ize of Tomb
Rank Name of Tomb Address
(m)
1 Emperor Nintoku's ancient tomb 486 OsakaF•Sakai
2 EmperorF•Oujin's ancient tomb 425 Osaka Habikino
3 EmperorF•Richu's ancient tomb 365 OsakaF•Sakai
4 Tsukuriyama ancient tomb 350 Okayama Okayama
5 Kawachiotsuka ancient tomb 335 Okayama Souja
6 Gojonomaruyama ancient tomb 310 Nara Kashiwabara
7 Nisanzai ancient tomb 300 OsakaF•Sakai
8 Shibutanimukaiyama ancient tomb 300 Nara Tenri
9 Nakatsuhimenomikoto ancient tomb 290 Osaka Fujiidera
10 Tsukuriyama ancient tomb 286 Okayama Souja
11 Hashihaka ancient tomb 280 Nara Sakurai
12 Gosashi ancient tomb 275 Nara Nara
13 Uwanabei ancient tomb 255 Nara Nara
Ichiniwa ancient tomb 250 Nara Nara
14
Mesuriyama ancient tomb 250 Nara Sakurai
Emperor Chuai's ancient tomb (Okamisanzai ancient tomb) 242 Osaka Fujiidera
16
Anndonnyama ancient tomb (Enperor Sujin’sF•tomb) 242 Nara Tenri
18 Muromiyayama ancient tomb 238 Nara gose
19 Emperor ingyou's ancient tomb 230 Osaka Fujiidera
20 Houraiyama ancient tomb HEmperor ingyou's tombH 227 Nara Nara

S ize of Tomb
Rank Name of Tomb Address
(m)
21 Chausuyama ancient tomb HEmperor Keitai's tombH 226 Osaka Ibaragi
22 Hakayama ancient tomb 225 Osaka Habikino
23 Suyma ancient tomb 220 Nara Koryo
Higeashi ancient tomb 219 Nara Nara
24
Nishitonoduka ancient tomb 219 Nara Tenri
26 Sakiishidukayama ancient tomb HEmperor Seimu's tombH 218 Nara Nara
27 Kawaiotsuka ancient tomb 215 Nara Kawai
Tsukiyama ancient tomb 210 Nara Tkadayamato
28 Sairyo ancient tomb 210 Osaka Misaki
Otatenjinnyama ancient tomb 210 Gunma Ota
31 Tsudoshiroyama ancient tomb 208 Osaka Fiidera
Sakuraichausuyama ancient tomb 207 Nara Sakurai
32
Misasagiyama ancient tomb 207 Nara Nara
34 Konabe ancient tomb 204 Nara Nara
35 Gobyouyama ancient tomb 203 OsakaF•Sakai
Figure 10. The distribution of ancient tombs
Considering the shape of this distribution, it may be approximated by a logarithmic

function or a power function .
Approximation by a logarithm function

We use the base of the natural logarithm in the followings calculations.
: the i-th rank.
: the size (m) of the ancient tomb with rank i.
Let xi be X i and yi be yi  log Yi . Observing the distribution of xi , yi  , we see that it
may be approximated by a line y  ax  b .
35 35 35 35
By calculating 
i 1
xi  622 , 
i 1
xi 2  14546 , 3375.8 and 193.9 , we obtain
1 1
    
 
35 35 35
  
 
 
 
 
35 35 35 35
35 xy x y  x 2
 y   x  x y 
i 1 i i  i 1 i  i 1 i   0.020 and
b       5.897 .
i 1 i i 1 i i 1 i i 1 i i
a 2
 x 2    x 
2
    
35 35 35 2 35
35
i 1 i
35 x x 
 i 1 i  i 1 i  i 1 i 

Sato 293
Since xi , yi  is approximated by the line y  0.020 x  5.897 ,

,
is approximated by a
0.020x 0.020x
curve Y  e e  363 .8e
5.897
. As shown in Figure 11. we remark that the approximation
does not fit.
Figure 11. Approximation by a logarithm function
This is particularly evident in regions with high ranks (large tombs) where this
approximation does not succeed. Upon observing this graph, we see that “size” needs to be
compressed for high ranking ancient tombs. If students are not able to notice this feature,
their teacher should provide guidance.
Approximation by a power function

Let be log and be log . We obtain an approximate function y  0.256 x  6.214
for xi , yi  . This leads an approximate function Y  e 6.214  x 0.256  499 .7 X 0.256 for ,
which approximates , very well (see Figure 12).
Figure 12. Approximation by a power function

Conclusion
The teaching materials presented satisfy the conditions suggested in the introduction.
Students may notice and question why the distributions of ancient tombs and
earthquakes are similar each other. Some students were stimulated along these lines and
later found that the distribution of urban populations in Japan can be described by a power
function curve. In this sense, it is important that when students recognize important relations,
that we invite them to further explore the real and intellectual world, via mathematics.

Likewise, it is important for teachers to look at mathematics both rigorously, as well as from
various perspectives of flexibly.
The author has focused on the logarithm in this paper, which can also be used to
investigate other phenomena related to quantities such as size, weight, time. The flexibility
property of the logarithm brings us great results. Of course, logarithms have other aspects,
and there are many other topics that can be suggested for engaging and enforcing common
curriculum topics. For example, trigonometric functions also have peculiar properties that
can be interesting to students.
In closing, wherever developments in areas such as technology may take us, and even
if AI finally releases us from a cage of calculation, such developments should mean that
school mathematics does not lose its rigor, and rather that students gain tools with which
they can explore their world.
References
Bremigan, E. G., Bremigan, R. J. (2011). Mathematics for Secondary School Teachers. 304.
Mathematical Associationn of America
Buchanan, M (2000). Ubiquity: The Science of History or Why the World is Simpler than we
Think:
London: W&N.
Liang, C. B. and Wood, E. (2005). Working with logarithms: students' misconceptions and
errors.
The Mathematics Educator 8(2) 53-708(2). 53-57.
Sakai-city (2016). Ranking of ancient tombs. Retrieved June 20 ,2016, from
Sakai-city Web site:
http://www.city.sakai.lg.jp/kanko/rekishi/dkofun/ranking/zenkoku.html
Takahashi,Y (2011). Exponential function and logarithmic function: Mathematics 2,
156-188
Shinkoshuppansha keirinkan
The Geological Society of Japan (2017). International Chronstratigraphic Chart. Retrieved
September 20, 2017, from
http://www.geosociety.jp/uploads/fckeditor//name/ChronostratChart_jp.pdf
The National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (2011). Earth science: Rikanenpyo.
Retrieved September 20, 2017, from
http://pub.maruzen.co.jp/index/kokai/rikanenpyo/chi132.pdf
United States Geological Survey (2016). Search Earthquake Catalog. Retrieved September 20,
2017, from https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/search/
Hajime Sato
Meiji University

Sato 295
4-21-1 Nakano, Nakano-ku, Tokyo 164-8525, Japan

satoh@meiji.ac.jp

296 Tracking the Students’ Movements Between Decimal Codes: The Issue of Regression
TRACKING THE STUDENTS’ MOVEMENTS BETWEEN

DECIMAL CODES: THE ISSUE OF REGRESSION
Masitah Shahrill, Universiti Brunei Darussalam, Brunei Darussalam
Abstrct
Decimal notation plays an important role in our everyday use. However, previous studies
have indicated that some students had difficulties in interpreting and operating decimals.
This study aimed at tracking the changes of students’ achievements in a strategically
designed decimal comparison test within a period of one year. Data from an earlier funded
study were extracted and analysed. The first analysis examines the 2258 students, ranging
from Year 6 to Year 10, who did two decimal tests in a year, and traces the students’
movements between readily identified decimal codes from their first test to their second test
(referred to as Transitions). In the second analysis, 122 students were identified to have had
almost no errors in their first test but made more errors in the second test. This particular
transition is referred to as regressing. A further analysis of responses on the decimal test
indicated some regression students were consistent in using various incomplete algorithms
to correctly choose many decimal comparisons. However, when the algorithm that was used
fail to give a definite answer, they resorted to guessing at random or revert to a latent
misconception.
Keywords: decimals, comparison test, longitudinal study, persistence, regression

Shao, Wang 297
IDENTIFYING A HYPOTHETICAL LEARNING TRAJECTORY

FOR CARTESIAN COORDINATE SYSTEM BASED ON A
COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF CURRICULUM STANDARDS
Ming-Yu Shao, East China Normal University, China
Jia-Lu Wang, East China Normal University, China
Abstract
This paper presents the process of identifying a hypothetical learning trajectory for
Cartesian coordinate system based on a comparative analysis of curriculum standards. we
first gave another definition of “hypothetical learning trajectory”, together with its
constituent elements. Referring to the theories and researches on students’ cognitive
development and mathematics pedagogy, we have identified two different approaches to
this concept: the one originating from “Locating, Spatial Orientation Models and
Navigating while the other rooted in “Number and Operation on the Number Axis”. The
two approaches formulated into a framework for content analysis, during which 6 countries
curriculum standards were encoded and compared. Besides the reliability and validity of the
content analysis were tested. Based on the results of comparison of curriculum standards,
the initial two approaches were revised and refined into a hypothetical learning trajectory
for Cartesian coordinate system, which remains to be examined by further empirical
research and promised to be a tool of adaptive assessment and instruction.
Key words: hypothetical learning trajectory, Cartesian coordinate system, cognitive

development and curriculum, content analysis

298 Comparison of Students’ Values and Mathematical Models in the Process of Solving a Socially
Open-Ended Problem: Focusing on a Comparison Between Elemetary School Students and Junior
High School Students
COMPARISON OF STUDENTS’ VALUES AND MATHEMATICAL
MODELS IN THE PROCESS OF SOLVING A SOCIALLY OPEN-
ENDED PROBLEM: FOCUSING ON A COMPARISON BETWEEN
ELEMENTARY SCHOOL STUDENTS AND JUNIOR HIGH
SCHOOL STUDENTS
Isao Shimada , Nippon Sport Science University, Japan
Takuya Baba, Hiroshima University, Japan
RESEARCH BACKGROUND
Bishop (1991) pointed out the importance of research on values in mathematics
education to enhance mathematics learning. Based on this idea, Shimada and Baba (2012)
developed three “socially open-ended problems1”, such as “Hitting the target problem,”
“Room assignment problem” and “Cake division problem.” Shimada and Baba (2015) gave
them to the fourth graders, and examined how students appreciated others’ values2 and
mathematical models and transformed their own values during a lesson, in particular,
between the beginning and end of a class. Furthermore, Shimada and Baba (2016) studied
the issue of the long-term transformation of values and mathematical models across grades,
in particular, between the fourth and the sixth grades and identified three characteristics3.
Recently in Japanese education, integration of cognitive science and design science is
said to be beginning in Japan. Cognitive science is a science excluding value, and it is a
discipline that seeks a fact proposition related to human intellectual activities. On the other
hand, design science is a discipline that emphasizes human values (Science Council of
Japan, 2007). Besides it is important for students to develop problem-solving abilities
related to issues such as environmental problems, so as to produce the different value
judgments that are seen in modern society. Furthermore, in Japanese mathematical
education, in some types of problem solving, it has been pointed out that values were
expressed with mathematical solutions (Iida et al., 1995).
After those studies, we regard it is important to check the transformation of values and
mathematical models in an even longer period. However, in the Japanese education system,
it is not possible to investigate the transformation of their values and mathematical models
by tracing the same group of students. This is because they proceed to different junior high
schools after the elementary school. As an alternative of this long-term transformation, we
compared with the values and mathematical models of elementary school students and those
of junior high school students by giving the same problem (Fig.1; Hitting the target).
Research Objective and Methodology

Research Objective

7-11 May 2018,Taipei,Taiwan
Shimada, Baba 299
The aim of this paper is to study characteristics of junior high school students' values
and mathematical models through comparing with those of elementary school students
when giving junior high school students the same problem (Fig.1; Hitting the target).
Research Methodology
Overview of the class
The first author carried out a problem-solving lesson using the socially open-ended
problem “Hitting the target” in the same private elementary school in Tokyo with the fourth
graders on March 12, 2013, and with the sixth graders on March 10, 2016, and also with the
third graders in the junior high school students in Hyogo prefecture on June 8, 2017. The
numbers of the fourth and the sixth graders were 38, and 38 respectively, and there were 66
junior high school students. The problem is shown in Figure 1.
“Hitting the target:” At a school cultural

festival, your class offers a game of hitting a
target with three balls. If the total score is
more than 13 points, you can choose three
favorite gifts. If you score 10 to 12 points,
you get two prizes, and if you score 3 to 9
points, you get only one prize. A first grader
threw a ball three times and hit the target
in the 5-point area, the 3-point area, and on
the border between the 3-point and 1-point
areas. How do you give the score to the
student?
Figure 1.Problem-solving task

The research method to study characteristics of junior high school students' values and
mathematical models through comparing with those of elementary school students when
giving junior high school students the same problem
Seah (2012), who is one of the leaders of the Third Wave international research project on
values, stated the following in an overview of research on values:
The researching of values in the mathematics classroom has traditionally been approached using
the research methods of questionnaires, observation, and/or interviews. … By the late 2000s,
values were also identified through content analyses of artefacts such as photographs and
drawing, often followed by participant interviews which served to clarify initial findings or
questions. (Seah, 2012, pp. 2–3)
In our previous study (Shimada & Baba, 2016), the same problem “Hitting the target” (Fig.
1) was given to the fourth graders and the sixth graders, and the values and mathematical
models of the sixth graders were compared with those of the fourth graders by analyzing
worksheets written by the students. As a result of this analysis, we found that the fourth
graders expressed the value “kindness to the first graders” more than the sixth graders,
whereas the sixth graders expressed the value “fairness and equality” more than the fourth

graders. From this result, we conjectured that students might transform from the value
“kindness to the first grader” to the value “fairness and equality” as they grew older. In
addition, we noted that the sixth graders expressed various mathematical models than the
fourth graders4, some of which were more advanced, as they learned more mathematical
content. From this result, we conjectured that the students might have developed their
knowledge of mathematical expressions in quantity and quality as they became older. To
investigate these conjectures in this paper, we gave junior high school students the same
problem “Hitting the target” and investigated their values and mathematical models through
comparing with those of elementary school students, using the same method of analysis as
in our previous study (Shimada & Baba, 2016). The reason we put the junior high school
students into the subject of research is to study what kind of values or mathematical models
they express because they have acquired sufficient life experience and learning experience
in mathematics than the sixth graders.
Thus, this paper focuses on the following two points: first, to research how junior high
school students express the values of “kindness to the first graders” and “fairness and
equality” as they become older; and second, to clarify how junior high school students
express various mathematical models as they have acquired sufficient life experience and
have learned more mathematical contents.
ANALYSIS OF STUDENT DATA
The analysis of values and mathematical models on a worksheet for the junior high
school students through comparing with those of elementary school students revealed two
characteristics.
The percentage of the value “fairness and equality” increases as students become older,
namely junior high school students supported the value “fairness and equality” than
elementary school students
The first characteristic is that the number of students who express the value “fairness
and equality” increases as they become older, namely junior high school students supported
the value “fairness and equality” than elementary school students. Table 1 shows the
numbers of students who expressed each value. The fractions inside the parentheses show
the number of students who expressed the values such as “fairness and equality” or
“kindness to the first graders” on a worksheet / the number of all students in the class or the
grade. All numbers in front of the parentheses show the converted percentages. For example,
the percentage of students who expressed the value “fairness and equality” for the junior
high school students is 74.2%, whereas the percentage of students who expressed the value
“kindness to the first graders” for the junior high school students is 25.8%. The junior high
school students tend to express the value “fairness and equality” more than the value
“kindness to the first graders.” From the data in Table 1, we understood that students tend to
express the value “fairness and equality” more than the value “kindness to the first graders”
as they get older. Why do older students express the value “fairness and equality” more? We
think that the students’ values were affected by their social and cultural experiences along
with their growth.

Shimada, Baba 301
Table 1. Values for both graders and junior high school students
The Fourth The Sixth Junior high school

Social Values
graders graders students
Fairness and
52.6 (20/38) 60.5 (23/38) 74.2 (49/66)
equality
Kindness to the
47.4 (18/38) 39.5 (15/38) 25.8 (17/66)
first graders
Total 100.0 (38/38) 100.0(38/38) 100.0 (66/66)
The junior high school students express a variety of ideas of mathematical models than
elementary school students
The second characteristic is that the junior high school students express a variety of
ideas of mathematical models than elementary school students. Table 2 shows the ideas of
mathematical models, such as “The idea of giving a high score or low score,” “The idea of
taking the average,” “The idea of considering the area,” “The idea of probability,” and “The
idea of applying the rules of sports.” Table 3 shows the examples of the ideas of
mathematical models in junior high school students, such as “The idea of giving a high
score or low score,” “The idea of taking the average,” “The idea of considering the area.”
Table 4 shows the examples of the ideas of mathematical models in junior high school
students, such as “The idea of probability.” Table 5 shows the examples of the ideas of
mathematical models in junior high school students, such as “The idea of applying the rules
of sports.” When we looked at the ideas of mathematical models in table2 in detail, we
clarified the following. “The idea of probability” and “The idea of applying the rules of
sports” are only seen in junior high school students. Why are two ideas seen in only the
junior high school students? We conjecture it is because the junior high school students
have acquired sufficient life experience and learning experience in mathematics than the
sixth graders. We will examine these in detail in Tables 4 and 5. On the other hand, in the
junior high school students, “The idea of considering the area” is decreasing. The reason
may be that the junior high school students used various other ideas.
Table 2. The ideas of mathematical models in both graders and the junior high school students
The ideas of The Fourth The Sixth Junior high School
mathematical models graders graders students
The idea of giving a high
50.0(19/38) 42.1(16/38) 51.5(34/66)
score or low score
The idea of taking the
23.7(9/38) 36.8(14/38) 27.3(18/66)
average
The idea of considering
26.3(10/38) 21.1(8/38) 7.6(5/66)
the area

The idea of probability 0.0(0/38) 0.0(0/38) 6.1(4/66)
The idea of applying the
0.0(0/38) 0.0(0/38) 7.6(5/66)
rules of sports
Total 100.0(38/38) 100.0(38/38) 100.0(66/66)
Table 3. The examples of the ideas of mathematical models in junior high school students
The ideas of Mathematical
Social values Explanation
mathematical models models
I gave three points
because the ball is on
The idea of giving a high 5+3×2=11 Kindness to the first the boundary of three
score or low score graders points and one point.
The first grader feels
happy.
The ball was on a
line between 1 and 3,
The idea of taking the Fairness and so I gave two points
(3+1)÷2+5+3=10
average equality of the middle. The
average of 1 and 3 is
2.
The idea of considering Because the ball was
5+3+1=9 Fairness and equality
the area close to one point.
The junior high school students explain the reasons for their mathematical models from
“The idea of probability” such as “Because it is difficult to hit the line, I gave 4 points as a
bonus point.” and “Since the probability of a ball hitting a line is low, I gave 6 points as a
bonus to elementary school students.” There was no elementary school student who had
“The idea of probability.” Why is “The idea of probability” seen only in junior high school
students, and not seen in elementary school students? We conjecture that this is because the
mathematical contents of the probability are taught in the second grade in junior high school
in the mathematics curriculum in Japan.
Table 4. The mathematical models based on “The idea of probability”

Mathematical Social values Explanation of the reasons
models
Fairness and Because it is difficult to hit a ball on the line, I gave 4 points as a
5+3+4 equality bonus point.
Fairness and Since the probability of a ball hitting a line is low, I gave 6 points
5+3+6 equality as a bonus to elementary school students.
5+3×2 Kindness to the I gave 3 points because it is amazing to hit it on the line.
first graders

Shimada, Baba 303
The junior high school students considered the rules of “Hitting the target” according to
the rules of sports such as baseball, volleyball and tennis when a ball is on a line. Why is
“The idea of applying the rules of sports” seen only in the junior high school students, and
not seen in elementary school students? We conjecture this is because the junior high school
students have acquired a lot of life experience about sports with their growth. In contrast,
elementary school students have limited experience with sports. This is an example which
living experiences affect the mathematical models.
Table 5. The mathematical models based on “The idea of applying the rules of sports”
Mathematical Social values Explanation of the reasons
models
Fairness and Even in the game of the volleyball, it will be judged as “in” if it
5+3?b2 equality is on the line. So I gave 3 points.
3×2+5 Fairness and In terms of sports rules, we will judge as “in” when volleyball
equality or tennis hits a ball on a line. So I gave 3 points.
Kindness to I compared it to the strike zone of baseball. Because the ball on

5+3?b2 the first the line is judged as a strike zone. So I gave 3 points. Another
graders reason is because I want to please the first grader.
CONCLUSION AND FUTURE ISSUES

In this paper, we analyzed junior high school students' values and mathematical
models through comparing with those of elementary school students when giving the same
problem “Hitting the target,” and concluded the following two characteristics. (1) The
percentage for the value “fairness and equality” increases as students get older. From this
result, we hypothesized that some students might change from the value “kindness to the
first graders” to the value “fairness and equality” as they get older. This may be because
they have changed their perceptions about fairness and equality and thus the importance
attached to fairness and equality through their experience inside and outside the classroom.
(2) The junior high school students have various ideas of mathematical models. In particular,
“The idea of probability” and “The idea of applying the rules of sports,” are only seen in
junior high school students. We conjecture this is because the junior high school students
have acquired a lot of life experiences about sports and mathematical contents with their
growth.
From the above results, we hope to establish our next analysis. The next analysis is to
investigate what kind of values and mathematical models university students who have
more mathematical learning experiences and living experiences express when we give them
the same problem “Hitting the target.”
REFERENCES
Baba, T. (2010). Socially Open-Ended Approach and Critical Mathematics Education. Paper
presented at EARCOME 5, Tokyo.

Becker, J.P. and Shimada, S. (Eds.) (1997). The Open-Ended Approach in Mathematics Education:
A New Proposal for Teaching Mathematics. Reston: National Council of Teachers of
Mathematics. [Translation of Shimada, Ed. (1977).]
Bishop, A. (1991). Mathematical Enculturation: A Cultural Perspective on Mathematics Education.
Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Iida, I., et al. (1995). Study on Perceptions of Values with Open-Ended Problems in Mathematics
Learning. Journal of Mathematical Education in Kyushu No. 1, 32–43. [In Japanese.]
Science Council of Japan. (2007). Integration of knowledge: Towards science for society.
Seah, W.T. (2012). Identifying Values in Mathematics Learning and Teaching. Document in the
study group of values in Hiroshima University.
Shimada, I. and Baba, T. (2012). Emergence of Students’ Values in the Process of Solving Socially
Open-Ended Problems. Proceedings of the 36th Conference of the International Group for the
Psychology of Mathematics Education, 4, 75–82. Taipei, Taiwan: PME.
Shimada, I. and Baba, T. (2015). Transformation of Students’ Values in the Process of Solving
Socially Open-Ended Problems. Proceedings of the 39th Conference of the International Group
for the Psychology of Mathematics Education, 4, 161–168. Hobart, Australia: PME.
Shimada, I. and Baba, T. (2016). Transformation of Students’ Values in the Process of Solving
Socially Open-Ended Problems (2). Proceedings of the 40th Conference of the International
Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education, 4, 187–194. Szeged, Hungary: PME.
Shimada, S. (Ed.) (1977). Open-Ended Approach in Mathematics Education: A Proposal for Lesson
Improvement. Tokyo: Mizuumi Press. [In Japanese.]
Note.
1
Socially open-ended problem is a particular type of problem (Baba, 2010) which has been
developed to elicit students’ values by extending the traditional open-ended approach (Shimada.
(Ed.), 1977; Becker & Shimada. (Eds.), 1997).
2
Shimada and Baba (2012) pointed out the importance of mathematical values, social values and
personal values in mathematics education. Shimada and Baba's researches (2012, 2015, 2016)
focused on social values in the three values. This paper also focuses on social value. The social
value in this paper refers to the values of “fairness and equality” and “kindness to the first graders.”
3
Three characteristics of students’ long-term transformation of social values and
mathematical models are noted below.1) Some students transform their social values from
the fourth graders to the sixth graders,2) Many students change mathematical models in the
sixth graders, 3) Some students transform from explicit values to the re-existence of implicit
values in the sixth graders (Shimada & Baba,2016).
4
The number of mathematical models is higher in the 6th graders than in the fourth graders. For
example, on “The idea of taking the average”, a mathematical model such as “5 + 3 + 3 ÷ 2
= 9.5” is found only in the sixth graders.

Shimada, Baba 305
[Isao Shimada ]
[Nippon Sport Science University: 7-1-1 Fukasawa,Setagaya-ku,Tokyo, 158-8508, Japan]
[shimadaisao@nittai.ac.jp]
[Takuya Baba]
[Hiroshima University: 1-5-1 Kagamiyama, Higashi Hiroshima-Si, Hirosima,739-8529,
Japan]
[takuba@hiroshima.u-ac.jp]

306 Sudents’ Explanations about the Area Problem in Elemetary School: Assessment Framework
STUDENTS’ EXPLANATIONS ABOUT THE AREA PROBLEM IN

ELEMENTARY SCHOOL: ASSESSMENT FRAMEWORK
Taketo Shimomura, Shimane University, Japan
Yutaka Kondo, Nara University of Education, Japan
Introduction
In Japan, students learn mathematical proof beginning in Grade 7 (ages 13 -14). Of course,
even before then, students explain their reason in mathematical problems. In junior high
school, students are taught “mathematical proof” with clear goals of its teaching and
learning. But in elementary school, in spite of the fact that every teacher think it is important
to explain their reasoning, there are not so clear goals of teaching about “explanation” in
mathematics class. Therefore, the evaluation for one student’s explanation differs depending
on the teacher. As de Villiers (1990) describes five roles of “proof” (verification,
explanation, systematization, discovery, communication), “explanation” in mathematics
also has some aspects. The purpose of teaching about “explanation” in mathematics has to
be consider from various aspects. For this purpose, in this study, we try to capture the
characteristics of actual students’ explanations (Kondo, 2017), and analyze their
explanations from the viewpoints of mathematical proof. Then, based on these, we propose
the assessment framework to evaluate students’ explanations.
The research questions are:
● What characteristics of explanations are identified when students tackle the
mathematical problem in elementary school?
● What assessment framework can we make to evaluate students’ explanations?
Background
Characteristics of mathematical proof
Objectivity of components of explanation
In Japan, teaching and learning about mathematical proof is started from Grade 7 in junior
high school. For example, with respect to the proposition in Figure 1, the mathematical
proof that the two triangles are congruent is shown below (see next page).
In this paper, we focus on students’ “explanation” before learning about “mathematical
proof”. In previous study, Rosenberg, one of scientific philosopher, stated in relation to
scientific explanation as follow;
Let’s call the sentences in an explanation which do the explaining the “explanans” (a Latin
word, plural “explanantia”), and those which report the event to be explained the
“explanandum” (plural “explananda”). There are no convenient English single word
equivalents for these terms and so they have become commonplace in philosophy.
(Rosenberg, 2005)

Shimomura, Kondo 307
PROPOSITION MATHEMATICAL PROOF
Can be done by drawing figures; Δ AOP For △AOP and △BOP,

From drawing figures, OA = OB … (1),
AP = BP … (2),
Because it is a common side, OP = OP … (3),
From (1), (2), (3), Since the three sets of sides are
equal to each other,
△ AOP ≡ △ BOP.
and Δ BOP are congruent.
Figure. 1. Example of mathematical proof in junior high school

In Figure 1, “△ AOP ≡ △ BOP” is the part of “explanandum” and the other parts are
“explanans”. Of the explanatory items in Figure 1, the parts (1), (2), and (3) are
“objectively and true elements constituting the proof”. “Objectively and true elements”
means a prerequisite condition, a definition of mathematics or a property that is already
accepted as correct. In mathematical proof, it is not permissible to include conditions and
subjective judgments that are not premises in “explanans”. “Objectivity of components of
explanation” is one of characteristics of mathematical proof.
Deductive-Nomological explanation
Among “explanans” in Figure 1, “The three sets of sides are equal to each other (the two
triangles are congruent)” is a part representing “the law necessary to derive the conclusion
of the proposition”. Hempel (1965) advocated “Deductive-Nomological explanation (D-N
explanation)” as a concept of scientific explanation. And he said “In D-N explanation, the
“explanandum” is a logical consequence of “explanans”. Furthermore, relying on general
“law” is essential in D-N explanation. In this paper, we regard this “law” as “properties of
number, quantity and figure” and stand on the position that including “law” in “explanans”
is an important condition of explanation in mathematics. “Including properties which
directly leading the conclusion of the proposition” is one of characteristics of mathematical
proof.
Study context and methodology

Survey problem
Our survey was conducted in 2016. The data was taken from two classes of 56 Grade 6
students (ages 11-12) in two elementary schools in Japan. The problem which the students
tackled is shown below. This problem involves comparing areas of two triangles and
requires some reasoning.

【Question】In the figure, line M and line N are parallel. Circle the number that correct one of the
statement that correctly describes the areas of triangle A and
B. Also explain why it is correct.
1) The area of A is larger than the area of B.

2) The area of B is larger than the area of A.
3) Both A and B have equal areas.
Figure. 2. Which triangle is larger?
Method of analysis
Descriptions of students’ explanations were analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively to
grasp characteristics of their explanations. In order to maintain the validity of the
interpretation, at the first, students’ explanations were interpreted by two researchers
individually, after that, discuss about each interpretation to decide the interpretation.
Viewpoints of analysis
From the two viewpoints of characteristics of mathematical proof (shown above),
descriptions of students’ explanations were analyzed. In this survey, specific criterions of
the judgment were constructed to the presence or the absence of the following descriptions;
Objectivity of components of explanation
・The areas of △PQR and △PQS are equal.
・△PQR = △A+△PQT, △PQS = △B+△PQT (△PQT is a common part between △PQR and
△PQS.)
Connection with the property directly leading to the conclusion of the proposition
・Elements of the description are associated with the property “The remaining areas after
removal of same-sized area from two equal areas are equal to each other.”
Results of the survey

The characteristics of descriptions of students’ explanations
As results of the analysis from above viewpoints, five features of students’ explanations
were identified.
0) No explanation.
There were “No explanation” with a correct answer (A = B) or an incorrect answer (A > B).
These students stand at the start point of this study. Because, the aim of this study is
promoting student’s ability to explain their reasoning.
Students other than 0) had grasp something in their explanation. Their explanations were
characterized from two aspects (shown above; “Objectivity of components of explanation”
and “Including properties which directly leading the conclusion of the proposition”). There
were 1), 2) as features seen in “Objectivity of components of explanation”.

1) The explanation that is based on his/her subjective judgement or a component which was
not premised on the problem.
Example [student C] : “I think, if the shape of △B change like the shape of △A, then
there will be same.”
This explanation is just a subjective judgment of student C.
Example [student D]: “△PQR is 4 × 5 ÷ 2 ＝ 10, △PQS is 4 × 5 ÷ 2 ＝ 10, and
△TPQ was removed from both triangles. The height of △TPQ was almost 2 cm, and
△TPQ was 4 × 2 ÷ 2 ＝ 4. So, △A and △B are 10 － 4 ＝ 6, then A = B.”
The explanation of student D is included a component that is not objective. Because, the
condition that the height of △PQT is about 2 cm was not premised on the problem.
2) The explanation that is based on properties of figures or components which were

premised on the problem.
Example [student E]: “M//N and the height is 5 cm. And, these triangles were
between these lines. So, A = B.”
His explanation was not the satisfied, but components of his explanation were just
objective.
Example [student F]: “△PQR and △PQS have a same base and height, and same
areas. △PQT is an area where △PQR and △PQS overlap, so △PQR-△PQT = A,
△PQS-△PQT=B. Because, if the same area is removed from two equal areas, the
remaining areas will still be equal.”
In his explanation, components were clearly tied to the property that leads directly to the
conclusion of the proposition.
Next, there were a), b) as features seen in “including properties which directly leading the
conclusion of the proposition”.
a) The explanation that does not show the important property which leads to the conclusion
of the proposition.
The property which means “the remaining areas that removed the same size area from the
two equal areas are equal to each other” is necessary for lead the conclusion of the
proposition with respect to this problem (fig.1). In the explanations of student C and E on
the above, we could not find the description about this important property.
The explanations of student C and E were categorized 1) and 2). And, those were not
included the important property. Thus, these types of explanations are identified Type 1-a
and Type 2-a.
b) The explanation that contains the important property which leads directly to the
conclusion of the proposition.

On the other hand, in the explanation of student F, we could find clearly stated the important
property. Although student D did not describe it as clearly as student F, we could interpret
that he has constructed his explanation based on the essence of the important property.
The explanations of student D and F were categorized 1) and 2). And, those could interpret
those were include the important property. Thus, these types of explanations are identified
Type 1-b and Type 2-b.
Assessment framework to evaluate students’ explanations

Thus, as seen above, students’ explanations could be classified into five categories. Based
on these combinations, we present the total of 5 types (Type 0, Type 1-a, Type 1-b, Type
2-a, Type 2-b) as an assessment framework to evaluate (Table 1). Numbers in the table
display the raw number and (rounded) percentage of each types and the number of peoples
who selected the correct answer (A = B) in this survey.
Table 1. Assessment framework to evaluate students’ explanations (N=56)
a) does not show the b) contains the

important property important property
The explanation that… which leads to the which leads directly
conclusion of the to the conclusion of
proposition. the proposition.
2) is based on properties Type 2-a Type 2-b

of figures or components ex. [student E] ex. [student F]
which were premised on 5% (3 students) 23% (13 students)
→3 students got correct →13 students got correct
the problem.
answer (3 of 3) answer (13 of 13)
1) is based on his/her Type 1-a Type 1-b

subjective judgement or a ex. [student C] ex. [student D]
component which was not 43% (24 students) 9% (5 students)
→3 students got correct →5 students got correct
premised on the problem.
answer (11 of 24) answer (5 of 5)
Type 0 [No explanation] 20 % (11 students) →8 students got correct answer (8 of 11)
Discussion and conclusion

For our first research question “What types of explanations are identified when students
tackle the mathematical problem in elementary school?”, we carried out an investigation in
elementary schools (G6, N = 56). For analysis, two viewpoints were set considering
characteristics of mathematical proof and Hempel’s work; “objectivity of components of
explanation” and “Including properties which directly leading the conclusion of the
proposition”. As results of the analysis from these viewpoints, the five features of students’

explanations were identified. At first, there were “No explanation” with the right choice (A
= B) or the incorrect judgment (A > B). Next, there were explanations which have some
features of “Objectivity of components of explanation”. First one was the explanation that is
based on his/her subjective judgement or a component which was not premised on the
problem (Feature 1)). Second one was the explanation that is based on properties of figures
or components which were premised on the problem (Feature 2)). Additionally, these
explanations were classified from the feature “including properties which directly leading
the conclusion of the proposition”. One was the explanation that does not show the
important property which leads to the conclusion of the proposition (Feature a)). The
another was the explanation that contains the important property which leads directly to the
conclusion of the proposition (Feature b)).
For our second research question “What assessment framework can we make to evaluate
students’ explanations?”, we set two axes based on the results of first research question. One
axe was set from viewpoint “Objectivity of components of explanation”. Another axe was
set from viewpoint “Including properties which directly leading the conclusion of the
proposition”. And, the assessment framework was constructed by the combinations of these
axes. As the result, we presented the total of 5 types (Type 0, Type 1-a, Type 1-b, Type 2-a,
Type 2-b) as an assessment framework to evaluate of students’ explanations. Based on
this framework, we shown the rough distributions of numbers of students each types as
follows; Type 0: 11 students (20%), Type 1-a: 24 students (43%), Type 1-b: 5 students (9%),
Type 2-a: 3 students (5%), Type 2-b: 13 students (23%). In this survey, G6 students are
roughly divided into three types (Type 0, Type 1-a, Type 2-b). The result show, in spite of
the end of elementary school, the percentage of Type 2-b is only 23%. On the other hand,
over 60% of G6 still remain as Type 0 and Type 1-a. When we look at the actual state of
“ability to explain” at elementary school graduation, the difference is big. Considering that
students thus learn proofs in a year, reducing this difference is an important mathematical
education issue.
Also, from Table 1 showed that all students in Types 1-b, Type 2-a, and Type 2-b were
making correct judgments (A = B). Although these types were discussed as the
characteristics of explanations in this paper, that also may contribute to correctly answering
to mathematical problems. Thus, this result may suggest the importance to guide students to
be able to make explain based on “objectivity of component of explanation” and “Including
properties which directly leading the conclusion of the proposition”. Therefore, following
approaches may help students to success mathematics learning;
・First, the teachers should encourage Type 0 students to explain their reasoning freely.
・Next, the teachers should lead the students to focus their attention on the appropriate
components and guide them to consider the important property.
A key future task will be to verify the current framework by expanding the scope of the
survey and to verify its objectivity through multiple evaluators.

References
Rosenberg, A. (2005). Philosophy of science: A contemporary introduction (Second
Edition). K. Higashi, R. Morimoto, & T. Watanabe, trans. (2011). Tokyo: Shunjusha
Publishers.
Hempel, C. (1965). Aspects of science explanation and other essays in the philosophy of
science. G, Nagasaka, trans. (1973). Tokyo: Iwanami Publishers.
De Villiers, M. (1990). The Role and Function of Proof in Mathematics. Pythagoras, 24,
17-24.
Kondo, Y. (2017). Characteristics of Students’ Explanations in Elementary School: Which
Triangle is Larger? In Kaur, B., Ho, W.K., Toh, T.L., & Choy, B.H. (Eds.), Proceedings
of the 41st Conference of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics
Education, Vol. 1, 227
Acknowledgement
This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number JP15K04433 and
JP17K14049.
Taketo Shimomura
Shimane University
1060, Nishikawatsu-cho, Matsue-shi, Shimane-ken, Japan, 690-8504
tshimomura@edu.shimane-u.ac.jp
Yutaka Kondo
Nara University of Education
Takabatake-cho, Nara-shi, Nara-ken, Japan, 630-8528
ykondo@nara-edu.ac.jp

Shingphachanh 313
REVIEWING THE EFFECTS IN THE PRACTICE OF LESSON

STUDY: OPPORTUNITIES FOR TEACHING DEVELOPMENT
Sommay Shingphachanh, Hiroshima University, Japan
1. Introduction
Lesson study is the integration of child-centered approach and community of learning
(Ishii, 2017). It develops teaching skills, improves learning materials and forms ‡teacher
professional identities· Akita & Sakamoto, 2015 Lesson study builds teacher professional
community and improves teaching materials Lewis, Perry & Hurd, 2009 It is the primary
approach for teachers’ professional development (Takahashi & Yoshida, 2004 and a good
environment for professional training Bjuland & Mosvold, 2015 that improves teachers¶
teaching approaches, focus on pupils¶ learning, and makes efforts to create positive
learners¶ outcomes Norwich & Ylonen, 2013 Lesson study enhances instructional
practice, creates a learning community, increases mathematical knowledge, knowledge for
teaching mathematics and students¶ achievement Meyer & Wilkerson, 2011, p 25;
Ebaeguin & Stephens, 2013 Through the practice, lesson study promotes teaching
profession and practice development Teachers learn not only individual progress but also
the quality of classroom teaching and learning Xu, & Pedder, 2015, P 49-50 Furthermore,
lesson study influences the changes in mathematical knowledge for teaching; develops
professional community and teaching and learning resources (Gonzalez and Deal, 2017
Considering the positive impacts of lesson study, this review intends to
comprehensively understand the benefits of implementing lesson study towards teaching
development as a whole. The following questions are guided for this review:
1. What are the benefits of lesson study towards teachers’ teaching development?
2. To what extent is lesson study attempting to improve and provide opportunities for
teachers’ teaching development?
2. Method of reviewing
This study followed 4 steps of reviewing process in a systematic way: (1) searching the
target articles, (2) checking and coding, (3) scrutinizing and organizing the content and (4)
categorizing. The study collected data from Education Resources Information Center
ERIC , Elsevier, SAGE, and JSTOR The keyword ‡lesson study· was used to search
relevant articles in those 4 publishers then printed and coded, for example, articles from
ERIC were coded in ER_001, ER_002, ER_003 and so on Throughout data collecting of
108 articles, the study found 49 articles that studied about teachers’ teaching development
through lesson study When those data are satisfied, the author started the process of
analysis, categorized similar findings and assigned the theme for each category.
3 Literature review
3 1 Collaborative community networks
Lesson study creates a network among study members, forming a community of
educators for learning together and supporting one another in their profession Hadfield, &

314 Reviewing the Effects in the Practice of Lesson Study: Opportunities for Teaching Development
Jopling, 2016; Towaf, 2016; Gonzalez, & Deal, 2017 It develops a professional network
through collaboration and creates their own learning culture, peer learning and community
of inquiry Taylor et al. 2005; Lee, 2008 Lesson study is the trajectory of mutual teacher
learning that makes teachers recognize the importance and benefits of collaboration in a
collaborative way Chassels & Melville, 2009; Gee & Whaley, 2016 especially recognizes
the value of collaboration in planning and reflection McMahon and Hines, 2008; Mathews,
Hlas, & Finken, 2009
3 2 Opportunities for teacher development
3.2.1 Exploring and experiencing Teachers with initial experiences in lesson study will
perceive lesson study as an opportunity for collaboration Post & Varoz, 2008 with other
member teachers so that to exchange ideas with each other Choksi & Fernandez, 2004
along with the procedure of lesson study with some chances for practicing themselves
Zhou and Xu, 2017 , investigating through the way of teaching Pella, 2015 in
‡trial-analyze-rethink-and-adjust· cycle Fernandez, 2010 and collaborating mathematical
for teaching including curriculum and student thinking Gonzalez, & Deal, 2017 Through
that continuous process, teachers have some opportunities in observing other research
lessons Mostofo, 2014; Howell, & Saye, 2016 to see how children interact with materials
and problem that teachers invented for later sharing and learning During lesson
demonstration, students are given some spaces to express their thoughts through
investigative questions from teachers Such interaction will lead to reliable ‡active learning·
Fernandez, 2010 Subsequently, teachers or team members will play roles as researchers
Lewis et al, 2006 inside and outside classrooms while students are expecting to show their
opinions and logical thinking, then teachers scrutinize students¶ responses so that to find out
where they are misleading and their misconceptions Yarema, 2010; Bao & Stephens, 2013 .
3.2.2 Analyzing Lesson study also delivers opportunities in reflective session
regarding teachers¶ achievements Howell, & Saye, 2016 , gives them a chance to reflect
themselves Yakar & Turgut, 2017 , and treats in equal way of viewing to the work and
sharing their knowledge of practice Parks, 2008; Gonzalez, & Deal, 2017 Teachers will
take advantage this occasion for freely arguing with other participants Lee, 2008 by
focusing on what they think as effective teaching skills Yakar & Turgut, 2017 and
sometimes make a judgment Iksan, Zakaria, & Daud, 2014 . Analyzing what was occurred
during class observation may reveal some reasons behind; therefore, series of practice and
continuing lesson study are needed Cheng & Yee, 2012; Mostofo, 2014 to investigate the
reason in pedagogical context and taking initiative action Pella, 2015 for positive changes
in teachers¶ mind, professional knowledge Widjaja, 2013 and teacher professional
development Chokshi & Fernandez, 2005
3.3 Pedagogical content knowledge enhancement
3.3.1 Pedagogical knowledge improvement Teaching development requires the
development of a component in Shulman’s theory (1986) that is knowledge of pedagogy,
subject knowledge and concepts of students to a learning topic. Knowledge of pedagogy
includes knowledge of content and students, knowledge of content and teaching and
knowledge of curriculum (Hill, Ball, and Schilling, 2008). It is the knowledge to know what
students are likely to think, interest, common misconceptions, how to design, sequence and

Shingphachanh 315
choosing a task in the instruction (Kieboom, 2013). Lesson study is a sharp tool for such
knowledge for instructional and teaching approach improvement Lewis et al, 2012;
Norwich & Ylonen, 2013; Leong et al, 2016 specifically enhancing teachers¶ pedagogical
practices, deepening instructional knowledge, and changing in instructional practice and
mathematical teaching Hoong et al, 2012; Gee & Whaley, 2016 Therefore, lesson study is
an operative instrument for professional learning Zhou & Xu, 2017 which is also regarded
as a model for teaching development alternatively Lee, 2008; Mon, Dali, & Sam, 2016
Whatever how far or depth in the practice of lesson study is, it is working in the area of
knowledge in pedagogy Matanluk, Johari, & Matanluk, 2013; Dudley, 2013; Bae et al,
2016 such as improving teaching practices Rock & Wilson, 2005 , enhancing and
increasing teaching skills Iksan, Zakaria, & Daud, 2014; Utami, & Nafi¶ ah, 2016 ,
maintaining material development Murata, 2010 , and refining understanding towards
students¶ behind rational thinking Bao & Stephens, 2013 .
3.3.2 Subject matter knowledge improvement Lesson study also helps growing and
extending subject mathematical knowledge Utami, & Nafi¶ ah, 2016; Yarema, 2010; Lewis,
& Perry, 2013), increases knowledge about subject content and reasons of its importance
Lewis et al, 2006 Post & Varoz 2008 found out that conducting lesson study creates a
‡framework for learning mathematics, knowledge of content and student and knowledge of
content and teaching· Leavy, & Hourigan, 2016 and finally eliciting improvement of a
subject teaching and learning Nashruddin & Nurrachman, 2016
3.3.3 knowledge on student learning Lesson study shifted teaching attention to
emphasize students¶ learning and their progression to a better result Taylor et al, 2005;
Lewis et al, 2012; Bae et al, 2016 It extends understanding how children learn in order to
support their learning in mathematics Hunter & Back, 2011 and deepen students’ need
Chassels & Melville, 2009 If teachers are knowledgeable or gained new knowledge about
their pupils, they will change the way of practice to the way of pupils¶ learning, then
children will have more participation in learning activities Dudley, 2013; Matanluk, Johari,
& Matanluk, 2013 .
3.3.4 Effectiveness of learning-teaching activity Through lesson study practice,
teachers have more impact and belief of change in students¶ learning Puchner, & Taylor,
2006 They grow their experiences, deepen understanding, having knowledge of
curriculum, pedagogy and students Chokshi & Fernandez, 2005; Lewis, & Perry, 2013
The enthusiasm for lesson study in the classroom changes teaching-learning practice in
positive aspects, preparing and conducting better learning process Khotimah & Masduki,
2016; Yakar & Turgut, 2017 In the lesson planning, teachers will be aware of different
teaching strategies to decide appropriate method; their collaborative working will improve
their mindset in a reflective way and fill in the emptiness of each other Chokshi &
Fernandez, 2004; Cheng & Yee, 2012 What¶s more, it is kind of experiment to test
knowledge to see how students think and react to such artificial activities. Subsequently,
teachers will be motivated and developed habits of critical observation, analysis and
reflection in the way of enhancing efficacy and confidence Lewis et al, 2006; Kusanagi,
2013; Bocala, 2015

4. Summary and implication

This systematic literature review revealed comprehensive benefits of lesson study in
teaching development. Lesson study creates an opportunity for collaborative community
networks, coherent collaboration, collegiality, sharing and exchanging ideas. The effects of
lesson study also strengthen the opportunity for teachers to unpacking knowledge of
teaching theory (i.e., Shulman, 1986; Hill, Ball and Schilling, 2008) in improving
pedagogical knowledge, subject knowledge, instructional skills and perceiving themselves
as an active learning inspector that emphasize students’ thinking, learning needs and/or
mathematical thinking. Moreover, lesson study gives an opportunity in extending teachers’
capacity in making the best teaching materials and lesson plan for interactive learning that
will strengthen teachers’ knowledge about students’ participation in a particular task.
Finally, lesson study gives an opportunity to be an independent thinker, awareness in
different teaching strategies, critical observation, analysis, and reflection.
References
Akita, K , & Sakamoto, A 2015 Lesson study and teachers' professional development in
Japan In K Wood, & S Sithamparam (Eds.), Realizing Learning: Teachers' professional
development through lesson and learning study pp 25-26 London and New York
Routledge
Baba, T , & Kojima, M 2004 Lesson study In IFIC, & JICA, The History of Japan's
Educational Development p 227 Japan JICA
Bae Ch . L . , Hayes, K. N., Seitz, J., & Connor, D. O . ( 2016 ) . A coding tool for examining
the substance of teacher professional learning and change with example cases from
middle school science lesson study . Teaching and Teacher Education, 60, 164-178 .
Bao, L , & Stephens, M 2013 Using a modified form of lesson study to develop students¶
rational thinking in year 4, 5, & 6 Mathematics Education Research Group of
Australia 74-81
Bjuland, R., & Mosvold, R. (2015). Lesson study in teacher education: Learning from
challenging case. Teaching and Teacher Education, 52, 83-90.
Bocala, C 2015 From experience to expertise The development of teachers¶ learning in
lesson study Journal of Teacher Education, 66 4 , 349-362
Chassels, C , & Melville, W 2009 Collaborative, reflective, and iterative Japanese lesson
study in an initial teacher education program Benefits and challenges Canadian
Journal of Education, 32 4 , 734-763
Cheng, L P , & Yee, L P 2012 A Singapore case of lesson study The mathematics
educator, 21 2 , 34-57
Chokshi, S , & Fernandez, C 2004 Challenges to improving Japanese lesson study
Concerns, misconceptions, and nuances Phi Delta Kappan, 85 7 , 520-525
Chokshi, S , & Fernandez, C 2005 Analyzing classroom practice reaping the systemic
benefits of lesson study Insights from the U S Phi Delta Kappan, 674-680

Shingphachanh 317
Dudley, P 2013 Teacher learning in lesson study What interaction-level discourse

analysis revealed about how teachers utilized imagination, tacit, knowledge of teaching
and fresh evidence of pupils learning, to develop practice knowledge and so enhance their
pupils¶ learning Teaching and Teacher Education, 34, 107-121
Ebaeguin, M., & Stephens, M (2013). Cultural challenges in adapting lesson study to a
Philippines setting. Mathematics Teacher Education and Development, 16(1), 1-25
Ebaeguin, M 2015 Promoting teacher growth through lesson study A culturally
embedded approach Proceeding of 38th annual conference of Mathematics education
research group of Australia, 213-220
Fernandez, M L 2010 Investigating how and what prospective teachers learn through
microteaching lesson study Teaching and Teacher Education, 26, 351-362
Fernandez, M L 2005 Exploring lesson study in teacher education 29th conference of
the international group for psychology of mathematics education pp 305-312
Melboune PME
Gonzalez, G , & Deal, J T 2017 Using a creativity framework to promote teacher learning
in lesson study Thinking Skills and Creativity, 1-15.
Gee, D , & Whaley, J 2016 Learning together Practice-centered professional
development to enhance mathematics instruction Mathematics Teacher Education
and Development, 18 1 , 87-99
Hadfield, M , & Jopling, M 2016 Problematizing lesson study and its impacts Studying a
highly contextualized approach to professional learning Teaching and Teacher
Education, 60, 203- 214
Hill, H. C., Ball, D. L., & Schilling, S. G. (2008). Unpacking pedagogical content knowledge:
conceptualizing and measuring teachers’ topic-specific knowledge of students. Journal
for Research in Mathematics Education, 39(4), 372-400.
Howell, J B , & Saye, J W 2016 Using lesson study to develop a shared professional
teaching knowledge culture among 4th grade social studies teachers The Journal of
Social Studies Research, 40, 25-37
Hoong, L. Y., Phyllis, J., Ling, L. H., Wei, F. T. Y., Hassan, H. A. B., & Yih, T. H 2012
Lesson study on the area of a parallelogram for year 7 students The Australian
Mathematics Teacher, 68 2 , 14-21
Hunter, J , & Back, J 2011 Facilitating sustainable professional development through
lesson study Mathematics Teacher Education and Development, 13 1 , 94-114
Iksan, Z H , Zakaria, E , & Daud, Y 2014 Model of lesson study approach during micro
teaching International Education Studies, 7 13 , 253-260
Ishii, T 2017 Historical overview of lesson study In K Tanaka, K Nishioka, & T Ishii,
Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment in Japan p 58 London and New York
Routledge
Khotimah, R P , & Masduki 2016 Improving teaching quality and problem-solving ability
through contextual teaching and learning in differential equations A lesson study
approach Journal of Research and Advances in Mathematics Education, 1 1 , 1-13

Kieboom, L. A. (2013). Examining the mathematical knowledge for teaching involved in pre-
service teachers’ reflections. Teaching and Teacher Education, 35, 146-156.
Kusanagi, K N 2013 The bureaucratizing of lesson study A Javanese case Mathematics
Teacher Education and Development, 1-17
Lee, J F K 2008 A Hong Kong case of lesson study-Benefits and concerns Teaching and
Teacher Education, 24, 1115-1124
Leong, S. S. M., Said, H. M., Shahrill, M., & Perera, J. Q. 2016 Using lesson study to
enhance meaningful understanding on the topic of pressure International Journal of
Environmental & Science Education, 11 15 , 8425-8435
Lewis, C , & Perry, R 2013 Lesson study with Mathematical resources A sustainable
model for local-led teacher professional learning Mathematics Education and
Development.
Lewis, C. C., Perry, R. R., Friedkin, S., & Roth, J. R 2012 Improving teaching does
improve teachers Evidence from lesson study Journal of Teacher Education, 63 5 ,
368-375
Lewis, C , Rebecca, P , Hurd, j , & O'Connell, M p 2006 Lesson study comes of age in
north America Phi delta kappan, 88 4 , 273-281.
Lewis, C. C., Perry, R., & Hurd, J. (2009). Improving mathematics instruction through lesson
study: A theoretical model and North American case. Journal of Mathematics Teacher
Education, 12, 285-304.
Matanluk, K , Johari, K , & Matanluk, O 2013 The perception of teachers and students
toward lesson study implementation at rural school of Sabah A pilot study
Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 90, 245-250
Mathews, M E , Hlas, Ch S , & Finken, T M 2009 Using lesson study and 4 columns
lesson planning with preservice teachers The mathematics Teachers, 102 7 ,
504-508
McMahon, M T , & Hines, E 2008 Lesson study with preservice teachers The
mathematics teachers, 102 3 , 186-191
Meyer, R D & Wilkerson, T L (2011). Lesson study the impact on teachers¶ knowledge
for teaching mathematics. In L. C. Hart, A. Alston, & A. Murata Eds , Lesson
study research and practice in mathematics education (p. 25). New York: Springer
Science.
Mostofo, J 2014 The impact of using lesson study with pre-service mathematics teacher
Journal
of Instructional research, 3, 55-63
Mon, Ch Ch , Dali, M H , & Sam, L Ch 2016 Implementation of lesson study as an
innovative professional development model among Malaysian school teachers
Malaysian Journal of Learning and Instruction, 13, 83-111
Murata, A 2010 Teacher learning with lesson study International Encyclopedia of
Education (3rd edition), 575-581.

Shingphachanh 319
Nashruddin, W , & Nurrachman, D 2016 The implementation of lesson study in English

Language learning A case study, Dinamika, Ilmu, 16 2 , 169-179
Norwich, B , & Ylonon, A 2013 Design based research to develop the teaching of pupils
with moderate learning difficulties MLD Evaluation lesson study in terms of pupil,
teacher and school outcomes Teaching and Teacher Education, 34, 162-173
Parks, A N 2008 Messy learning Preservice teachers¶ lesson study conversations about
mathematics and students Teaching and teacher education, 24, 1200-1216
Pella, S 2015 Pedagogical reasoning and action Affordances of practice-based teacher
professional development Teacher Education Quarterly, 81-101
Post, G , & Varoz, S 2008 Lesson study groups with prospective and practicing teachers
Teaching and Children Mathematics, 14 8 , 472-478
Puchner, L D , & Taylor, A R 2006 Lesson study, collaboration and teacher efficacy
Stories from two school-based math lesson study groups Teaching and Teacher
Education, 22, 922- 934
Rock, T , & Wilson, C 2005 Improving teaching through lesson study Teacher Education
Quarterly, 77-92
Stigler, J. W., & Hiebert, J. (1999). The teaching gap: Best ideas from the world’s teachers
for improving education in the classroom. New York: The Free Press.
Shulman, L. S. (1986). Those who understand: knowledge growth in teaching. Educational
researcher, 15(2), 4-14.
Takahashi, A., & Yoshida, M. (2004). Ideas for establishing Lesson-Study communities.
Teaching Children Mathematics (May), 436–443.
Taylor, A R et al 2005 Lesson study A professional development model for mathematics
reform The Rural Educator, 26 2 , 17-22
Towaf, S M 2016 Integration of lesson study in teaching practice of social study, student
teacher to improve the quality of learning and promotion of a sustainable lesson study
Journal of Education and Practice, 7 18 , 83-91
Utami, I W P , & Nafi¶ah, M U 2016 A model of microteaching lesson study
implementation in the prospective history teacher education Journal of Education and
Practice, 7 27 , 10- 14
Widjaja, W 2013 Creating teacher communities of inquiry through lesson study
Mathematics Education Research Group of Australia, 723-726
Xu, H and Pedder, D (2015). Lesson study An International review of the research. In P.
Dudley Eds , Lesson study: Professional learning for our time (pp. 49-50). New York:
Routledge.
Yakar, Z , & Turgut, D 2017 Effectiveness of lesson study approach on preservice science
teachers¶ beliefs International Education Studies, 10 6 , 36-43
Yarema, C H 2010 Mathematics teachers¶ views of accountability testing revealed
through lesson study Mathematics Teacher Education and Development, 12 1 , 3-18

Zhou, G , & Xu, J 2017 Microteaching lesson study An approach to prepare teacher
candidates to teach science through inquiry International Journal of Education in
Mathematics, Sciences and Technology, 5 3 , 235-247
____________________________
Sommay SHINGPHACHANH
Hiroshima University, 1-5-1, Kagamiyama, Higashi-Hiroshima 739-8529, Japan
sommay_ttc@yahoo.com

Siswono, Kohar, Hartono, Rosyidi 321
AN INNOVATIVE TRAINING MODEL FOR SUPPORTING

IN-SERVICE TEACHERS’ UNDERSTANDING ON
PROBLEM-SOLVING KNOWLEDGE FOR TEACHING
Tatag Yuli Eko Siswono, Universitas Negeri Surabaya, Indonesia
Ahmad Wachidul Kohar, Universitas Negeri Surabaya, Indonesia
Sugi Hartono, Universitas Negeri Surabaya, Indonesia
Abdul Haris Rosyidi, Universitas Negeri Surabaya, Indonesia
Introduction
The insignificant improvement of Indonesian students in performing problem-solving (PS)
tasks like in PISA and TIMMS (Mullis et al, 2012; OECD, 2015) and weaknesses on
teachers’ mathematical problem solving knowledge for teaching (MPSKT) as we reported
in the previous article (Siswono et al., 2016, 2017) calls for teacher professional
development which focus on developing teachers’ MPSKT (Chapman, 2015). Thus, the aim
of this study is to report the learning sequences of a training teacher model designed by the
authors to support secondary mathematics teacher learn problem-solving content knowledge
(PSCK) and pedagogical problem-solving knowledge for teaching (PPSK). In this study, we
focus on developing teachers’ understanding on three types of PSCK: knowledge of
problem, model of problem solving (PS processes and strategies), and problem posing
(before, during, and after PS), as well as the PPSK: instructional practices of PS.
Table 1 describes the categories of problem solving knowledge into three main
categories, namely problem solving content knowledge (PSCK), pedagogical
problem-solving knowledge (PPSK), and knowledge of affective factors relating to
problem-solving teaching. PSCK includes four categories. First, knowledge of the meaning
of the problem. Teachers need to understand issues based on their structure and goals in
order to guide students find solutions including an understanding of the types of tasks, such
as tasks with the potential to develop mathematical creativity in problem solving; tasks that
allow various solution strategies, and open-ended task. Second, knowledge of mathematical
problem-solving proficiency including conceptual understanding of mathematical concepts,
procedures and relations, an understanding of heuristic strategies and special strategies and
when and how to use them in solving math problems. Third, knowledge of PS. This
knowledge is necessary, for example, to understand models of understanding of the
problem-solving process. These problem-solving models have been formulated by experts
such as Schoenfeld (1985): analysis, design, exploration, implementation and verification;
and Polya (1973): understanding the problem, devising plan/strategies, carrying out the plan,
and looking back. Regardless of the problem-solving model being studied, Chapman asserts
that teachers need to have conceptual and procedural understanding of the problem-solving
models in order to understand the stages required by a problem solver and the thinking
process involved in finding the solution of the current problem. Fourth, knowledge of math
problem submission. This knowledge refers to Silver's (1994) opinion which poses a posing
problem as an activity to generate a new problem and reformulate the given problem.

322 An Innovative Training Model for Supporting In-Service Teachers’ Understanding on Problem-Solving
Knowledge for Teaching
Table 1. Mathematical Problem-solving knowledge for teaching (MPSKT) (Chapman, 2015)
Type of knowledge Knowledge

Problem solving content Mathematical problem solving proficiency
knowledge
Mathematical problems
Mathematical problem solving
Problem posing
Pedagogical problem Students as mathematical problem solvers
solving knowledge Instructional practices for problem solving
Affective factors and beliefs
PPSK, on the other hand, consists of two subcategories. First, knowledge of students as
problem solvers. This knowledge, according to Chapman, will help teachers develop
appropriate students’ problem-solving skills. In general, this knowledge includes knowledge
of students' problem-solving difficulties, successful problem-solving characteristics, and the
process of thinking in problem solving. However, to support the development of student
problem-solving skills, the current learning perspective shows that this knowledge can be
understood from a student's point of view with a focus on building what students know and
can do in trying to solve problems in their own way. Second, knowledge of teaching
problem solving. According to her, teachers need to understand learning practices that
develop strategies and metacognition of students in solving problems. Teachers must have
strategic competencies to address problem-solving challenges during teaching. Teachers
need to also understand the different implications of different approaches chosen, whether
they can be useful or not, and if not, what factors might be causing them. Teachers should
be able to decide when and how to intervene, when to provide help and how forms of
assistance can support student success while ensuring that they maintain their settlement
strategies. In addition, teachers need to know what to do when students are stuck or are
using an unproductive or time-consuming approach.
Meanwhile, knowledge of affective factor related to problem-solving consists of
motivation, interest, self-confidence, anxiety, perseverance, and student beliefs. Chapman
argues that knowledge of the affective aspects of students is important because it plays an
important role in problem solving. Knowledge of these factors can help teachers to illustrate
and support student problem-solving abilities based on findings that are appropriate to these
factors. Besides, teachers also need to know their own beliefs about mathematics and its
learning and teaching as well as their impacts to students’ successful at PS. In sum,
Chapman emphasized the importance of teacher attitudes that can assist students in
problem-solving activities.
Method
We involved 90 teachers in the training model in three programs (each 40, 30, and 20
respectively). The participants of the first two groups were inservice secondary teachers in
Mojokerto and Jember city, Indonesia, while the other group was primary teachers who
were taking master of education programme at Universitas Negeri Surabaya, Surabaya,

Indonesia. The design principles of the training model follow the framework of MPSKT
proposed by Chapman (2015) and the modification of Steinbring’s model (1998) by
Zaslavzky (2009) as follows (Figure 1).
Figure 1. Modification of Steinbring’s (1998) Model of Teaching and Learning Mathematics by

Zaslavsky (2009)
Figure 1 shows a model of training teachers from two loops, in which one denotes
learning by reflection from the teacher and the second shows the facilitator's learning with
the reflection and observation of the process undertaken by the teacher. In this training
model, when teachers are engaged in the task and build knowledge about the MPSKT, the
facilitator will reflect the learning offer by brainstorming regarding the teacher's response to
the MPSKT learned and then guiding them to the expected knowledge. Thus, the tasks are
very important to include as learning resources that we set in the training model. We
employed some types of tasks in this model, i.e. problem-solving tasks, problem-posing
tasks, and context-based task, each taken either from math competition problems, tasks such
as problem designed by the authors, and PISA mathematics problem, PISA-like problem,
and journal article.
The following are the learning sequences we would describe in this paper in order.
Table 2. Learning sequences offered in the teacher training
Learning Sequence Description Time allocation
(hours)
Teacher beliefs in building teachers’ awareness toward how to teach 4
mathematics learning and and how students should learn mathematics
teaching
Problem solving meaning of mathematical problem, types of 7
mathematical problem: open-ended,
context-based problem, problem-solving process
and strategies, students as problem solvers
Problem posing problem posing technique 3
posing mathematical task in practice

Problem Reformulation posing PS task related based on a given PS task 4

(PS task with a given
problem)
Problem Generation 1
(PS task with a given posing PS task from a set of given information of 4
context) context situation (group)
Problem Generation 2 posing PS task from context situation 4
(PS task employing created/chosen by teachers (group)
self-chosen context)
Problem Generation 3 posing PS task from context situation created by 7
(task employing context teachers within outdoor-field activities
from outdoor-field
experience
Instructional practices of PS Peer teaching by using PS tasks posed by teachers 7
Reflection discussing MPSKT based on problem 2
solving-posing experiences as well as further
recommendation related to teachers’ responses
Table 2 shows the learning sequences offered in the training program differs in terms of
the main content focused and the time allocation provided. The main focus in the training
program at Mojokerto and Jember is PS content knowledge: types of mathematical problem,
PS model and strategies, problem posing, while there was additional focus on the training
program at the university, which is instructional practices for PS. Affective factors and
beliefs were learned through the course of teacher beliefs in mathematics learning and
teaching; PSCK was learned through the course of problem solving and problem posing:
generation and reformulation, while PS pedagogical knowledge was learned through the
course of instructional practice of PS.
Typically, each program took 7 hours per day. The program at Jember city and
Mojokerto city each took 5 days, while the program at Surabaya city only took 2 days.
Jember program did not carry out problem generation 3, while Mojokerto program did not
carry out Instructional practices of PS due to limited time provided. On the other hand,
Surabaya program only carried out ‘teacher beliefs’, ‘problem-solving’ and ‘instructional
practice for PS’. All of the programs were designed as workshops in which teachers were
encouraged to work on the tasks provided within the programs. For example, when learning
about problem-solving strategies, the facilitators asked teachers to work out particular
problem-solving tasks with their own strategies, discuss their strategies regarding validating
the strategies and if possible extending strategies. These all programs were guided by
facilitators consisting of the authors and other invited persons who have been involved in
some problem-solving-related training for teachers.
Results
Teachers’ belief about mathematical learning and teaching

This course was carried out in all the three training programmes. The course started on the
topic of teacher beliefs on structuring instructional sequence for helping students solve a
mathematical problem. The facilitators guided teacher to discuss a task discussing the best
steps in the instructional sequence. The teachers were asked to choose one of the best
instructional sequences among three options, which respectively depict three views aligned
with Ernest’s (1989) view of the nature of mathematics: Instrumentalist, Platonist, and
Problem-solving. In the training program at Surabaya, for example, teachers give various
responds on this task. Some examples of responds are follows. The Instrumentalist view
indicated from teachers reveal, ‘in this option, students first learn to contsruct early
knowledge of something simple so easy to understand students, then gradually students
learn more complex knowledge before solving the desired problem. By understanding the
initial knowledge, students will be more easily to solve the problem.” Meanwhile, the
Platonist view argue,”I prefer to choose the third option, because the students were given
clear steps on what they should do through the guidance provided in the worksheet.
However, the teacher still keep students solve the problem in active discussion with their
peers.” Problem-solving view, on the other hand, is indicated as follows, “In option 2,
learning has applied Polya step, because in solving the problem should students use Polya
step from understanding the problem to looking back. In addition, it is clear there is a role of
teachers in guiding students at every stage Polya done. As such, there were three types of
learning sequences preferred by teachers. First, teachers start from demonstrating
concepts/procedures, giving examples related to the concepts being learned, giving extra
examples through real life task, asking students work on some exercises, guiding students
work on such exercises, and finally giving extra task which are more complex. Second,
teachers start from presenting some examples of solving problem related to particular
concepts/pricedures, asking students work out a problem-solving task in group through a
worsheet in which the steps are provided to help students, guding students solve the task,
asking students present their strategies, and finally giving some extra exercises. Third,
teachers start from introducing a problem-solving task, guiding students understand the
problem of the task-devising strategies-carrying out the plan-and checking the results,
encouraging students to find concepts related to the task being solved, and finally solve a
more complex problem-solving task.
Problem solving content knowledge: nature of problem, model of PS, PS strategies, problem
posing
In discussing the nature of problems, teachers were provided with 4 tasks and were asked to
argue whether each of these tasks are problem or not for their students. The results of class
discussions show that while the majority of teachers agreed that a mathematics problem
should be interesting, challenging, and has no readily available procedure for finding the
solution, the majority of teachers at all the training programmes assume that a math problem
also a task that makes students difficult to solve since there is no any prerequisite
knowledge held by students. This is evidenced by one of the student responses to the
problem of straight line equations, which is actually suitable for secondary students, is a
problem for elementary students. Next, the discussion is continued with the types of

mathematical problems. In this case the class discusses the characteristics of open problems
and learned how to reformulate a closed-problem to a more open-ended problem. Thus,
teachers were asked to work on the task below (Figure 2).
Translation: Look at the task below

Find the area of trapezoid ABCD
below.
(the figure)
Make a new task by reformulating the
task above so that it has more than one
answer and/or one solution.
Answer: 1) determine the length FD,
2) find the perimeter of ABCE
Figure 2. Teachers’ response of the task about open-ended problem
Examples of other responses found in the work of teachers are: “How many kinds of
plane you see in the figure?, calculate the area of each of smaller planes in the figure,
calculate the area of ABCD by applying Pythagoras formula.” Although the majority of
teachers have constraints to compose an open-ended problem, some other teachers have
succeeded in composing open-ended issues that seem simple but open up opportunities for
student creativity. This problem is like, “Suppose AB and BC are not known, specify the
size AB and BC so that the area of trapezoid ABCD is 96 cm2.” The next discussion is
about PS models.When discussing what steps a solver should carry out to solve a
mathematics problem, the majority of teachers present the steps that a problem solver
should take which is in line with Polya's (1973) steps, namely (1) understanding the
problem, (2) preparing the plan / settlement strategy, (3) executing the settlement plan, and
( 4) check again. However, when discussing whether the sequence of mentioned steps of
completion can always be used to solve other problems, the subject gives a uniform
response, i.e. 'not always' for various reasons. The reasons, for examples, depend on the
complexity of problem, which means the more complex (level of difficulty, amount of
information) is a problem, a more unclear the steps of completion to solve such problem.
Thus, they argued, it needs sometimes a number of repetition of certain stages of completion.
This latter view is the closest to the concept of solving dynamic problems as proposed by
Mason et al (1985), where it is quite possible that cyclical repetition occurs in
problem-solving steps. The next discussion is related to problem solving strategies. The
teachers were given by the task shown at figure 3, then were asked to identify what
strategies the student is using to solve the problem and also to formulate other possible
strategies.
An elementary student shows the result of the sum of 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 + 7 + 8 + 9 + 10 + 11 +

12 + 13 + 14 + 15 numbers by first making the table as follows.
Pattern How is the pattern obtained? Note

2𝑥3 2 is the last number and 3 is its subsequent
1+2 = 3 3 is obtained from 2 = 3
number
3𝑥4 3 is the last number and 4 is its subsequent
1+2+3 = 6 6 is obtained from 2 = 6
number
1+2+3+4 = 4𝑥5 4 is the last number and 5 is its subsequent
10 is obtained from 2 = 10
10 number
15 𝑥 16
From this table, she conclude that the sum of 1+2+3+….+15= = 120
2
Figure 3. Task for problem-solving strategies
In responding the task above, teachers identified some strategies, i.e. by summing all
the number manually, by summing all the number in pairs, such as 1+15, 2+14, and so on,
and then dividing the results by two as what a mathematician, Gauss, did, by applying
formula of arithmetic series, and by counting strategies. However, when asked to determine
which one is the most effective, the discussion leads the teachers argue that the strategy
shown in the figure 3 is the most effective compared to the strategies they have set. This is
because the strategy is considered simpler, just look at the pattern without counting or even
calculating.
Problem posing: Problem generation and problem reformulation

In this session, teachers were encouraged to pose two types of problems collaboratively in
group at problem generation 1-2 and problem reformulation 3, and individual at problem
generation 3. In problem generation teachers were given a figure of ferris wheel which
might be interesting as source of posing a fruitful mathematical problem.
The teachers worked in groups comprising 4-5 teachers. First, they solved the problem
in problem reformulation and then continued with designing as many as problems that
might be posed by reformulating the existing problem. We expected them to design
mathematical problem for students which satisfy the characteristics problem based on their
experiences when following problem-solving activities. Once they finished, we
encouraged them to present their work in class discussion. The following is the mathematics
problem designed and discussed during the class discussion.
The teachers work in groups of 4-5 teachers. They started from solving the problem of
reformulation and then proceed to design as many problems as possible by reformulating
the problem they have solved. We expected them to design mathematical problems based on
their understanding of the nature of mathematics problem as well as problem-solving
strategies in the previous learning. Once completed, we asked them to present their work in
class discussions. Figure 4 examplify one of problem designed and presented in the class
discussion.

In the center of city, there is a ferris Answer: diameter: d = t2-t1=15 m-1m =14 m
wheel. The highest cabin has the 22
Circumference = 𝜋. 𝑑 = . 14 𝑚 =
7
height of 15 meter, and the lowest
44 𝑚
cabin is 1 meter above the ground.
So, the number of cabin of the ferris wheel
Determine the number of cabins if the
is 44 m : 4 m = 11 m
distance between one cabin to another
22
cabin is 4 meter. (given that 𝜋 = )
7
Figure 4. Problem designed by teachers in problem reformulation
In this discussion session, we found that teachers at this stage had problem of posing
problem-solving task regarding insufficient information. This is indicated from the teachers’
discussion at the task posed by teacher (Figure 4) which does not clearly state which distance that is
meant in the provided information. The phrase ‘distance between one cabin to another does not
make mathematical sense’ which might cause misinterpretation among solvers. Finally, we
found some points of reflection, i.e. insufficient information, context, authenticity, language
structure, and limited strategies potentially emerged from the posed problem, and
mathematically implausible problem. These points were then used as a reflection for the teachers in
the subsequent problem posing activities.
Problem solving pedagogical knowledge: PS instructional sequence

In this session, teachers were encouraged to organize teaching practice in the classroom
where each of group of teachers asked one of their members to act as a teacher and other
teachers as students. The teaching practices utilized problems resulted by each group in the
problem generation session. Besides acting as students, the other teachers also become
observers which examine the quality of teaching carried out by the teacher. The results of
observation were then presented and discussed after the teaching practice. The facilitators
guide teachers to observed the presenting group of teachers by a examining how such
teacher guide students (the other teachers) solve the designed problem from the stage of
understanding problem to looking back the solutions of the problem.

Discussion and Conclusion

The learning sequences we designed in the training model were developed around the view
of innovative approaches applied to a teacher professional development. Such approaches
follow a view that an innovative professional development should focus on the construction
of participants’ knowledge through the circuitous routes taking place within the context of
teachers’ experience (Campbell, 2012). We argue there are at least four aspects which
makes this model is innovative. First, the model supports teachers’ understanding of
MPSKT by employing initial teachers’ experience and knowledge of the certain topic of
MPSKT as sources of learning, aside from the lesson delivered by facilitators. For instance,
when learning problem reformulation, the ‘mathematics problem’ designed by teachers were
still far below from the standard of a good problem-solving task, in which plausibility,
language structure, and authenticity of the problem context become main obstacles. This
experience was then discussed in class by encouraging teachers to give some reviews on
whatever they think about the problem posed by other teachers. As such, facilitators tried to
summarize and clarify the findings with some theoretical perspectives of the standard of a
good problem-solving task through interactive discussion as the reflection for subsequent
learning sequences. Second, the professional learning course offered in this model was
developed around views of problem solving and problem posing activities. This is respect to
the findings that problem-solving activities could help teachers understand mathematics
content knowledge, thereby, Singapore teacher education curriculum puts problem-solving
as major approach for teachers to learn such knowledge (Wong, Boey, Lim-Teo & Dindyal,
2012). In addition, such knowledge can also be enhanced through problem-posing activities
(Toluk-Uçar, 2009). Such view is supported by the study of Kwek (2015) reporting that
thinking habits within problem posing not only enhanced problem-solving skills but also
helped to reinforce and enrich basic mathematical concepts. Thus, both problem-solving and
problem posing activities are expected to enhance teachers’ understanding of MPSKT. Third,
the model implements an outdoor field experience for problem generation 3. Within this
activity, teachers were encouraged to create a problem-solving task in an outdoor field
experience based on context situation they found. Such experience can help teachers to
explore and understand the situation around them and help them feel more connected to
their natural world (Moss, 2009), thus, teachers become more sensitive toward the possible
context that can be generated into a problem-solving task. Therefore, we argue that teachers
would be able to ‘digest’ a variety of context situation around them, choose the best context,
and translate it into a problem-solving task with the authentic context they want to design.
Siswono et al (2018) found that this activity could elicit teachers’ idea of developing context
variability and the level use of context authenticity. Fourth, teachers experienced from
solving problem-solving tasks, posing problem-solving task, to using the posed
problem-solving task as a resource of learning in the peer teaching. Through this experience,
teachers could generate a deeper self-reflection from the process they underwent so that it
will be valuable for problem-solving experience, particularly, in their actual classroom
setting.
The design principles of this present training teacher model also try to answer the
challanges of providing professional development which focus on helping teachers learn

essential needs for teaching mathematics. Prior to the implementation of this training model,
we collected teachers’ responses of their experience in joining profesional development
program through a short interview of some participants. We found that the form of training
program they have ever been involved most frequently is around discussing about the
surface feature aspects of teaching mathematics, such as developing lesson plan whose
components meet the standard mandated by ministry of education, the change of curriculum,
evaluating students’ mathematics achievement based on the current curriculum, and
recognizing particular learning media. The essential aspects such as understanding the
content of mathematics and how such contents are delivered to students, however, are scant
to be discussed in their professional development program. This type of TPD, as some
Indonesian studies reported (e.g. see Widodo & Riandi, 2013; Ekawati & Kohar, 2016), is
usually top down with predetermined strategies and expected outcomes from the current
curriculum regarding the topic of particular issues being learned. This condition is in line
with the findings that many professional development are found irrelevant, ineffective, and
for not giving teachers what they actually need to teach students (Marrero et al., 2010).
In the end of the training, the teachers were encoraged to reflect on the activities of
training they joined. We asked them wrote their difficulties and impression of learning
MPSKT in an open questionnaire. In relation to problem posing, we found that they had
difficulties in finding authentic contexts and composing an open-ended problem. This
finding become reflections for the training program as well. Also, since this is an initial
design of professional development which support teachers’ MPSKT, we are aware of
limited courses which facilitate as many as aspects of MPSKT componenets as proposed by
Chapman (2015). Our design primarily focus on problem-solving content knowledge, thus,
the aspects of pedagogical problem-solving knowledge such as students as problem solver
and instructional strategies for problem-solving are not yet main focus of our design. The
course of ‘instructional practices’ presented in the results section only discuss the extend
to which the teaching of the presenting teacher meet the characteristics of consultative
teaching, in which student-centered teaching become main feature. However, other aspects
mentioned by Chapman (2015) such as how to use of technology in problem-solving
instruction, assessment of students’ problem-solving progress, as well as when and how to
intervene during students’ problem-solving are not yet explicitly designed in the model.
Therefore, a more comprehensive design of professional learning for teachers which
considers all the components of MPSKT offered by Chapman (2015) need to be further
developed.
Acknowledgement
This is the initial work of research in the research scheme of Strategi Nasional year 2018.
We would like to thank Ministry of Higher Education and Research, Indonesia, for the grant,
the rector of Universitas Negeri Surabaya, and the dean of Faculty of Mathematics and
Natural Science.

References
Campbell, T. (2012). Building community in triads involved in science teacher education: An
innovative professional development model. Brock Education Journal, 21(2), 53-69.
Chapman, O. (2015). Mathematics teachers’ knowledge for teaching problem
solving. LUMAT (2013-2015 Issues), 3(1), 19-36.
Ekawati, R., & Kohar, A. W. (2017). Innovative Teacher Professional Development within
PMRI in Indonesia. International Journal of Innovation in Science and Mathematics
Education, 24(5), 1-13.
Ernest, P. (1989). The impact of beliefs on the teaching of mathematics. In P. Ernest (Ed.),
Mathematics teaching: The state of the art (pp. 249–253). New York: Falmer.
Kwek, M.L. (2015). Using Problem Posing as a Formative Assessment Tool. In Singer,
F.M., Ellerton, N.F.& Cai, J. (Eds), Mathematical Problem Posing: From Research to
Effectife Practice (pp. 273-279) . New York: Springer
Marrero, M. E., Riccio, J. F., Woodruff, K. A., & Schuster, G. S. (2010). Live, online
short-courses: A case study of innovative teacher professional development. The
International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 11(1), 81-95.
Mason J., Burton L., & Stacey K. (1985). Thinking Mathematically. Boston, MA:
Addison-Wesley.
Moss, M. (2009). Outdoor Mathematical Experiences: Constructivism, Connections, and
Health. In Clarke, B., Grevholm, B., Millman, R.. (Eds). Tasks in Primary Mathematics
Teacher Education (pp. 263-273). Springer US.
Mullis, I. V., Martin, M. O., Foy, P., & Arora, A. (2012). TIMSS 2011 international results in
mathematics. International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement.
Herengracht 487, Amsterdam, 1017 BT, The Netherlands.
OECD. (2015). PISA 2015: Results in focus. Retreived from
https://www.oecd.org/pisa/pisa-2015-results-in-focus.pdf
Polya, G. (1973). How to solve it: A new aspects of mathematical methods. US: Prentice
University Press.
Schoenfeld, A. H. (1985). Mathematical problem solving. London: Academic Press.
Silver, E. A. (1994). On mathematical problem posing. For the learning of
mathematics, 14(1), 19-28.
Siswono, T. Y. E., Kohar, A. W., Kurniasari, I., & Astuti, Y. P. (2016, February). An
Investigation of Secondary Teachers’ Understanding and Belief on Mathematical Problem
Solving. In Journal of Physics: Conference Series, 693(1), 012015). IOP Publishing.
Siswono, T. Y., Kohar, A. W., Rosyidi, A. H., & Hartono, S. (2017). Primary school teachers’
beliefs and knowledge about mathematical problem-solving and their performance on
problem-solving task. World Trans. on Engng. and Technol. Educ, 15(2), 126-131.
Siswono, T. Y. E., Kohar, A. W., Rosyidi, A. H., & Hartono, S. (2018, January). Searching
for Authentic Context in Designing PISA-like Mathematics Problem: From Indoor to

Outdoor Field Experience. In Journal of Physics: Conference Series (Vol. 953, No. 1, p.
012197). IOP Publishing.
Steinbring, H. (1998). Elements of epistemological knowledge for mathematics teachers. Journal of
Mathematics Teacher Education, 1(2), 157-189.
Toluk-Uçar, Z. (2009). Developing pre-service teachers understanding of fractions through
problem posing. Teaching and Teacher Education, 25(1), 166-175.
Widodo, A. & Riandi (2013) Dual-mode teacher professional development: challenges and
re-visioning future TPD in Indonesia, Teacher Development: An international journal of
teachers' professional development, 17(3), 380-392
Wong, K. Y., Boey, K. L., Lim-Teo, S. K., & Dindyal, J. (2012). The preparation of primary
mathematics teachers in Singapore: programs and outcomes from the TEDS-M
study. ZDM, 44(3), 293-306.
Zaslavsky, O (2009). Mathematics educators’ knowledge and development In R Even & DL
Ball (eds),The Professional Education and Development of Teachers of Mathematics (pp
105-111), US: Springer.
[Tatag Yuli Eko Siswono]

[Universitas Negeri Surabaya, Gedung D1 FMIPA Kampus Ketintang Unesa, Surabaya,
60231]
[tatagsiswono@unesa.ac.id]
[Ahmad Wachidul Kohar]

60231]
[ahmadw.kohar@gmail.com]
[Sugi Hartono]
60231]
[sugihartonounesa@gmail.com]
[Abdul Haris Rosyidi]

[Universitas Negeri Surabaya, Gedung C8 FMIPA Kampus Ketintang Unesa, Surabaya,
60231]
[abdulharis@unesa.ac.id]

Somasundram, Syed Zamri, Leong 333
GRADE FIVE PUPILS’ READINESS TO WORK WITH UNKNOWN

Piriya Somasundram, University of Malaya, Malaysia
Sharifah Norul Akmar Bt Syed Zamri, University of Malaya, Malaysia
Leong Kwan Eu, University of Malaya, Malaysia
Introduction
Algebra is a gateway in many fields such as information technology, engineering, medical,
and also our daily life (Cai, 2004). However, algebra seem to be an obstacle for many
middle school students. They are unable to understand basic concepts of algebra and
comprehend it meaningfully to solve problems (Boulton-Lewis, Cooper, Pillay, & Wilss,
1998). This issue can be overcome by developing algebraic thinking skills from young age.
Generally, mathematics curricula separate algebra from arithmetic. Algebra always has been
associated with secondary school syllabus. It creates a cognitive gap between arithmetic and
algebra (Herscovics & Linchevski, 1994). Students often find it difficult to cope with
secondary school algebra without smooth transition from arithmetic to algebra. Thus, the
importance of fostering algebraic thinking in primary schools has gained wide attention
among mathematics researchers. Especially “algebra readiness” is notable aspect in the
researches related to algebra (Cai, 2005; Blanton & Kaput, 2011).
Background
Developing algebraic thinking elements from young has been widely discussed in the
mathematics literature. It refers to “algebrafying” early grade school mathematics (Knuth,
Alibali, Mcneil, Weinberg, & Stephens, 2005). Mathematics researchers have conducted
various researchers to evaluate capability of young pupils to think algebraically (Britt &
Irwin, 2008; McNeil et al., 2010; Ralston, 2013; Stacey, 1989). Along with this, researchers
also have made evaluation on children’s algebraic thinking skills (Matthews, Rittle-Johnson,
McEldoon, & Taylor, 2012; Rittle-Johnson, Matthews, Taylor, & McEldoon, 2011;
Sherman & Bisanz, 2009). It was evident that the young children are capable to think
algebraically if they are exposed to algebraic underlying tasks with appropriate teaching
instructions (Jacobs, Franke, Carpenter, Levi, & Battey, 2007). As such, children can be
exposed to variables from very beginning of early education.
Algebra often corresponds with variables. Variables have been concerning issue in
algebra. Variables commonly denoted by literal symbols such as x, y, and z. Variables play
different roles according to different aspects. It can be used to represent generality,
unknowns and argument of a function (McNeil et al., 2010). Due to this, students have
alternate conceptions about variables (Knuth et al., 2005). These alternate conceptions were
identified when they were asked to interpret algebraic expressions (Küchemann, 1978).
Therefore, instilling algebraic elements underlie in arithmetic structures could help to
provide better conceptual understanding.

334 Grade Five Pupils’ Readiness to Work with Unknown
Using a letter in a number sentence to introduce may be debatable because majority of

the researchers may argue use of letter does not represent a true variable as the letter
represent only one fixed value (Ralston, 2013). While true variable refers to varying
quantity. At the same time, young children in elementary level may not cognitively
developed to understand the actual meaning for true variable. However, they can be exposed
to a letter or literal symbol represents a number which could eventually provide a
foundation to understand meaning of true variable.
McNeil and colleagues (2010) had conducted a study to examine how the literal
symbols influence the students' understanding of algebraic expressions. The authors used
mnemonic letters to represent variables (i.e., b for price of a brownie, c for price of a cake),
non-mnemonic letters (i.e., x or y), or Greek letters (i.e., Φ or Ψ). The participants were 322
middle school students ranging from sixth grade to eighth grade. The results have revealed
students in c- and b- condition were mostly interpreted incorrectly. They tend to interpret c
stands for cake and b stands for brownie. Though the textbooks used mnemonic symbols
correctly, results suggested use of mnemonic symbols could be a hinderance for students'
interpretation algebraic expressions.
With regard to this, it would be a good start if children in elementary schools are
exposed with letters represents unknown in a number sentence. Although, this letter may not
represent the meaning of true variable, the children will get to work with unknowns. It will
create an awareness that letters play a role as place holder in mathematical number sentence.
Finding sensible answers to the unknown can establish a deeper awareness on equal signs,
operations and symbol properties. As such, this paper intended to investigate the readiness
of fifth grade pupils in finding the unknown in number sentences. It would provide a
comprehensive view on how fifth grade pupils interpret and managed to find a solution to
make the number sentence true.
Methodology
Objectives and research questions
Knowing the importance of variables in algebra, this study aimed to investigate grade five
pupils’ readiness to work with unknown and its correlation with mathematics achievement
in a district of Malacca. The objectives of this study are twofold as follow.
1. To investigate the grade five pupils' readiness to work with unknown in a district of
Malacca.
2. To investigate if there is a relationship between grade five pupils' readiness to work
with unknown and mathematics achievement.
In line with these objectives, the following research questions were formulated:
1. What is the grade five pupils' readiness to work with unknown in a district of
Malacca?

2. Is there any significant relationship between grade five pupils’ readiness to work
with unknown and mathematics achievement?
The data for this study were from grade five pupils of National school students in a
district of Malacca. A random selection of schools was carried out based on the schools list
provided by Ministry of Education. When a school is chosen, all grade five students in the
particular school were involved in the study. The samples are 720 fifth grade pupils which
comprised 370 females (51.4%) and 350 males (48.6%).
Ralston (2013) has developed and validated an Algebraic Thinking Diagnostic
Assessment to investigate grade five pupils' algebraic thinking. Four tasks were aimed to
test on grade five pupils' readiness to work with variables. This study adapted those four
tasks to test grade five pupils' readiness to work with unknowns. These tasks are attached in
the appendix. These four tasks were adapted in both English and Malay languages to avoid
language factor to influence the results.
The participants were required to answer these four tasks as paper and pencil assessment.
Dichotomous scoring method was used whereby 1 and 0 were given for correct and
incorrect or blank responses respectively. Then the data collected were analysed using SPSS
(v22.0) software. Descriptive and inferential statistics techniques were used for data
analysis.
Table 1 displays the samples’ school mid-year mathematics examination grades. 83.3%
of the samples passed in their mathematics in school mid-year examination. About 66.3% of
them scored good and moderate results as A, B and C. In sum, the grade five pupils
participated in the study are reasonably good in their school mathematics examinations.
Table 1. Samples’ mid-year mathematics examination grades.
Grade Frequency Percentage

A 118 16.4
B 156 21.7
C 203 28.2
D 122 16.9
E 120 16.7
Missing 1 0.10
Total 720 100.0
Data Analysis and Results

The results reported here were part of a major study’s results. Table 2 displays the total
number of correct responses for the four tasks. For the Task 1, 62.1% grade five pupils were
able to find the unknown given in the number sentence which involved addition. In Task 2,
55.8% of the samples were able to find the unknown in the number sentence involving

multiplication and addition number sentence. The number sentence in third task comprised
addition in non-canonical representation. About 49.3% of the samples were able to find the
unknown involved in the Task 3. The fourth task, a little more challenging which involves
two unknowns in addition number sentence. The samples required to find two values which
make the number sentence true. As this task involved two unknowns, samples were awarded
1 point only when they get both unknowns correct. Therefore, only 46.5% of the samples
were able answer this task. About 6.3% of the samples were able to find only one of the
unknown out of the two. However, it is presumed that they did not grasp the underlying
concept of unknown.
As anticipated, majority of the samples were able to perform in Task 1 better compared
to other tasks. Overall, the grade five pupils' performance was moderate in the finding the
unknowns in all four tasks. More than half of the samples were able to find the unknown
given in the number sentences in Task 1 and Task 2. The samples struggled to find
unknowns in Task 3 and 4 which involved non-canonical representation of number sentence
and two unknowns.
Table 2. Number of correct responses for four tasks
Frequency Percentage
Task 1 447 62.1
Task 2 402 55.8
Task 3 355 49.3
Task 4 335 46.5
Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient used to examine relationship between

finding the unknown tasks and mathematics achievement. The requirement of this
correlation test is the variables should be ratio or interval measurements. Thus, the scores of
these four tasks converted into percentage. Thereafter, the relationship between the
performance in finding the unknown tasks and mathematics achievement was investigated.
Researcher analysed the correlation between scores obtained from finding the unknown
tasks and mathematics marks from their school midyear examination. The outcome showed
there is no correlation between finding the unknown tasks and mathematics achievement
(p>.05). Thus, it shows there is no relationship between scores of finding the unknown tasks
and mathematics achievement. Table 3 displays the results from Pearson product-moment
correlation test using SPSS software.
Table 3. Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient

MidYear TotalTasks
MidYear Pearson 1 .042
Correlation .262
Sig. (2-tailed) 720 720

N
TotalTasks Pearson .042 1
Correlation .262
Sig. (2-tailed) 720 720
N
Discussion
As indicated by the results of the four tasks (see Table 1), nearly half of the pupils could not
find the unknowns nor make the number sentence true. It is also evident from results, the
percentage of correct answers declined gradually from 62.1% to 46.5%. This could be for
two reasons. Firstly, lack of exposure to unknowns in mathematical sentence in the early
years. Secondly, the number sentence with unknowns may not as easy as they first appear.
On the other hand, most of the participants could able to find the unknown in the addition
number sentence (Task 1). This readiness seemed to be an indication of algebraic thinking
(Blanton & Kaput, 2003).
The percentage declined slightly for Task 2, because it involved multiplication and
addition number sentence which demands more higher level of thinking compared to
solving Task 1. The participants could have found the right answer by trial and error or
working backwards. Regardless of the method, half of the participants were able to work
with and find the right answer for n. Nonetheless, majority of the participants were unable
to find answer for Task 3. The structure of this number sentence was non-canonical
representation and the unknown was at right side of equal sign. Readiness to solve this task
also proves the participants’ awareness of equal sign; whereby left side should be equal to
right side.
As for Task 4, most of the participants were unable to answer it right. This task a little
tougher than other tasks because it involved two unknowns. The participants will score right
only when they understand the role of unknowns completely. Handful of participants
provided correct answer for either one of the unknowns. However, it shows they did not
grasp the concept to make the number sentence true. Finally, the abilities to work with
unknown on various situations did not have any correlations with their mid-year
mathematics examination marks. It shows the readiness to think algebraically did not have
any effect on the school-based mathematics achievement. Which signifies the knowledge of
working with unknowns or equal signs does not really influence the achievement. It seems
school-based mathematics examinations do not test based on the underlying algebraic
elements in arithmetic.
Conclusion
The results of this study are may be more indicative than definitive due to limited number of
tasks provided in the present study. However, the results discussed in previous section
showed the fifth-grade pupils have the readiness to find the unknown and able to make the
number sentence true. They had managed to find the unknown to make the number sentence

true. It is also noted that these four tasks of finding the unknowns may not reveal the
participants' algebraic thinking capability in depth. Nevertheless, it can be a good indication
to show the participants' readiness to work with unknowns in early years. The large sample
size of this study may provide a comprehensive view.
The findings of this study shed some light on the fifth-grade pupils' readiness to work
with unknowns. It also revealed that their readiness is lacking when working with
non-canonical representation and when more than one unknowns were involved. It can be
concluded that the fifth-grade pupils participated in this study acquired only surface level of
readiness when working with unknowns. At the same time, it is also notable that they could
improve this readiness by exposing them to more algebraic oriented teaching instructions in
classrooms. Therefore, it is time for curriculum developers to pay attention to the
importance of introducing unknowns in earlier grade and incorporate it in the arithmetic
syllabus.
References
Blanton, M. ., & Kaput, J. . (2003). Developing elementary teachers’ “algebra eyes and ears.”
Teaching Children Mathematics, 10, 70–75.
Blanton, M., & Kaput, J. (2011). Functional Thinking as a Route Into Algebra in the
Elementary Grades. Early Algebraization SE - 2, 5–23.
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-17735-4_2
Boulton-Lewis, G. ., Cooper, T., Pillay, H., & Wilss, L. (1998). Arithmetic, pre-algebra, and
algebra: A model of transition. In E. Kanes, C., Goos, Merrilyn., Warren (Ed.), Annual
Conference of the Mathematics Education Research Group of Australasia Incorporated
(pp. 114–120). Australia.
Britt, M. S., & Irwin, K. C. (2008). Algebraic thinking with and without algebraic
representation: A three-year longitudinal study. ZDM - International Journal on
Mathematics Education, 40(1), 39–53. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11858-007-0064-x
Cai, J. (2004). Developing Algebraic Thinking in the Earlier Grades. The Mathematics
Educator, 8(1), 6–38.
Herscovics, N., & Linchevski, L. (1994). A Cognitive Gap between Arithmetic and Algebra
Author(s): Educational Studies in Mathematics, 27(1), 59–78. Retrieved from
http://www.jstor.org/stable/3482666
Jacobs, V. R., Franke, M. L., Carpenter, T. P., Levi, L., & Battey, D. (2007). Professional
development focused on children’s algebraic reasoning in elementary school. Journal for
Research in Mathematics Education, 38(3), 258–288. Retrieved from
http://homepages.math.uic.edu/~martinez/PD-EarlyAlgebra.pdf
Knuth, E. J., Alibali, M. W., Mcneil, N. M., Weinberg, A., & Stephens, A. C. (2005). Middle
School Students ’ Understanding of Core Algebraic. Zdm, 37(1), 68–76.
Küchemann, D. (1978). Children’s understanding of numerical variables. Mathematics in
School, 7(4), 23–26. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/30213397

Matthews, P. G., Rittle-Johnson, B., McEldoon, K. L., & Taylor, R. S. (2012). Measure for
measure: What combining diverse measures reveals about children’s understanding of the
equal sign as an indicator of mathematical equality. Journal for Research in Mathematics
Education, 43(3), 316. https://doi.org/10.5951/jresematheduc.43.3.0316
McNeil, N. M., Weinberg, A., Hattikudur, S., Stephens, A. C., Asquith, P., Knuth, E. J., &
Alibali, M. W. (2010). A is for apple: Mnemonic symbols hinder the interpretation of
algebraic expressions. Journal of Educational Psychology, 102(3), 625–634.
https://doi.org/10.1037/a0019105
Ralston, N. C. (2013). The development and validation of a diagnostic assessment of
algebraic thinking skills for students in the elementary grades. University of Washington.
Rittle-Johnson, B., Matthews, P. G., Taylor, R. S., & McEldoon, K. L. (2011). Assessing
knowledge of mathematical equivalence: A construct-modeling approach. Journal of
Educational Psychology, 103(1), 85–104. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0021334
Sherman, J., & Bisanz, J. (2009). Equivalence in symbolic and nonsymbolic contexts:
Benefits of solving problems with manipulatives. Journal of Educational Psychology,
101(1), 88–100. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0013156
Stacey, K. (1989). Finding and using patterns in linear generalising problems. Educational
Studies in Mathematics, 20(2), 147–164. Retrieved from
http://www.jstor.org/stable/3482495

Appendix
Task 1 Task 2
Task 3 Task 4

Soto-Andrade, Garces-Ocares, Yañez-Aburto 341
FLEXIBILITY IN MATHEMATICS EDUCATION: AN

ENACTIVISTIC AND METAPHORIC PERSPECTIVE.
Jorge Soto-Andrade, University of Chile, Chile
May Garces-Ocares, University of Chile, Chile
Alexandra Yañez-Aburto, University of Chile, Chile
Introduction
Flexibility, in the cognitive realm, is in fact a metaphor, since flexibility is literally a
kinaesthetic notion. This metaphoric use of flexibility in cognition is indeed ubiquitous in
the last decades (Gray and Tall, 1994; Ma, 1999; Mason, 2014; Sriraman, Haavold and Lee,
2007; Wong, 2008). Flexibility is then understood as: adaptability, the ability to be easily
modified, openness (open-endedness, openness to change), fluidity, versatility, amenability,
even tolerance (Oxford Dictionary, 2018). Flexibility may also be described as “the quality
of bending easily without breaking”, like the reed. Recall Confucius’ saying: “The green
reed which bends in the wind is stronger than the mighty oak which breaks in a storm.”
Particularly, in mathematics education, Ma (1999) points out that mathematics is not rigid,
but flexible, and refers to “Multiple Approaches to a Computational Procedure: Flexibility
Rooted in Conceptual Understanding”, recalling that “ “To solve a problem in multiple
ways” is also an attitude of Chinese teachers.” (loc. cit. p. 95). This is echoed by
Rittle-Johnson and Star, J.R. (2007), cited by Wong (2008). Flexibility is also strongly
associated to creativity as in Mason’s claim: “Students whose teacher challenges them
appropriately but significantly are likely to develop flexibility and creativity in their
thinking” (Mason, 2014: p. 515), and also in Sriraman, Haavold and Lee (2014).
For us flexibility means being able to react fluently to the unexpected in the classroom,
welcoming cognitive diversity, listening to the whole emerging spectrum of learners’
questions, being open to their unexpected idiosyncratic metaphorising, and letting them
explore various possible approaches among those they suggest, which often correspond to
different metaphorisations of the problem they are tackling. Comparing and discussing their
relative advantages and drawbacks frequently stirs a lively classroom dynamics See
Rittle-Johnson and Star (2007), cited by Wong (2008) for a closely related approach.
Flexibility entails metaphorising learning as lying down a path in (random) walking. So,
eventually changing your planning, if you had any, on the way and consenting to go to deep
waters or uncomfortable places with students, be able to notice important findings, to come
back to the surface and breath.
Flexibility also means translating among different approaches to an adidactical situation
(Brousseau 1997) or problem and moving seamlessly among varied metaphors, not remaining
rigidly frozen in just one.
Flexibility entails a demanding task for the teacher, drawing on her “resources of being” and
noticing (Mason, 2012). Metaphorically, the teacher needs to consent to “jump into the void”
or at least play the role of a “tightrope walker” in the classroom.

342 Flexibility in Mathematics Education: an Enactivistic and Metaphoric Perspective
Notice a pitfall to avoid: to prescribe in a rigid way that “You must be flexible!”. See
Chaplin’s The Circus commented by Brousseau (2011).
We present and discuss below some illustrative examples of teaching experiences, inspired by
enactivistic and metaphoric approaches in mathematics education (Diaz-Rojas &
Soto-Andrade, 2015; Reid & Mgombelo, 2015; Soto-Andrade, 2014, 2017), where flexibility
plays a key role.
Research questions
A first research question of interest to us is to contrast and compare our approach to
flexibility with the Japanese Lesson Study methodology (Isoda, 2002; Isoda & Katagiri,
2012), which claims that nothing happening in the classroom should surprise an expert
teacher.
A second research question is motivated by the fact that physiologically flexibility is the
ability of a joint or series of joints to move through an unrestricted, pain free range of
motion. Metaphorising to the cognitive realm, we realize that very often we do not pay
enough attention, as teachers, to the discomfort students may experience in a
flexibility-provoking activity. This cognitive pain deserves indeed especial attention and
care.
Further questions are:
Is there a correlation between physical flexibility and cognitive flexibility?
What is flexible problem solving?
Theoretical background on metaphorising and enacting

Metaphorising in mathematics education
In cognitive science there is widespread agreement nowadays in that our ordinary
conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical
in nature (Gibbs, 2008; Johnson & Lakoff, 2003). In mathematics education proper it has
progressively acknowledged during the last decades (English, 1997; Lakoff & Núñez, 2000;
Sfard, 2009; Soto-Andrade, 2007, and many others) that metaphors are not just rhetorical
devices, but powerful cognitive tools, which enable us to build new concepts, besides
grasping new ideas, connecting seemingly unrelated domains and solving problems in an
efficient and friendly way. See Soto-Andrade (2014) for a recent survey. Indeed, in
mathematics we often metaphorise to fathom something unknown or to construct a concept.
For instance, we construct the concept of probability when, while trying to figure out a
symmetric random walk on the integers (e. g. a frog jumping fairly on a row of stones in a
pond), we see the walker splitting into 2 equal halves instead of going equally likely right or
left (Soto-Andrade, 2007, 2015). Notice that this ‘metaphoric sleight of hand’ turns a
random process into a deterministic one: the probability of finding the walker at a given
location after n jumps becomes the portion of the walker landing there after n splittings.
(Diaz-Rojas, D., & Reyes-Santander, P. (2017). Especially relevant are idiosyncratic
metaphors, that may emerge as a survival or defensive flexible mechanism in learners

facing a challenging or threatening situation. This emergence is however often thwarted by

the prevailing didactical contract (Brousseau et al., 2014).
In what follows we will use metaphorical language as a meta-language to describe cognitive
or didactic theories, since, we claim, a theory is essentially the unfolding of a metaphor
(Soto-Andrade, 2014). We apply this to enaction below.
Enactivism in mathematics education
Varela (1987) metaphorised enaction as the “laying down of a path in walking”, when he
introduced the enactive approach in cognitive science (Varela et al., 1991), citing Machado
(1988, p. 142): “Wanderer, your footsteps are the path, nothing else; there is no path, you
lay down a path in walking”. In his own words: “The world is not something that is given to
us but something we engage in by moving, touching, breathing, and eating. This is what I
call cognition as enaction since enaction connotes this bringing forth by concrete handling”
(Varela et al.; p. 63).
Less radical enaction in mathematics education may be traced back to Bruner (1966), who
characterised enactive, iconic and symbolic modes of representation. In his sense, enactive
means mainly manipulation and bodily involvement, as in Gallagher and Lindgren
(2015). Notice how the “laying a path in walking” metaphor for cognition runs counter to
the traditional one, which sees learning as following a well-marked path rigidly given in
advance. The enactivistic programme in mathematics education has been further
developed by Brown (2015), Proulx and Maheux (2017), Reid and Mgombelo (2015)
See also Riegler and Vörös (2017).
Enactivism leads us to just propose an open a-didactical situation, in the sense of Brousseau
(1997), allowing learners to co-construct the questions and the problem to begin with, instead
of committing themselves to solve a pre determined given task.
Illustrative examples
We describe and comment below, by way of example, a couple of paradigmatic problems
we have worked out with a broad spectrum of learners in the last few years: first year
university humanistic students, prospective secondary mathematics teachers and in service
primary school teachers engaged in a 700 hour professional development programme
aiming at improving their command of elementary mathematics and its didactics, besides
plain citizens in open workshops.
Example 1. Finnish open ended problem: Dividing a square in 4 identical parts in four
different ways.
We have posed this famous problem to various kinds of learners, from 2011 to 2017.
Particularly to 16 to 19 year old juvenile offenders engaged in a re insertion programme at
the University of Chile in 2011, and to 37 students (aged 14 to 16, 9th and 10th grade) from
a Realschule in Germany (Soto-Andrade and Reyes-Santander, 2012). See Fig. 1 and 2
below for samples of their drawing activity. But also to common citizens in open

workshops in Patagonia (in the South of Chile, primary and secondary school children and
in service primary school teachers.
Figure 1: Samples of juvenile offenders drawings (Chile).
Figure 2. Samples of student drawings (Germany).
We notice more flexibility in the production of the juvenile offenders, including many
wrong solutions. Most remarkable is the weird concentric square solution (in the left red
circle), which also appeared in an open workshop on mathematics and art in Patagonia, 3
years later, drawn by a primary school teacher with Asperger syndrome. An unexpected
solution even for a Japanese teacher!

In the case of juvenile offenders, when they were producing many wrong solutions but not
succeeding in finding a fourth correct one, different from the most 3 obvious ones (in a red
ellipse above), the facilitator had the flexible idea of having the participants share their
(mostly wrong solutions). This triggered straight and curved solutions with central
symmetry in some learners whose attention was caught by the concentric square solution
seen as a framed aisle in perspective, with a vanishing point (called ‘punto de fuga’, literally
“escape point”, in perspective drawing in Spanish)! Also clever right solutions appeared
as flexible deformation of more obvious ones, like the rotated cross (lower left red circle) or
the one where the straight lines are perturbed with a shiver (third right red circle).
Example 2. Random walks as a royal road to probability.
A typical example of our approach is provided, in the initial teaching of probability, by
presenting Brownian motion as a natural, albeit hard to fathom, example of randomness,
stimulating the learners to study baby versions of it (Soto-Andrade, Diaz-Rojas and
Reyes-Santander, 2017). Varied ideas arise, most of them striving to restrict somehow the
number of degrees of freedom of the Brownian particle’s motion, e.g Brownie’s random
walk (Soto-Andrade and Diaz-Rojas, Reyes-Santander, 2017):
A puppy, called Brownie, escapes randomly from home, when she smells the shampoo her
master intends to give her. At each street corner, confused and stressed by the traffic’s noise and
smells, escaping barely from being overrun, she chooses equally likely any of the four cardinal
direction and runs nonstop a whole block until the next corner. Exhausted after, say, four blocks,
she collapses at some corner. Her master would like to know where to look for Brownie and
also to estimate how far she will end up from home.
Notice here the fundamental “impossible” question: Where will Brownie be after a four
block run?
This question that needs a highly flexible approach, especially for learners that have not
constructed beforehand the concept of probability. They may realise that there are several
levels of answers, starting with level 0: “Nobody knows!”; then level 1: a list of possible
corners; level 2: a ranking of the possible corners; up to level 3: quantifying the likelihood
of each possible corner!
Several approaches to study this random walk emerge among the learners: Enactive,
statistical, iconic, combinatorial approaches. Enactive and statistical means simulating the
walk, or acting it out. Combinatorial usually means counting Brownie’s possible paths or
trajectories. Iconic means visualising the unfolding to the walk, taking advantage of
different metaphoric approaches.
Notably metaphoric approaches may lead to the construction of the notion of probability
through splitting, hydraulic or pedestrian metaphors (Diaz-Rojas & Soto-Andrade, 2015). A
splitting (or Solomonic) metaphor would see Brownie splitting into four pieces at each
corner and so on. A hydraulic metaphor would see a watering duct system with water
splitting evenly at each node instead of Brownie. A pedestrian metaphor would unleash a
pack of Brownies (conveniently 44 for a 4 block walk) from home, which would split
equally into fourths at each corner. A variant of this, that we call a Borgeian Metaphor (to

honour Jorge Luis Borges) sees simultaneously the four possible parallel universes where
Brownie runs north, south, east and west, so four Brownies in all, and so on. After a 4 block
run, we would have 44 parallel universes and we just count in how many of them Brownie
lies at each possible corner.
When carrying out this activity with first year humanistic university students coming, most
of them, straight from a very rigid secondary school, with stiff cognitive joints, we noticed
that the high demand of flexibility involved was a source of stress for roughly half of them.
This needed special containment and “cognitive therapy” from our assistant (the third
author), who is a psychologist. It was a rather slow process for the students, but
progressively they recovered the lost flexibility. This also impinged in other courses they
were taking, according to their testimonies and feedback (reported in a focus group).
If we were interested in primary mathematics education, we could think flexibly of even
simpler versions of BB motion, in 1D for example, like the symmetric random walk of a
frog jumping on a row or a regular polygon of stones in a pond (Soto-Andrade 2006).
Discussion
We have seen that flexibility is closely intertwined with metaphorising and enacting and
that students provide unexpected approaches and metaphors that demand openness and
flexibility from the teacher.
Metaphorising is harder the more stiff your “cognitive joints” are. In fact metaphorising
fosters cognitive flexibility and the latter enables you to metaphorise more easily and
spontaneously. The emergence of various ways of enacting among the learners also
requires flexibility in their stance. Usual mathematics teaching in school is relentlessly rigid.
A transformation of being, in the sense of Mason (1998) is needed to deal in a flexible way
with unexpected contributions and questioning from the students (Mason, 2014).
Comparatively, Japanese teachers indeed react flexibly to “unexpected” events in the
classroom out of their deep classroom experience, constructed beforehand in a cooperative
and systematic way, aiming at predicting student reactions. Our approach leaves however
even more room for improvisation and randomness. The final outcomes may be surprisingly
similar though.
We noticed that student’s stiff cognitive joints may need to be handled by a “cognitive
therapy”, to be able to stretch as needed. Transition from rigidity to flexibility so appears
as a complex issue deserving further research.
References
Brousseau, G. (1997). Theory of Didactic Situations in Mathematics Education. Dordrecht:
Kluwer.
Brousseau, G. (2011). La leçon introductive de mon cours de Didactique de 1975 : Chaplin_
et_la_didactique_1975-2010. http://guy-brousseau.com/2084/dossier-n%C2%B09-introd
uction-a-letude-de-phenomenes-macro-didactiques/

Brousseau, G. & Warfield, V. (2014). Didactic contract in mathematics education, In S.

Lerman (Ed.). Encyclopedia of Mathematics Education (pp. 153–159). Berlin:
Springer-Verlag.
Brown, L. (2015). Researching as an enactivist mathematics education researcher, ZDM
Mathematics Education, 47,185–196
Bruner, J. (1966). Toward a theory of instruction. Harvard, MA: Belknap Press
Díaz-Rojas, D. & Soto-Andrade, J., (2015). Enactive Metaphoric Approaches to randomness.
In K. Krainer, N. Vondrová (Eds.). Proc. of CERME9 (pp. 629–636). Prague: Charles
University in Prague & ERME.
English, L. (Ed.) (1997). Mathematical reasoning: Analogies, metaphors, and images.
London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.  
Gallagher, S. & Lindgren, R. (2015). Enactive metaphors: learning through full body
engagement, Educ. Psychol. Rev., 27, 391–404.
Gibbs, R. W. (Ed.) (2008). The Cambridge Handbook of Metaphor and Thought. Cambridge,
UK: Cambridge University Press.
Gray, E. & Tall, D. (1994) Duality, ambiguity and flexibility: a proceptual view of simple
arithmetic. J. Res. Mat.h Educ 25:116–140
Isoda, M. Katagiri, Sh. (2012). Mathematical thinking, Singapore: World Scientific.
Johnson, M. & Lakoff, G. (2003). Metaphors we live by, New York NY: The University of
Chicago Press. 
Lakoff, G. & Núñez, R. (2000). Where Mathematics comes from. New York NY: Basic
Books.
Machado, A. (1988). Selected poems. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press
Ma, L. (1999). Knowing and teaching elementary mathematics, Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence
Erlbaum Associates
Mason, J. (1998). Researching from the Inside in Mathematics Education. In A. Sierpinska &
J. Kilpatrick (Eds.). Mathematics Education as a Research Domain: A Search for Identity
(pp. 357-377), Dordrecht: Kluwer.  
Mason, J. (2014). Questioning in Mathematics Education. In Lerman, S. (Ed.) Encyclopedia
of Mathematics Education (pp. 513–519). Berlin: Springer-Verlag.
Oxford Dictionary (2018). Definition for flexibility. Retrieved from
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/flexibility
Proulx J. & Maheux J.-F. (2017). From problem solving to problem posing, and from
strategies to laying down a path in solving: taking Varela’s ideas to Mathematics
Education Research, Constructivistic Foundations, 13(1), 161-167. .
Reid, D. A. & Mgombelo, J. (2015). Survey of key concepts in enactivist theory and
methodology. ZDM—The International Journal on Mathematics Education, 47(2),
171-183.

Riegler, A. & Vörös, S. (Eds.) (2017). Missing the Woods for the Trees: Neglected
Aspects of Francisco Varela’s Work. Special Issue. Constructivistic Foundations, 13(1),
194 p.
Sfard, A. (2009). Metaphors in education. In H. Daniels, H. Lauder & J. Porter (Eds.)
Educational theories, cultures and learning : a critical perspective (pp. 39 – 50). New York
NY: Routledge
Soto-Andrade, J. (2007). Metaphors and cognitive styles in the teaching-learning of
mathematics. In D. Pitta-Pantazi & J. Philippou (Eds.). Proc. of CERME5 (pp. 191–200).
Larnaca: University of Cyprus.
Soto-Andrade, J. (2013). Metaphoric Random Walks: A Royal Road to Stochastic
Thinking. In B. Ubuz, C. Haser, & M. A. Mariotti (Eds.). Proc. of CERME8 (pp. 890-900),
Antalya: METU & ERME.
Soto-Andrade, J. (2014). Metaphors in Mathematics Education. In Lerman, S. (Ed.)
Encyclopedia of Mathematics Education (pp. 447–453). Berlin: Springer-Verlag.
Soto-Andrade, J. (2018). Enactive metaphorising in the learning of mathematics. In G.
Kaiser, H. Forgasz, M. Graven, A. Kuzniak, E. Simmt, & B. Xu (Eds.). Invited Lectures
 from the 13th International Congress on Mathematical Education (pp. 619-638). Cham,
Switzerland: Springer International Publishing. 
Soto-Andrade, J., Diaz-Rojas, D., & Reyes-Santander, P. (2018). Random walks as learning
sprouts in the learning of probability. To appear in: C. Batanero & E. Chernoff (Eds.).
Monograph on Probabilistic Thinking, ICME 13. Cham, Switzerland: Springer
International Publishing. 
Rittle-Johnson, B. & Star, J.R. (2007). Does comparing solution methods facilitate
conceptual and procedural knowledge? An experimental study on learning to solve
equations. Journal of Educational Psychology, 99(3), 561-574.
Soto-Andrade, J. & Reyes-Santander, P. (2012) Mathematical Cognition in Juvenile
Offenders : a Case Study, en Proceedings ICME 12 (July 2012, Seoul, Korea), pp.
4721-4730
Sriraman, B., Haavold, P. & Lee, K. (2014). Creativity in Mathematics Education. In Lerman,
S. (Ed.) Encyclopedia of Mathematics Education (pp. 109-115). Berlin: Springer-Verlag
Varela, F. J. (1987). Lying down a path in walking. In W.I. Thompson (Ed.). Gaia: A Way of
Knowing (pp. 48-64), Hudson, NY: Lindisfarne Press
Varela, F.J., Thompson, E. & Rosch, E. (1991), The embodied mind: cognitive science and
human experience. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Wong, A. M. (2008). Developing Flexibility in Math Problem Solving. Retrieved from
https://www.gse.harvard.edu/news/uk/08/12/developing-flexibility-math-problem-solvin
g
Funding from PIA-CONICYT Basal Funds for Centres of Excellence Project FB0003 and
FIDOP 2016-60PAB is gratefully acknowledged.

Jorge Soto-Andrade
University of Chile
Las Palmeras 3425, Santiago, Chile.
sotoandrade@uchile.cl
May Garces-Ocares
University of Chile
maygarces16@gmail.com
Alexandra Yañez-Aburto
University of Chile
alexandra.yanez@ug.uchile.cl

350 Developing Algorithmic Thinking in the Primary and Junior Secondary Years
DEVELOPING ALGORITHMIC THINKING IN THE PRIMARY

AND JUNIOR SECONDARY YEARS
Max Stephens, The University of Melbourne, Australia
Mathematical reasoning takes many forms, such as algebraic, spatial and geometric, and
statistical. Algorithmic thinking is an important and flexible form of mathematical
reasoning, emphasizing decomposition (breaking a complex problem down into component
sub-problems and sub-tasks), pattern recognition, generalization and abstraction. With a
growing global emphasis on using algorithmic thinking in coding and computing programs
in schools, it is necessary and timely to examine whether algorithmic thinking should be
included more explicitly in the teaching and learning of mathematics, and to what extent its
inclusion can foster improved mathematical learning.
Global Context and challenges
Challenges to the Mathematics Curriculum come from three directions. In the first place,
significant curriculum developments are under way in programming and computing. These
have been discussed by Webb et al. (2016) who presented vignettes of five countries – the
United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia, Israel and Poland – where programming is part
of the school curriculum. Documenting these developments in a comprehensive way is
beyond the scope of this paper, but it is a task which the International Commission on
Mathematical Instruction is urged to take on.
In recent years, the United Kingdom (Department of Education, 2016) has introduced
Computing Programmes of Study in Key Stages 1 to 4 to equip students to use
computational thinking, including abstraction, logic, algorithms and data representation.
France has a new national curriculum, Algorithmique et programmation (Ministere de
l’Education Nationale, 2016) for all grade levels which includes algorithmic thinking and
computing concepts. From 2020, the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports,
Science and Technology (MEXT, 2018) will make computer programming a mandatory
subject for all primary school students. This will be expanded to include middle schools and
high schools in 2021 and 2022 respectively (Bethune, 2016). In Australia, the national
curriculum now includes Digital Technologies (ACARA, 2016) which all States and
Territories have agreed to implement. These national developments reflect an overall goal to
improve the international competitiveness of each country’s labor market, where those
countries with the best-trained labor force can be expected to reap the rewards. Commenting
on the inclusion of Digital Technologies in the Australian Curriculum, Clark (2016) places
these developments in a wider frame:
For many teachers, the content of this subject will present quite a challenge, as it requires them
to teach algorithmic thinking from the Foundation year and to introduce coding from as early as
Year 3. Previously, this has been the preserve of a small number of courses in the senior years
of the curriculum, but there is a worldwide demand for greater coding skills as a part of core

Stephens 351
education; Australia is not alone in promoting this type of thinking as a part of the compulsory
curriculum.
A second line of challenges come from concurrent developments, sometimes outside formal
school hours, in government sponsored initiatives, such as in Malaysia with its
Coding@Schools and a National Code Challenge (NCC), in Taiwan with its Hour of Code,
and in Singapore with extra-curricular programs to introduce young children to coding and
computational thinking skills.
In both these cases, the focus may appear to be in teaching coding or programming using a
student-friendly form such as Scratch. In this paper, coding is not the focus. Programming is
really about solving problems and developing a logic-focused mindset or programming.
Coding should be understood as a formalized means of recording and executing algorithmic
thinking. But there is an even stronger argument for thinking about what underpins coding
or programming, as Clark (2016) emphasizes: there is little point in learning a programming
language without a good understanding of the algorithmic thinking which sits behind any
purposeful computer program.
A third and emerging result of the first two trends is to embed elements of Algorithmic
Thinking in the school mathematics curriculum, such as in the State of Victoria, Australia
(Victorian Curriculum: Mathematics, VCAA, 2017). These developments are not about
teaching students how to execute standard algorithms for the four operations. The goal is to
show students how to think logically as they solve mathematical problems, to think like a
computer and deconstruct complex systems, breaking down a problem into smaller steps to
develop (test/revise) a structured approach to solving a problem. Flexibility is a
characteristic of this kind of algorithmic thinking which is the opposite of lucky guesses
and/or trial-and-error strategies. Students are taught represent algorithms in everyday
language, or as flow charts, or in a simple coding language. Algorithmic thinking should
arise naturally in and support mathematics learning in the primary and junior secondary
school years.
Faced with developments in both the formal school curriculum and in related
extra-curricular forms discussed above, recognition and inclusion of algorithmic thinking in
the school mathematics curriculum has become a pressing contemporary challenge. The
purpose of this paper is to argue that a clearer positioning of algorithmic thinking within the
school mathematics curriculum is both timely and necessary. As Clark (2016) agues,
teachers of mathematics should not think of algorithmic thinking as yet another thing which
they have to teach, but rather as a pedagogical approach to problem solving in general, a
skill which will be transferable across many disciplines.
In subsequent sections, it will be appropriate to give a more explicit definition of what is
meant by algorithmic thinking. The next step will be to present a case for its more explicit
inclusion in the school mathematics curriculum. To explain what this might mean for the
teaching an learning of mathematics. Finally, I argue that ignoring these opportunities is
likely to isolate school mathematics from what children are learning in other areas, and hold

back needed research into the kind of teacher professional learning that will support these
developments.
Defining algorithmic thinking
In his classic article on Algorithmic thinking and mathematical thinking, Donald Knuth
(1985) describes algorithms:
as encompassing the whole range of concepts dealing with well-defined problems, including
the structure of data that is being acted upon as well as the structure of the operations being
performed; some other people think of algorithms merely as miscellaneous methods for the
solution of problems, analogous to individual theorems in mathematics (p.170).
Twenty-one years later, Wing (2006) makes similar points, describing algorithmic thinking,
or computational thinking, as it is sometimes called, as an approach to solving problems. It
is the thinking behind coding. It is a way of thinking that helps students to look at a problem
and to focus on the best ways to solve it. To do this, students must understand the various
constraints in which the problem is embedded, and adopt flexible approaches to its solution.
The following section will examine in greater detail the specific sources of challenges to a
contemporary mathematics curriculum.
International curriculum developments in computing and coding
Across different countries there appear to be clear commonalities about what students are
expected to be able to do using coding in the primary and junior secondary years –
understanding what algorithms are, explaining how they work, writing algorithms using
sequencing, selection, sorting and repetition, designing and applying algorithms to solve
problems, debugging algorithms (detecting and correcting errors), and comparing and
evaluating alternative algorithms designed to solve the same problem.
These new courses have moved well beyond teaching students about information
technology. Their aims are exemplified by the National Curriculum in England: Computing
Programmes (2016) under four headings:
The national curriculum for computing aims to ensure that all pupils:
 can understand and apply the fundamental principles and concepts of computer
science, including abstraction, logic, algorithms and data representation;
 can analyse problems in computational terms, and have repeated practical experience
of writing computer programs in order to solve such problems;
 can evaluate and apply information technology, including new or unfamiliar
technologies, analytically to solve problems;
 are responsible, competent, confident and creative users of information and
communication technology.
The first three of these are directly relevant to this paper in illustrating how the intended
curriculum is most likely to complement and impact upon what students are expected to

Stephens 353
learn in Mathematics. In Key Stages 1-4 (covering the school Years 1 to 11, Ages 5 to 16),
the importance given to algorithms and algorithmic thinking is evident. In Key Stage 1
(Years 1 and 2), where pupils should be taught "to understand what algorithms are, how
they are implemented as programs on digital devices, and that programs execute by
following precise and unambiguous instructions". In Key Stage 2 (Years 3 to 6), pupils
should be taught. To "use logical reasoning to e plain how simple algorithms work, and to
detect and correct errors in algorithms...". In Key Stage 3 (Years 7 to 9), "understand several
algorithms that reflect computational thinking [for example, ones for sorting and searching];
use logical reasoning to compare the utility alternative algorithms for the same problem. In
Key Stage 4 (Years 10 and 11), "all pupils should be taught to develop and apply their
analytic, problem solving, design, and computational thinking skills".
As these excerpts show, with their repeated emphasis on logical thinking, analytic, and
problem solving skills, there are deep links with mathematics, as well as science, technology
and design. The overriding goal is having pupils becoming digitally literate at a level
suitable for the future workplace and as active participants in a digital world.
Regrettably, the underlying mathematical and logical skills that are needed to execute these
operations are often left implicit. It is therefore important and helpful to note that four
underpinning logical and mathematical skills are described explicitly in the French course
Algorithmique et Programmation (Ministere de l’Education Nationale, 2016). These four
underpinning skills are:
 decomposition: analyze a complicated problem, break it down into sub-problems and
into sub-tasks;
 pattern recognition: recognize patterns, patterns, invariants, repetitions, highlight
interactions;
 generalization and abstraction: to identify the logical sequences and to translate
them into conditional instructions, to translate the recurring schemas into loops, to
conceive methods related to objects that translate the expected behavior;
 algorithm design: write modular solutions to a given problem, re-use already
programmed algorithms, program instructions triggered by events, design algorithms
running in parallel.
Having stated these underpinning skills explicitly, it is impossible not to see the connections
between the underpinning skills that are being developed through coding and two central
goals of mathematical reasoning and problem solving in school Mathematics.
Algorithmic thinking in the Australian curriculum
This section focusing on the primary school years and into the early secondary school will
show how algorithmic thinking fits readily with many areas of content in the primary and
junior secondary years. It will elaborate on two principles for a more explicit inclusion of
algorithmic thinking. The first principle (Principle 1) is that school Mathematics curriculum
cannot be isolated from those logical and structural ways of thinking that students encounter

in other areas of the curriculum. The second (Principle 2) is that explicit inclusion of these
ways of thinking is justified whenever they can assist and advance the development of
students’ mathematical learning.
Algorithmic thinking is included in every stage of the Australian Curriculum: Digital
Technologies (ACARA, 2016) as a key process and production skill. Starting in Foundation
Year and up to Year 2, students “follow, describe and represent a sequence of steps and
decision (algorithms) needed to solve simple problems”. In Years 3 and 4, students “define
simple problems and follow a sequence of steps and decisions (algorithms) needed to solve
them”. In Years 5 and 6, students “design, modify and follow simple algorithms represented
diagrammatically and in English involving sequences of steps, branching and iteration
(repetition)”. In Years 7 and 8, students “design algorithms represented diagrammatically
and English; and trace algorithms to predict output for a given input and to identify errors”.
In Years 9 and 10, students are expected not only to design algorithms, but also to “validate
algorithms and programs through tracing and test cases”.
At present, the State of Victoria is the only Australian State where algorithmic thinking is
explicitly included in the school mathematics curriculum. Clark (2016), referring to these
developments, notes that other Australian states are looking at how this implementation will
work in practice and who can best deliver algorithmic content.
The Victorian Curriculum: Mathematics (VCAA, 2017) gives specific attention to the
development of algorithmic thinking from the first year at school. Algorithmic thinking is
situated in the major Strand of Number and Algebra, in the sub-strand of Patterns and
Relations. Table 1 sets out the content descriptors of algorithmic thinking from Foundation
Year to Year 7. While descriptors from higher years are not included in this table, there are
evident parallels with those descriptors relating to algorithmic thinking excerpted in the
preceding paragraph from Australian Curriculum: Digital Technologies (ACARA, 2016).
Most importantly, their inclusion in the Victorian Curriculum: Mathematics (VCAA, 2017)
is intended to show how and where algorithmic thinking is directly relevant to the teaching
and learning of mathematics.
In the early primary years, where there is a ready overlap between Digital Technologies and
Mathematics, child-friendly robotic devices such as BeeBot and Sphero introduce young
students to systematic thinking to solve problems that are meaningful to them. These
codable digital systems allow students to design and test solutions to simple problems using
a sequence of steps and decisions.
Table 11 Algorithms in the Victorian Curriculum – Foundation Year to Year 7
Level Content Description Level Content Description
F Follow a short sequence of 4 Define a simple class of problems

instructions and solve them using an effective
algorithm that involves a short
sequence of steps and decisions

Stephens 355
1 Recognize the importance of 5 Follow a mathematical algorithm

repetition in solving problems involving branching and repetition
(iteration)
2 Apply repetition in arithmetic 6 Design algorithms involving

operations, including multiplication branching and iteration to solve
as repeated addition and division as specific classes of mathematical
repeated subtraction problems
3 Use a function machine and the 7 Design and implement mathematical

inverse function machine as a model algorithms using a simple general
to apply mathematical rules to purpose programming language
numbers or shapes
In Years 2 and 3, students use algorithmic thinking to apply repetition in arithmetic

operations, such as representing multiplication as repeated addition, and division as repeated
subtraction.
In Years 3 and 4 students are introduced to simple function machines and the inverse
machine as models to apply mathematical rules to numbers and shapes. As they progress,
students can be introduced to combinations of more than one function machine. A function
machine allows students to successively transform numbers from input to output, to identify
rules, and understand how reverse (inverse) operations go from output back to input.
Algorithmic thinking is suitable for helping students to articulate rules for the ordering of
multi-digit numbers from largest to smallest; and for ordering multi-place decimal numbers.
In Years 4 and 5 and in later years, students are introduced to simple classes of problems
and learn to solve them using one or more effective algorithms that involve a sequence of
steps and decisions. In applying algorithmic thinking to problem solving, students can be
encouraged to find that problems may be solved using more than one approach. In
evaluating the merits of different approaches, it is essential that students learn to record their
work through tables and charts which show how the steps and decisions and their associated
operations have been applied.
In the upper primary and junior secondary years, students learn to follow a mathematical
algorithm involving branching and repetition (iteration). They can, for example, apply a
suitable branching algorithm and decisions points to classify various quadrilateral shapes.
Algorithmic thinking in Years 3 – 7: Exemplifying Principle 2
The introduction of function machines in Year 3 is intended to help students to understand more
deeply the four arithmetical operations. Function machines also serve as important instruments to
express and represent algorithmic thinking. Their use remains relevant and important in subsequent
years. A simple one-step function machine allows students to experiment with different inputs and
operations. In the simplest case, when the input and the rule are both known, students can find the
output for any given input. However, when several inputs and outputs are known, then students can
be asked to find a rule that will explain the relationship between the input and the output.

Function machines are useful mathematical tools for representing sequences of steps in the case of
more complex problems. These representations allow students to move easily to construct
spreadsheets and tables to explore specific values, to identify various constrains in which the
problem is embedded, and to explore alternative approaches to its solution. In particular, function
machines allow students to examine the relations between outputs and inputs through inverse
operations.
Inverse operations
A clear benefit of using function machines is that they introduce students to the idea of an
inverse operation. In the case of a one-step function machine, if the rule is to multiply by 3,
Figure 1. A two-step function machine for finding two-thirds

then if the input is known the output is obtained by multiplying by 3. If the output is given,
then the input can be obtained by dividing by 3. This helps students to see division as the
inverse operation of multiplication. Later, the focus can shift to the inverse operation of
finding a fraction of a given number (multiplying a number by a faction). Figure 1 (below)
is intended to represent the operation of finding two-thirds of a given number. The first step
is to find one-third of the number and then to double that result to give two-thirds. It would
𝟐
be possible to represent this function as a one-step function machine using a rule × , but a
𝟑
two-step function machine shows more clearly the connection between finding one-third
and doubling that result to give two-thirds, for several given inputs. The value of this
representation is that it enables students to think about the rule for the inverse operation. If
the output number is 14, then the associated input is obtained by dividing by 2 and
𝟑 𝟐
multiplying by 3, that is the same as × , which is the inverse equivalent to ÷ . Similarly,
𝟐 𝟑
if the output is 28.
Algorithms involving branching and iteration to solve specific classes of mathematical

problems

Stephens 357
In the Australian mathematics teaching resource, Maths300 (AAMT, 2017), there is a

problem presented to students called Monkeys and Bananas:
The Story: Three monkeys worked together all day to gather a pile of bananas, then they went to bed.
During the night, the first monkey ate one banana and then hid exactly one third of the remaining
bananas in a safe place before going back to bed.
The second monkey woke up later and ate one of the remining pile of bananas and then hid exactly one
third of the amount that was left. Then went back to bed.
The third monkey woke up even later and ate one of the remaining bananas and then hid exactly one
third of the amount that was left. Then went back to bed.
In the morning, the monkeys could share equally the bananas that had been left. How many bananas
might have been in the original pile? How many bananas did each monkey receive at breakfast?
The authors of Maths300 (2017) claim to have used this problem with quite young students
where their focus is on using concrete materials, but the purpose here is to provide a further
illustration of Principle 2 to show the potential benefits of algorithmic thinking when this
problem is explored by students in junior high school and above. Even here, students need
to begin by exploring possible numbers for the original pile of bananas, as shown by the
imagined student dialogue in Figure 2.
Suppose I had30 bananas in the pile to start with. Monkey 1 eats one banana and then needs to
KLGH RQH WKLUG RI ZKDW LVOHIW %XW , FDQ•W GLYLGH LQWR WKUHH HTXDO J
number must be one more than a multiple of three. start
If with
I 34 bananas,then Monkey 1
eats one, leaving 33 bananas, and then hides one third of this amount. That leaves s22forbanana
Monkey 2 who eats one of these
, leaving 21 and hides one thirdthis
of amount. That leaves14
bananas for Monkey 3. But after Monkey 3 eatsofone these, there are 13 bananas left, which
FDQ•WEHGLYLGHGLQWRWKUHHHTXDOJURXSV
Figure 2. Initial student exploration of the Monkeys and Bananas problem
Whatever is left at the end also must be a multiple of three because the final pile can be
shared equally among the three monkeys. The process can be represented algorithmically as
Figure 3. Representing the Monkeys and Bananas Problem

shown in Figure 3

Students may proceed systematically to find a starting number, showing that 25 bananas is
the only number of bananas less than 30 which meets all these conditions. However, the
representation, shown in the above figure, enables students to set up a Spreadsheet or a
simple Table with different values for the inputs. Only numbers that are one more than a
multiple of three can be used as input numbers. for Monkey 1, Monkey 2 and Monkey 3
respectively. Having found 25 as the smallest possible starting number, students can
investigate whether a larger number will satisfy this problem.
On the other hand, students may ask whether it is possible to start with the final share,
demonstrating more flexible algorithmic thinking. The representation in Figure 3, using a
triple function machine, allows students to write an inverse process starting from the final
Figure 4. Reversing the Monkey and Bananas Problem
share back to the original pile. Using

their understanding of inverse operations, students can prepare a Table or a Spreadsheet, as
shown in Figure 4. The above table of values shows several refinements that might be based
3
on previous work. For example, instead of × students can write this as a two-step
2
operation dividing by 2 and then multiplying by 3. Whatever their preference, it is clear that
this operation needs to be performed on an even number since fractions of a banana are not
allowed. Hence the recognition that some lines in the above table do not need to continue.
(Students may write this condition into a Spreadsheet program using a suitable
programming language.) This not only saves work but more importantly shows that the next
possible starting pile is 106 bananas, and after that 187 bananas. Having identified
increments of 81 from the table of values, students, could be asked to consider how this
number, which is a power of 3, might be related to the number of monkeys. Older students

Stephens 359
might then be asked to consider an extension question: What happens if there are four
monkeys in the team, and during the night they each eat one banana and hide a fourth (a
quarter)?
Problems such as the above require students to have learned how to represent mathematical
operations and also to represent the inverses of these operations. The use of Tables and
Spreadsheets is essential in order to allow discussion, followed by review and possible
revision. Flowcharts such as shown in Figure 5 meet the same need of requiring students to
communicate as clearly as possible their algorithmic thinking, and to permit refinements to
take place as required.
Figure 5. Flowchart for Monkeys and Bananas Problem

Students should see the need to modify this flowchart to show that the process does not go
on indefinitely, requiring a restriction that the loop is performed three times only. It is
important for older students to know how to represent this restriction by incorporating a
counter tool into the flowchart where i = 0, and i = i + 1, and when i > 3 the process stops.
But that takes this paper into more involved mathematics.
Using the example of the Monkeys and Bananas Problem the following key points need to
be made:
• Students can use a choice of algorithmic approaches to solve a problem.
• Students need first to analyse the numbers (e.g. Monkey 1 to Monkey 2 to Monkey 3)
to understand the problem. Then they decompose the problem (break it down) into
simpler steps.

• Instead of solving only this problem, students should be encouraged look for patterns,
remove details, and abstract and generalise to solve related problems of that type.
• Students need to design and explore flexible representations algorithmic thinking.
Algorithmic thinking in the primary and junior secondary years follows principles that
should be present at all stages. These are:
• Developing the language of communicating and the means of representing
Algorithmic Thinking are critical at all stages of the curriculum.
• Algorithmic thinking needs to be evident through artefacts that embody algorithmic
thinking, and use formats that are appropriate to students’ stages of development.
• Students need to discuss, debate and refine ideas and formulate understanding,
especially through recorded student work and group presentations.
• Algorithmic thinking is flexible and therefore can be tested and improved.
As Wing (2006) argues, algorithmic thinking is an approach to solving problems. It is the
thinking behind coding that helps students to look at a problem and to focus on the best
ways to solve it. To do this, students must understand the various constraints in which the
problem is embedded, and adopt flexible approaches to its solution. Incorporating
algorithmic thinking in the school Mathematics curriculum needs to reflect the key points
and principles outlined above.
Impact on Mathematical literacy, problem solving and reasoning – Principle 1
A capacity to solve unfamiliar problems and to reason mathematically is now an accepted
goal of mathematics education in many countries where it is an expected outcome for all
stages of schooling. Defined broadly in the Australian Curriculum: Mathematics (ACARA,
2015) as a "capacity for logical thought and actions", mathematical reasoning shares
common ground with problem solving, but it also relates to students' capacity to see beyond
the particular to generalise and represent structural relationships. This ability is seen as a
key not only to further study in mathematics but also to further studies in science,
technology and engineering (Wai, Lubinski & Benbow, 2009). In this respect, definitions of
mathematical literacy, problem solving and reasoning must continue to evolve as a result of
these externalities, including coding and computing programming.
Results from large scale international assessments such as TIMSS and PISA (Thomson, De
Bortoli & Underwood, 2016; Thomson, Wernert, O’Grady & Rodrigues, 2016) have
consistently shown that too many students in Years 4 to 9 have difficulty in solving
unfamiliar problems and explaining and justifying mathematical reasoning. This may not be
surprising given that school mathematical textbooks used at these levels often focus on
relatively low-level repetitious exercises that are unlikely to be conducive to the
development of deep understanding or mathematical reasoning. More explicit attention to
algorithmic thinking in school mathematics could help students to expand their
problem-solving techniques, and to explain and justify their mathematical thinking
(Principle 2).

Stephens 361
But as Principle 1 implies, as developments in coding and algorithmic thinking become

more widespread the more likely they are to impact on evolving definitions of mathematical
literacy, problem solving and reasoning. In other words, in a globalised world it becomes
difficult to isolate the evolving purposes of school mathematics from these concurrent and
powerfully driven developments in coding and computing programming.
Conclusion
In the foreseeable future, we can expect continued momentum to consolidate the place of
coding and computing programming in the schools. At present, these appear to be taking
place outside the formal boundaries of the school mathematics curriculum. However, there
are powerful drivers promoting these developments, and their potential to impact on school
mathematics cannot be ignored. With no powerful forces policing the boundaries of school
mathematics, its boundaries remain porous. Four challenges confront the international
mathematics education community.
The first is to chart more clearly than has been possible in this paper the range of interfaces
between algorithmic thinking and school mathematics as presently constituted. The second
is to examine where fruitful connections can be made, building on the potential of
algorithmic thinking to enhance students' mathematical understanding and ongoing
development. A third is to consider where school mathematics might be expected to change
either in its current content or in its approaches to that content, as algorithmic thinking
becomes more embedded in the school curriculum. Finally, more research is needed on how
these productive interfaces should be evaluated, and how they might best lead to improved
teaching and learning.
References
Australian Curriculum, Assessment and reporting Authority (ACARA, 2016). Digital
Technologies. Retrieved from
https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/f-10-curriculum/technologies/digital-technologi
es/
Bethune, J. (2016). Primary education in Japan is about to get a bit more technical. Retrieved
from: https://metropolisjapan.com/classroom-coding/
Clark, D. (2016). Computational and algorithmic thinking, 2011-2015. Canberra, Australia:
Australian Mathematics Trust.
Knuth D. (1985). Algorithmic thinking and mathematical thinking. The American
Mathematical Monthly, 92 (3), 170-181.
Maths300 (2017). Adelaide: Australian Association of Mathematics Teachers.
MEXT (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sport, Science, and Technology, Japan, 2018).
Elementary school programming education guide (1st edition). Retrieved from:
018/03/30/1403162_01.pdf
Ministere de l’Education Nationale (2016). Algorithmique et programmation (2016). Paris.
Retrieved from

http://cache.media.eduscol.education.fr/file/Algorithmique_et_programmation/67/9/RA1
6_C4_MATH_algorithmique_et_programmation_N.D_551679.pdf
National Curriculum in England: Mathematics Programmes of Study (2016).Retrieved from
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-curriculum-in-england-computing
-programmes-of-study/national-curriculum-in-england-computing-programmes-of-study
Thomson, S., De Bortoli, L., & Underwood, C. (2016). PISA 2015: A first look at Australia’s
results. Melbourne: ACER Press.
Thomson, S., Wernert, N., O’Grady, E., & Rodrigues, S. (2016). TIMSS 2015: A first look at
Australia’s results. Melbourne: ACER Press.
Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (2017) Victorian Curriculum: Mathematics
Foundation – 10. Retrieved from
http://victoriancurriculum.vcaa.vic.edu.au/mathematics/curriculum/f-10
Wai, J., Lubinski, D. & Benbow, C. (2009. Spatial ability for STEM domains: Aligning over
50 years of cumulative psychological knowledge solidifies its importance. Journal of
Educational Psychology, 101(4), 817-835.
Webb, M., Davis, N., Bell, T., Katz, Y. J., Reynolds, N., Chambers, D. P., & Syslo, M. M.
(2016). Computer science in K-12 school curricula of the 21st century: Why, what and
when? Education and Information Technologies, pp. 1-24.
Wing, J. M. (2006). Computational thinking. Communications of the ACM, 49 (3), 33-35.
Max Stephens
Melbourne Graduate School of Education
The University of Melbourne
Victorian 3010
Australia
m.stephens@unimelb.edu.au

Sun 363
MEASURING THE MATHEMATICAL CREATIVITY OF MIDDLE

SCHOOL STUDENTS IN SHANGHAI BY OPEN-ENDED
PROBLEMS
Sun Siyu, East China Normal University, China
Introduction
The importance of creativity is difficult to overestimate In a highly changing world, in
which technological and scientific advancements change social networks and individuals’
lives, creativity is necessary for adapting to this world Mathematical creativity is a specific
type of creativity whose importance is obvious. However, School provide students with less
opportunities to develop mathematical creativity, and pay more attention on the strict model
answer. One of the problem is that measuring mathematical creativity is a challenge.
Therefore, the present study aims at measuring the mathematical creativity of middle school
students by open-ended problems. The paper is organized as follows. First, the theoretical
background is presented, addressing the concept of mathematical creativity and the
measurement of creativity. Then, the method is presented, including the participants,
instrument, the process of data collection and marking scheme. After the method, the results
of the data are presented. Finally, the conclusions and limitations of the study are discussed.
Theoretical background
The concept of creativity is discussed in various disciplines in different ways, and is
perceived differently even within the same discipline, therefore no commonly accepted
definition of creativity is available (Akgul, 2016). Obviously, the concept of mathematical
creativity is hard to define. Haylock (1987) summarized many of the attempts to define
mathematical creativity. He classified these definitions into two categories. Firstly, there are
definitions in children doing mathematics which concentrate on the presumed nature of the
cognitive processes involved, such as Krutetskii. He characterized mathematical creativity
in the context of problem formation (problem finding), invention, independence, and
originality (Krutetskii, as cited in Haylock). Secondly, there are definitions of mathematical
creativity which concentrate essentially on the product. Spraker (1960) defines
mathematical creativity as the ability to produce original or unusual, applicable methods of
solutions for problems in mathematics. The present study chose and modified the
framework of Haylock (1984), which defined mathematical creativity as overcoming
fixation and divergent production. For divergent production, it can be assessed by
problem-solving, problem-posing and redefinition. For overcoming fixation, it can be
assessed by breaking mental sets.
Mathematical creativity is a specific creativity. When it comes to mathematical creativity
measurement, some researchers investigate fluency, flexibility and originality of students’
answers to a given problem (Balka, 1974; Mann, 2005). Others developed mathematical
creativity test by adding elaboration (Singh, 1987). In light of the information previously

364 Measuring the Mathematical Creativity of Middle School Students in Shanghai by Open-Ended
Problems
given, a mathematical creativity scale was determined by grading fluency, flexibility and
originality of answers given by students.
As discussed above, the present study investigates students’ mathematical creativity by four
abilities, which are problem solving, problem posing, redefinition and overcoming fixation
(see Table1).
Table 1. the framework of mathematical creativity
Ability Explanation
Problem solving The ability to solve problme by mutiple answers
The ability to formulate mathematical problems in a

Problem posing
Divergent thinking mathematical situations
The ability to redefine the elements of their

Redefiniton
mathematical attributes.
Convergent Overcoming The ability to break from estabilished mind sets to

thinking fixation obtain solutions in a mathematical situations
Furthermore, the students’ answer would be scored by fluency, flexibility and originality
(Haylock, 1984; Lee, 2003; Mann, 2005; Leikin, 2013). Specifically, the score is
determined by following rules: (a) Fluency score: we calculated number of the correct
mathematical solutions that the student provided; (b) Flexibility score: we calculated the
number of different types of correct solutions that the student provided, and the type are
according to solutions provided by a student in the population under investigation. (c)
Originality score: we calculated the frequency of each solution, in relation to the sample
under investigation. The students will get 4 points if his/her answers appeared in between 0
and 10%, get 3 points if his/her answers appeared in between 10% and 20%, get 2 points if
his/her answers appeared in between 20% and 30%, and get 1 point if his/her answer
appeared above 30%. Three different numbers (fluency, flexibility and originality scores)
were calculated for each student, indicating the score in each mathematical creativity task.
And the score of overcoming fixation is evaluated by the score of the correct answers.
Method
Participants
The subjects of the study are 60 middle school students (28 girls, 32 boys) in Shanghai.
They come from 3 different classes, and are taught by the same mathematics teacher.
Instruments
Five following problems were selected as the tasks for this study.
Problem1 Pyramid problem in Kattou (2013).
Problem2 Nine dots problem in Haylock (1984).
Problem3 Buying airplane in Balka (1974).
Problem4 Subsets in Haylock (1984).

Sun 365
Problem5 Jugs in Haylock (1984).

As discussed in theoretical background, problem1 and problem2 are about problem solving.
Problem 3 measures problem posing, and problem4 is for redefinition. These four problems
are all open-ended problems. The students are required to give multiple solutions. The last
problem is to measure the ability to break mental set, so it only has one correct answer.
Procedure
Students are required to finish the test in 50 minutes. Every problem was marked by two
experts, and the final score is the average of these scores. Each student had 3 scores for each
problem, which are fluency, flexibility and originality.
Marking scheme.
The general marking method has been presented in theoretical background. In this part, a
specific marking example will be presented. The “Subset” problem is shown in Figure1.
Here is a set of numbers to use in this question
(2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16)
There are lots of different rules that you could use to make up SUBSETS
From this set.
For example, if my rule is that the numbers are even, I get this subset:
(2,4,6,8,10,12,16)
Figure 1. “Subset” problem
Fluency refers to how many correct answers exist in the answers. For example, if student A
gave 6 different answers, including odd, prime number, composite number, multiple of 3,
multiple of 4 and multiple of 5. Then his fluency score is 6.
Flexibility refers to how many types of categorized response a student can make. Take
student A as an example, although he gave 6 different answers, the last three are the same
category. So the flexibility score is only 4. In “Subset” problem, there are more than 10
categories, which is shown in table2.
Table 2. Flexibility category of Subset problem
Category Example Proportion
Odd ˜ 3,5,7,9,11,13,15¯ 70.0%
Prime number ˜ 2,3,5,7,11,13¯ 50.0%
Composite number ˜ 4,6,8,9,10,12,14,15,16¯ 33.3%
Be divided by number A ˜ 5,10,15,¯ 51.7%
Squared number ˜ 2,4,8,16¯ 6.7%
Arithmetic progression ˜ 3,6,9,12,15¯ 10.0%
Geometric progression ˜ 16,8,4,2¯ 11.7%
Natural number ˜ 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16¯ 10.0%
Factor of number A ˜ 2,3,4,6,12¯ factor of 12 6.7%
Positive number ˜ 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16¯ 3.3%
Others ˜ 1,2,3,6,7,8,9¯ write in one stroke 1.7%

Problems
Originality reflects the relative rarity of response. The score is given as Table2 according to
the percentage of frequency. We only calculate the first and the second original answer for
originality score. Take student A as an example, “Composite number” and “Prime number”
are relatively rare in his answer, and these two categories are both above 30%. Therefore, he
would get (1+1)/2=1.
Other three problems are scored in the same way. For flexibility categories, Pyramid
problem, Nine pot problem and buying airplane problem respectively have 8, 8, 11
categories.
Data Analysis
Procedure
Given that there can be multiple types of answers to each problem, all possible responses
were selected and classified by their types and the frequency of each type was measured. In
order to develop the marking scheme. A table of response types was firstly prepared by
analyzing the number of responses and the number of response types, then a criteria for
giving marks for originality was established by identifying the frequency of each type and
its mathematical utility.
Reliability of the marking standard
Problem1 to Problem4 measure the ability of divergent thinking, they are scored by fluency,
flexibility and originality. Each problem is marked by two experts, and the internal
consistence of the plural (Kappa value) are .742, .798, .817, .794. The kappa values are
above .7, which means the marking standards are fairy reliable.
Results
Descriptive analysis
The following table3 shows results of the test by items. Each score for fluency, flexibility
and originality is presented by minimal and maximal score of each item.
Table 3. Descriptive analysis of items
Fluency Flexib i lity originality Total
Problem
M/S.D Min/Max M/S.D Min/Max M/S.D Min/Max M/S.D Min/Max
Pyramid 8.9/6.00 0/28 2.66/1.61 0/7 1.18/0.83 0/2.75 12.74/7/64 0/30.50
Nine dot s 6.24/3.81 0/16.5 2.95/1.67 0/7 1.43/0.79 0/3.5 10.59/6.06 0/24.5
Airplane 3.54/2.70 0/8 2.19/1.65 0/6 3.53/2.52 0/8 7.65/5.27 0/16
Subsets 5.02/2.46 0/8 3.41/1.81 0/7 4.00/2.65 0/8 10.47/5.02 0/17.5
Students performed better on Pyramid and Nine dots problem, which aim at measuring the
ability of problem solving. Comparing with other problems, buying airplane problem was
relatively difficult for students, which shows that problem posing ability is weak. Compared
with fluency, the score of flexibility and originality are much lower.
Correlation analysis
Table 4 shows the correlation between fluency, flexibility and originality. From this table,
three indexes have high correlation, especially between flexibility and originality.

Sun 367
Table 4. Correlation analysis

fluency flexibility originality
fluency 1 .774** .741**
flexibility 1 .946**
originality 1
Note. **, p<0.01.
In addition to the problem1-4, the correlation between overcoming mental set (Jug problem)
and divergent thinking is .483(p<0.001). It shows that mathematical creativity contains
divergent thinking and convergent thinking. They are two different types thinking. The
teacher provided us the middle middle term math examination scores, and the correlation
between the middle examination score and divergent thinking is .433 (p<0.01), the
correlation between convergent thinking and examination score is .330 (P<0.05).
Case analysis
Figure2 is an answer of nine dots problem by student B. According to the marking standard
we
Figure 1. Nine dots problem answer

have shown above, the fluency is scored 14. The student’s answer can separate into 2 types.
One is connected figure, such as square, triangle. The other one consists of two parts, such
as the answer at line2, row4. The rater made a consistent that the answer could not be a new
one if only overturn or rotate the original figure, such as the answer at row3 and row4 in
line1. When it comes to flexibility, student B got 7 according to the flexibility category (See
table5). And the score of originality is 4. Because the percentage of original answer is under
10%, which means the score of originality is 4.

Problems
Table 5. Flexibility category of Nine dots problem

Category Example Proportion
Rectangle, triangle, rhombus, parallelogram 93.3%
Square + triangle 53.3%
Square + parallelogram 36.7%
Parallelogram + parallelogram 26.7%
Many Triangles 8.3%
Triangle + parallelogram 6.7%
Irregular figure 1.7%
Fracture figure 58.3%
In order to know the thinking process of student B, we arranged an interview with him. The
following talk is chosen from the interview.
Interviewer: How did you come up with using curve?
Student B: Because we were learning how to calculate the area of circle. It helped me think
of using curve.
From this conversation, we found that open-ended problem solving was an efficient method
to measure mathematical creativity. Comparing with the regular problem, student reflected
much initiative and output knowledge positively. During the interview, the student also
expressed that he felt more achievability when they accomplished the problem.
Conclusions and limitations
Five mathematical problems were designed to evaluate students’ mathematical creativity
ability in terms of problem posing, problem solving, redefinition, overcoming mental set.
And the answers of the problems were scored by fluency, flexibility and originality. For this
study, a total of 60 middle school students were tested. The results are as follows:
First, the reliability of the marking score was acceptable, which implies that it is proper for
teachers to measure their students’ creativity in class.
Second, From the analysis of the interview, it is highly recommended that the test for
mathematical creative problem to be introduced in school for mathematics education, since

Sun 369
it can stimulate students’ mathematical creativity and divergent thinking as well as

enhancing their interest in mathematics.
Obviously, there are many limitations in this study, and they need to improve in later study.
First, 50 minutes were too short for students to finish the five problems. During the
interview, some students indicated that they gave up original methods because they were too
complicated. Second, in this study, each student got 3 scores for each problem. The accurate
weight of fluency, flexibility and originality are not discussed. Therefore, the reliability of
the tasks was not discussed in results.
References
Akgul, S., & Kahveci, N. G. (2016). A study on the development of a mathematics creativity
scale. Eurasian Journal of Educational Research (62), 57-76.
Balka, D. S. (1974). Creative ability in mathematics. Arithmetic Teacher,21(7), 633-636.
Haylock, & William, D. (1984). Aspects of mathematical creativity in children aged
11-12. University of London.
Haylock, D. W. (1987). A framework for assessing mathematical creativity in school
chilren. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 18(1), 59-74.
Kattou, M., Kontoyianni, K., Pitta-Pantazi, D., & Christou, C. (2013). Connecting
mathematical creativity to mathematical ability. ZDM, 45(2), 167-181.
Lee, K. S., Dong, J. H., & Seo, J. J. (2003). A development of the test for mathematical
creative problem solving ability. Research in Mathematical Education, 7(7).
Leikin, R. (2013). Evaluating mathematical creativity: the interplay between multiplicity and
insight. Psychological Test & Assessment Modeling, 55(4), 385-400.
Mann, E. (2005). Mathematical creativity and school mathematics: Indicators of
mathematical creativity in middle school students. Doctoral dissertation.
Spraker, H. S.: 1960, 'A study of the comparative emergence of creative behavior during the
process of group and individual study of mathematics', Dissertation Abstracts 20, 4637.
Singh, B. (1987). The development of tests to measure mathematical creativity. International
Journal of Mathematical Education in Science and Technology, 18(2), 181–186.
[Sun Siyu]
[East China Normal University]
[ssy_0514@outlook.com]

370 Geometrical Reasoning with Dynamic Mathematical Software: Method by Gerolamo Cardano with
GeoGebra and its Explanations with Codes
GEOMETRICAL REASONING WITH DYNAMIC

MATHEMATICAL SOFTWARE: METHOD BY GEROLAMO
CARDANO WITH GEOGEBRA AND ITS EXPLANATIONS WITH
CODES
Taiki Suzuki, Graduate School of Saitama University (Saitama Prefectural Fudoka
High School), Japan
Akio Matsuzaki, Saitama University, Japan
Uses of ICT for history of mathematics integrated classrooms

Through development of digital technologies, it has been getting common to use them in
classrooms (Drijvers et al., 2010). At the same time, many studies say that teachers should
pay attention to their uses. For example, Drijvers et al. (2010) gives the following questions:
“What the theoretical approaches and methodologies help to illuminate student’s learning of
mathematics in technology-integrated environments? What are the relationships between
these approaches and how do they compare or contrast with other theories of mathematics
learning?” (p.82)
Also in history of mathematics integrated classrooms, digital technologies can be used. For
example, Isoda (2000) give an example of use of technology to understand Descartes work
of Geometry.The study says Dynamic Geometry Software (DGS) let students understand
easier than when they don’t use DGS. Still, because Descartes had to reconstruct
mathematics based on algebra as a new way of knowing, “the use of technology is not
putting students back into Descartes’ frame of mind, but is broadening their awareness of
the richness of mathematics and its roots.” (Isoda, 2000)
Now, digital technologies are used for history of mathematics integrated classroom, so the
questions from Drijvers et al. (2010) can be given. In this case, the first question is what the
theoretical approaches and methodologies help to illuminate student’s learning of
mathematics in classrooms history of mathematics integrated with digital technologies. As
an example of study to answer this first question, Suzuki (2017, December) constructed a
lesson model for history of mathematics integrated classroom with digital technologies. The
lesson model was constructed by integrating a model of mathematical reasoning with digital
technologies by Meagher (2006) and a model of hermeneutic efforts in history of
mathematics integrated classrooms by Jahnke (1994). The second question in this case is
what the relationships between approaches with/without digital technologies are, and how
they compare or contrast with. In this proposal, to reveal the second question, the authors
will show that the lesson model can be used for comparing teaching materials and student’s
activities in history of mathematics integrated classroom with/without digital technologies.
As an example of teaching material, the authors will choose geometrical reasoning on
ARSMAGNA or the Rules of Algebra (hereinafter referred to as ARSMAGNA), an algebraic
book written by Gerolamo Cardano, with/without GeoGebra, a dynamic mathematic
software.

Suzuki, Matsuzaki 371
The lesson model in classrooms history of mathematics integrated with digital

technologies
Rotman (1995) proposed a model of mathematical activities based on semiotics. Referring
to the model, Meagher (2006) proposed the model of mathematical reasoning with digital
technologies.
Jahnke (1994) proposed the model called “twofold circle” which enables to describe
student’s activities in history of mathematics integrated classrooms as hermeneutic efforts.
Suzuki (2017, December) constructed the lesson model for classrooms history of
mathematics integrated with digital technologies by integrating the above two models
(Figure 1).
Figure 1. A lesson model in classrooms history of mathematics integrated with digital technologies
(Suzuki, 2017, December)
The model is constructed by three agencies, namely History of mathematics, Learners, and
Technology. The top part of this model shows the hermeneutic circle by Scientist and
Historian. Scientist (Mathematician) interpret Object (Mathematical contents) and create
Theory (Mathematical theory). Historian interpret the hermeneutic efforts by reading
historical books (historical mathematics books) written by Scientist and create Historical
Interpretation, T1. And Learners, on the left side, try to put themselves into the hermeneutic
circle and make interpretations of Scientist’s and Historian’s hermeneutic efforts. When
Learners use Technology for that, Technology help Learners to interpret.
To describe these interpretation, Codes, Meta Codes, Virtual Codes are used.
The Code embraces the total of rigorous sign practices – defining, proving, notating, and
manipulating symbols- sanctioned by mathematical community. The Code’s user, the
one-who-speaks it, is the mathematical Subject. The Subject is the agency who reads/writes
mathematical texts and has access to all and only those linguistic means allowed by the Code.
(Rotman, 1995, p.396)

When history of mathematics is integrated, there are two types of Codes. One of them is
sign practices sanctioned by Scientist. The other one is sign practices sanctioned by
Historian.
The Meta Code is the entire matrix of unrigorous mathematical procedures normally thought
of as preparatory and epiphenomenal to the real-proper, rigorous-business of doing
mathematics. Included in the Meta Code’s resources would be the stories, motives, pictures,
and other so called heuristics which introduce, explain, naturalize, legitimate, clarify, and
furnish the pint of the notation and logical moves that control the operations of the Code. The
one-who-speaks the Meta Code, the Person, is envisaged as being immersed in natural
language, with access to its metasigns and constituted thereby as a self-conscious subjectivity
in history and culture. Lastly, the Virtual Code is understood as the domain of all legitimately
imaginable operations, that is, as signifying possibilities available to an idealization of the
Subject. This idealization, the one-who-executes these activities, the Agent, is envisaged as a
surrogate or proxy of the Subject, imagined into being precisely in order to act on the purely
formal, mechanically specifiable correlates-signifiers-of what for the Subject is meaningful
via signs. In unison, these three agencies make up what we ordinarily call “the mathematician.”
(Rotman, 1995, p.396)
And these three agencies are affected by each other. This model shows that
one avenue for the development of mathematical reasoning could be engaged in creating or
facilitating intellectual space where the learner can experiment and play with in the realm of
the Metacode … through which the learner gains access to the Code but with reference to the
Virtual Code (Meagher, 2006, p.390).
By using this lesson model, Learner’s activities in classrooms history of mathematic
integrated with digital technologies can be described. And the activities are described as
hermeneutic efforts.
Geometrical reasoning and descriptions with the lesson model
As an example of teaching material in classrooms history of mathematics integrated with
digital technologies, the authors will show geometrical reasoning on ARSMAGNA and one
with GeoGebra. ARSMAGNA is a historical book of algebra, written by Gerolamo Cardano
who is a 16th century mathematician. He discussed mainly about solving methods of
equations. GeoGebra is a free Dynamic Mathematical Software.
Geometrical reasoning on ARSMAGNA and a description with the lesson model
On ARSMAGNA, quadratic equations were classified in three types: x2 = ax + N, ax = x2 + N
and x2 + ax = N. These all terms were positive numbers because “most mathematicians still
did not deal with negative numbers even as coefficients of equations” (Katz, 1998, p.358).
In the book, equations were solved with geometrical reasoning. Now geometrical reasoning
is a method to solve equations by representing terms of equations as segments’ lengths or
figures’ areas. A figure of geometrical reasoning of ax = x2 + N, which is called Axesquno,
is constructed as follows:

In this instance, let AB be the coefficient of the x's which are equal to C, the constant, and D, the
second power. I square BG ―BG being half of AB― thus making GE, and from it I subtract C,
the constant, the surface EF being equal to the constant C, and I mark off the square root of the
surface FB, which is GH. (Cardano, 1968, p. 34)
Then, proof that the length of the line segment AH and HB equal to the value of x (Figure 2).
Express the area of the rectangle which has the AH and HB as the side as (AH × HB).
According to V,2 of the Elements11, (AH × HB) + GH2 = BG2. Because GH2 is the area of
the rectangle FB, (AH × HB) + FB = BG2. Moreover, EF + FB = BG2. Therefore (AH × HB)
= EF = N. According to III,2 of the Elements12, (AB × AH) = AH2 + (AH × HB) and (AB ×
HB) = HB2 + (AH × HB). Therefore, a × AH = AH2 + N and a × HB = HB2 + N. It is proofed
that lengths of the line segments AH and HB equal to the roots of the equation ax = x2 + N.
Figure 2. The figure which is shown lengths and areas of the method of geometrical solution of
Axesquno
The equation ax = x2 + N can have two imaginary solutions. In ARSMAGNA, the imaginary
solutions of the equation are considered, however a figure which is express unknowns (x),
coefficients (a), constants (N) as lengths and areas is not constructed.
Cardano tried to solve an equation with imaginary solutions using geometrical reasoning as
follows:
If it should be said, divide 10 into two parts the product of which is 30 or 40, it is clear that
this case is impossible. Nevertheless, we will work thus: We divide 10 into two equal parts,
making each 5. These we square, making 25. Subtract 40, if you will, from the 25 thus
produced, as I showed you in the chapter on operation in the sixth book, leaving a remainder
of -15, the square root of which added to or subtracted from 5 gives parts the product of
which is 40. These will be 5 + √−æ and 5 - √−æ . … let AB be a line which we will say is
10, and which is divided in two parts, the rectangle based on which must be 40. Forty,
however, is four times 10; wherefore we wish to quadruple the whole of AB. Now let AD be
the square of AC, one-half of AB, and form AD subtract 4AB, ignoring the number. The square
root of the reminder, then — if anything remains — added to or subtracted from AC shows
the parts. But since such a remainder is negative, you will have that which you seek, namely
5 + √25 − 40 and 5 − √25 − 40, or 5 + √−15 and 5−√−15 (Cardano, 1993, p.219).

However, as seen Figure 3, some segments and quadrilaterals are NOT constructed.
Figure 3. Geometrical reasoning of 10x = x2 + 40 (Cardano, 1994, p.219)
A description with the lesson model is the following. Scientist (in this case, Mathematician)
is Geloramo Cardano. Object is quadratic equation, ax = x2 + N. Theory is method to solve
the equations, geometrical reasoning. Historian is a reader of ARSMAGNA who knows
modern algebra. Historical Interpretation, T1, is an interpretation about geometrical
reasoning of quadratic equation, ax = x2 + N. Here, Scientist’s Codes are writing equality of
numbers with sentences, and expressing equality of numbers with segments and figures.
Historian’s Codes are expressing unknowns as x, and expressing coefficients as a and N,
expressing equation with signs as like +, ×, and =.
Geometrical reasoning with GeoGebra and a description with the lesson model
The authors show how geometrical reasoning with GeoGebra works, and apply the lesson
model to reveal difference between with/without GeoGebra.
Suzuki (2016, July) considered geometrical reasoning of quadrilateral equations with
GeoGebra. The results show that in cases where equations have positive and negative
solutions, GeoGebra displayed points, segment, and figures. And, even if equations have
negative solutions, we could apply geometrical reasoning by defining directions to segments
and figures. In cases where equations have imaginary solutions, x2+40=10x for example,
GeoGebra displayed a part of the points, segments, and figures. However, in the cases,
GeoGebra displayed coordinate of point H, segments and figures depending point H as
‘undefined’ (Suzuki, 2016, July).

Figure 4. Geometrical reasoning of x2+40=10x with GeoGebra
Here is a description with the lesson model of the geometrical reasoning with GeoGebra.
The top part of the lesson model is the same as the one without GeoGebra which is referred
in the previous section. Technology is GeoGebra. Learner are people who use GeoGebra to
interpret Historian’s and Scientist’s hermeneutic efforts. Codes are also the same as the one
without GeoGebra. Virtual Codes are dynamic movements of figures and segments, a
coordinate plane, and coordinates of points. Meta codes are experiments of mathematics
learning of the Learner.
As an example of activity of interpreting the geometrical reasoning with GeoGebra, first, we
decide a way to interpret areas of figures. If we focus on place of figures against x-axis, we
may be able to interpret ‘figures under x-axis have negative area, and figures under x-axis
have positive areas.’ This interpretation seems to correspond to results from geometrical
reasoning of equations having imaginary solution. However, using GeoGebra, we can
change value of a. If we allow a becomes negative number, quadrilateral BF, which is
supposed to have negative area, is shown above x-axis, and square EG, which is supposed
to have positive area, is shown under x-axis. So, if we interpret this geometrical solution as
including equations having negative coefficients, interpretation of negative area would be
‘figures on the first and the third quadrant have positive area, and figures on the second and
the fourth quadrant have negative area.’
Second, we will decide a way to interpret lengths of segments. Segments used its lengths for
geometrical reasoning are segment AB, AG, GB, GH, AH, and HB. We are focusing on
places against x-axis, so we need to interpret positions of segments against segment.
However, these all segments are on x-axis, so it seems to be impossible.
In this case, Scientist is Gerolamo Cardano. Object is quadratic equation, ax = x2 + N.
Theory is method to solve the equation, geometrical reasoning. Historian is a reader of
ARSMAGNA who knows modern algebra. Historical Interpretation, T1, is an interpretation
about geometrical reasoning of quadratic equation, ax = x2 + N. Here, Scientist’s Codes are
writing equality of numbers with sentences, expressing equality of numbers with segments
and figures. Historian’s Codes are expressing unknowns as x, expressing coefficients as a
and N, expressing equation with signs as like +, ×, and =. Learners in the lesson model is the

authors. Technology is GeoGebra. The authors [Learner] tried to understand geometrical

reasoning [Theory] of quadric equations [Object] with GeoGebra [Technology]. First, the
authors constructed figures with GeoGebra. And then, through seeking dynamic movements
of figures [Virtual Code], the authors noticed that area of quadrilateral BF is moved with
change of value of N [Historian’s Code]. After that, the authors tried to interpret areas of
figures as negative [Historian’s Code]. For that, the authors focused on places of figures
against x-axis [Virtual Code], and interpreted ‘figures under x-axis have negative area, and
figures under x-axis have positive areas’ [Meta Code] once. Considering negative
coefficient [Historian’s Code], the authors interpreted ‘figures on the first and the third
quadrant have positive area, and figures on the second and the fourth quadrant have
negative area’ [Meta Code]. About lengths of segments, the author tried to interpret
focusing on places against x-axis [Virtual Code], however, it seemed to be impossible
because the segments’ positions were on x-axis [Virtual Code].
Conclusion
In this proposal, to reveal what are the relationships between approaches with/without
digital technologies, the authors used Suzuki (2017, December)’s lesson model and describe
geometrical reasoning of quadric equations with/without GeoGebra and activities with it. As
a result, the interpretation and their differences could be described using the lesson model
with Codes, Virtual Codes, and Meta codes. As Isoda (2000) noticed, the use of GeoGebra
is not putting leaners back into Cardano’s frame of mind because we have already known
negative numbers and imaginary number, and he didn’t. Additionally, uses of GeoGebra
may let users change coefficients from positive to negative easily and spontaneously. That
could be activity as an expansion of the method and numbers, however misunderstood about
historical fact could happen. An example of it is a misconception that Cardano has already
known negative numbers and imaginary numbers. This point should be discussed to
integrate history of mathematics with digital technologies. And the model let describe the
geometrical reasoning as a reasoning with a technology.
References
Cardano, G. (1993). Ars magna or the rules of algebra (T. R. Witmer, Trans.). Mineola, NY:
Dover. (Original work published in 1545).
Katz, V. J. (1998). A history of mathematics: an introduction. Reading, MA: Addison
Wesley Longman.
Meagher, M. (2006). Theoretical approaches to learning with digital technologies. In C.
Hoyles, J.-B. Lagrange, L.H. Son, & N. Sinclair (Eds.), Proceedings of the seventeenth
study conference of the International Commission on Mathematical Instruction, 2,
386-393. Retrieved from
http://www.mathunion.org/icmi/digital-library/icmi-study-conferences/icmi-study-17-con
ference/
Drijvers, P., Kieran, C., & Mariotti, M. -A. (with Ainley, J., Andresen, M., Chan, Y. C., ...
Meagher, M.) (2010). Integrating Technology into Mathematics Education: Theoretical

Perspectives. In C. Hoyles & J. -B. Lagrange (Eds.), Mathematics education and

technology-rethinking for the terrain: The 17th ICMI Study (pp.89-132). New York, NY:
Springer.
Heiberg, J., & Fitzpatrick, R. (2008). Euclid's elements of geometry. Retrieved from
http://farside.ph.utexas.edu/Books/Euclid/Elements.pdf
Isoda, M. (2000). Inquiring mathematics with history and software. In J. Fauvel & J. van
Maanen (Eds.), History in mathematics education: The ICMI Study (pp. 351-358).
Dordrecht, Netherlands: Kluwer Academic.
Jahnke, H. N. (1994). The historical dimension of mathematical understanding: Objectifying
the subjective. Proceedings of the eighteenth International Conference for the Psychology
of Mathematics Education, I. University of Lisbon, 139-156.
Rotman, B. (1995). Thinking dia-grams: Mathematics, writing, and virtual reality. In B. H.
Smith & A. Plotnitsky (Eds.), Mathematics, Science and Postclassical Theory
(pp.380-416). Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Suzuki, T. (2016, July). The method of geometrical solution of equations using GeoGebra:
Focus on the root of quadratic equations in ARS MAGNA. In C. Tazanakis & X. Wang
(Co-Chairs), Oral Communication Session presented at Topic Study Group 25: The role
of history of mathematics, 13th International Congress on Mathematical Education,
Hamburg, Germany.
Suzuki, T. (2017, December). A consideration on an experimental lesson using history of
mathematics with ICT: A trial explanations of heuristic effort by codes. In 6th
International Conference of Reserch on Mathematics and Science Education. Vientiane,
Lao: Dong Khamxang Teacher Training College.
11
V,2 of the Elements is the following proposition:
If a straight-line is cut into ewual and unequal (pieces) then the rectangle contained by the unequal
pieces of the whole (straight-line), plus the square on the (difference) between the (equal and unequal)
piecces, is equal to the square on half (of the straght-line). (Heiberg, J., & Fitzpatrick, R., 2008, .p.54)
12
III,2 of the Elements is the folllowing proposition:
If a straight-line is cut at random then the rectangle contained by the whole (straight-line), and one of
the pieces (of the straight-line), is equal to the rectangle contained by (both of) the pieces, and the
square on the aforementioned piece. (Heiberg, J., & Fitzpatrick, R., 2008, .p.52)
Taiki SUZUKI
Graduate School of Saitama University, Shimo-Okubo 255, Sakura-ku, Saitama-shi,
338-8570, Japan.
vamos.nippon.2010@gmail.com

378 Geometrical reasoning with dynamic mathematical software: Method by Gerolamo Cardano with
GeoGebra and its explanations with codes
Akio MATSUZAKI, Saitama University, Japan

Saitama University, Shimo-Okubo 255, Sakura-ku, Saitama-shi, 338-8570, Japan.
makio@mail.saitama-u.ac.jp

Takizawa 379
AIRPLANES AND MATHEMATICS

Masahiro Takizawa, Kuroiso Senior High School, Japan
Abstrct
The author proposes some materials for third grade senior high school students which are
related to airplanes. Students can learn various aspects of an airplane (i.e. aeronautics), such
as the course of a flying airplane. Of course, aeronautics consists of mathematical elements
and non-mathematical elements. We do not raise only the mathematical parts, but all aspects
of aeronautics. By learning various aspects of “aeronautics,” students can recognize the
useful aspects of mathematics in aeronautics.
Aeronautics consists of several components, some of which are listed in the list below with
the mathematical aspects underlined.
1 Representation of the flying airplane’s location, available now through the Internet.
2 How to receive an electric wave from a flying airplane and determining its coordinates (i.e.
longitude, latitude and height)
3 Takeoff and landing angles
4 Variation of the altitude and speed
5 Fuel consumption, materials and weight of the airplane
6 Flight rule (i.e. height and course)
7 GPS (Global Positioning System)
8 Describing the course of the airplane from departure to arrival using flight data
9 Direction of the shortest flight route
For the materials mentioned above, statistics, spatial vectors, coordinate geometry,
triangular function, and linear transformation are needed.
Every time we teach aeronautics to the students, if part of it is related to mathematics, we
formulate the events into mathematics and make a model. (First, formulating the situation
into a problem in mathematical terms. Second, making a model to solve it and finding out
mathematical results. Third, interpreting the results.) Such modelling process steps appear
many times in many mathematical endeavors. By doing such modelling in combination with
aeronautics repeatedly, we can sugarcoat the mathematical knowledge component.
The students need to select and apply the appropriate mathematical knowledge for every
part and they need to do so in a flexible manner since the mathematical knowledge and
modelling process are different for every part. The students require flexibility. "Flexibility"
means carrying out these tasks appropriately guided by a teacher in order to create a correct
mathematical model.

380 Airplanes and Mathematics
Ikeda and Hama (1992) suggested using a story-based approach in which an "instructor"
explains the basics of a concept or the steps to construct a model. Such an approach helps
the modelling processes. In this case, by combining mathematical parts and
non-mathematical parts into one, a story named "aeronautics" is born. So, these materials
help students gain interest in mathematics.
This "aeronautics" story was instructed in the Integrated Studies (Interdisciplinary classes).
The students showed great interest. Aeronautics is both related to social events and
individual interest. They are both important aspects in Integrated Studies. As Koyama (1999)
wrote, the mathematical world which involves mathematical concepts and knowledge
strengthens the relationships of the real world (airplane) and society & individual.
Mathematics (arithmetic) stimulates these effects. Modelling plays an important role in this
process.
Keywords: Modelling, Integrated Studies, Aeronautics

Tang, Chen, Zhang, Tan, Seah 381
TEACHING MATHEMATICS WITH QUESTION-CHAIN IN

SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL
Hengjun Tang, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
Bifen Chen, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
Weizhong Zhang, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
Hazel Tan, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
Wee Tiong Seah
Author Note
Hengjun Tang , College of Teacher Education, Zhejiang Normal University, China;
Bifen Chen, College of Teacher Education, Zhejiang Normal University, China; Weizhong
Zhang, College of Teacher Education, Zhejiang Normal University, China; Hazel Tan,
Faculty of Education, Monash University, Australia; Wee Tiong Seah, Melbourne Graduate
School for Education, the University of Melbourne, Australia.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Hengjun Tang, College
of Teacher Education, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua, China, 321004.
E-mail: thjnb@zjnu.cn
Abstract
This is the report of a lesson study in partnership with two sets of high junior school
mathematics teachers exploring the potential of teaching with question-chain (QC). A range
of data sources were collected and analyzed to represent the phenomenon in classes. The
values and constraints of QC were identified. It was found that teacher participants in this
study were willing to teach mathematics with QC, and students in the two classes had a
good learning experience. There were similar design logic between the questions in both
classes, which indicated that the two teachers held similar views of mathematics in general
level. And teachers highlighted “connection” in their lesson plans and classrooms, but the
forms of the connections were different in the two classes: content connection in NT’s class
versus methods connection in ST’s class. Though anticipated QC was finished, and students
solved mostly questions in QC in both classes, limited class hour is the main constraint of
QC.
Keywords: mathematics teaching, Question-Chain, senior high school
Introduction
Although Chinese students obtained high scores in PISA, there are still some defects of
Chinese students’ mathematics learning such as students have difficult to handle challenge
problems (Fan,& Zhu, 2005) and having a narrow appreciation of the value of mathematics

382 Teaching Mathematics with Question-Chain in Senior High School
(Journalist of Southern Weekends, 2013). Based on experiments and reflections, Gu and his
colleagues argued that it was necessary to balance between the following pairs during
mathematics instruction reform in China: “extensive practice” and understanding, variant
embodiment and invariant “essence”, guidance and self-exploration, explanative analysis
and exploratory exercise, logical induction and inductive synthesis (Gu, Yi, & Nie, 2003).
However changing mathematics instruction is a slower and more difficult process than
changing the curriculum documents. So how to obtain a better balance between each pair of
approaches in mathematics instruction and also cater to teachers’ existing beliefs and
teaching tradition? Especially, how to provide students with experience of variant
embodiment and invariant “essence” with logical induction and inductive synthesis, and
exploratory learning under teachers’ guide? Teaching with “Question-Chain” (QC) maybe a
good method to get better balance.
Theoretical Considerations
How to Teach Mathematics with Questions or Tasks
How to teach mathematics with questions or tasks? Especially, how to design questions
and question sequence in lesson plan and classroom?
Yang(2004) proposed an instructional ideal as “Classroom Teaching Driven by
Primitive Mathematics Idea”(CTDPMI), and used it as an exotic ideal of teachers to
improve their professional development. The primitive mathematics questions (PMQ) is a
set of questions, extended from thinking about what is the essential factors and inscape of
the teaching topic, it is a dynamic process of thinking for classroom instruction. So, the
primary meaning of PMQ is used for reflecting mathematics instruction and promoting
professional development.
Questions design is nuclear in Bianshi instruction, which is known as one of the most
important features of Chinese mathematics instruction, and usually used to explain why
Chinese students get good performance in mathematics with not good learning environment
(Marton & Booth,1997). After long term experiments, Gu and his colleagues (2007) argued
that it needs more researches from follow perspectives: providing proper exploration space;
providing proper variation space.
In part, Bianshi instruction and its questions based on thinking of mathematics methods.
Mathematics methodology focuses on how to help students thinking mathematically. The
basic idea of teaching mathematics based on mathematics methodology is convincing the
relationship between mathematics thinking and concrete knowledge, and it is important to
learn mathematics content through thinking procedure, and to learn thinking model and
skills among content learning (Zheng 2009).
Thus, questions in classroom can be designed based on PMQ, and the sequence of
questions can be constructed from variation perspective and mathematics methodology.
Ideal of Teaching Mathematics with QC

Mathematics teaching and its improvement are cultural activities (Stigler, & Hiebert
1999). Sullivan and Mornane (2014) indicated that the teachers’ intentions to act are
informed by their knowledge, disposition, and the constraints they anticipate experiencing.
Teachers’ knowledge
Knowledge about connection among mathematics topics is very important form
mathematics methodology perspective, which helps teachers to understand thinking inside
mathematics knowledge. There are three types connections, contents connection, methods
connection, and research perspectives connection. Contents connection means to highlight
the relationship among contents or learn the same content from different perspectives in
different classes; methods connection means using the same or similar methods to solve
different problems or learn different knowledge; research perspectives connection means to
provide students opportunities to find out the thinking framework about certain mathematics
areas.
The pedagogical content knowledge includes teachers knowing about selecting proper
connecting spots, designing sequencing questions in QC, and adapting questions in
classroom.
View on Mathematics
Skemp (2006) argued that teachers’ different views about mathematics will lead
different instructional methods. Ernest (1991) characterized teachers’ view about the nature
of mathematics as three types: problem solving, platonic and instrumentalist. A survey
about mathematics conceptions of Chinese mainland teachers indicated that most
participants hold platonic view, thought mathematics as a logic, rigorous discipline about
figures and quantitative relationship (Huang, Lin, Huang, Ma, & Han,2002).
In this study, contexts of mathematics development and underlying mathematics
methodology are highlighted by QC, so it holds view of problem solving. That is,
mathematics is looked as creatively human activities derived by various problems, as
models and modeling procedure to study quantitative relation in real and possible world.
Thus, there are some conflicts between conception hold by teachers and this study. To
release such conflicts, some factors are emphasized: Firstly, taking mathematics as model.
They are both important of model and the procedure of modeling. Secondly, school
mathematics existed as structural and contextual. So, it is necessary to demonstrate the
relationships among knowledge and among methods, to indicate the procedure of
mathematical modeling and methodology.
View on Mathematics Instruction
It is familiar in Chinese classroom that emphasizing connection between new
knowledge and previous knowledge, and asking students learning mathematics
cumulatively (e.g. Shao, Huang, Ding, & Li,2013; Tang, Peng, Chen, Kuang, &
Song,2013).From perspective of mathematics as model, not all new mathematics knowledge
should be learnt as new. That is, because school mathematics existed as structural and

contextual, analogy and transform is very important, which can make learning more easily
and contextual. Of course, above ideal can also be used in one lesson. Mathematics
instruction with views of relationship and transformation, always teach new knowledge with
problem solving, teaching rhythm is faster after the first slower, and the exploring space of
students is bigger after the first smaller.
Many Chinese teachers think that memorization and practice are two important learning
activities (Shao, Huang, Ding, &Li,2013).However, students achieved mostly mathematics
model as product by memorization and practice, but not the procedure of modeling. The
results are that students can solve regular mathematics question with regular methods, but
maybe do not know why select such methods and let alone how get the methods. Facing
problems, how to select mathematics knowledge and methods, or how to construct new
knowledge and methods, it can’t be taught by others, while need students own experience
and acquisition. So, teachers should provide students with opportunities to thinking and
exploring calmly by themselves.
Question-Chain in Mathematics Instruction
QC is a set of sequential and main questions in the teaching plan and classroom, which
provide students with problems to think and high-level mathematics, and also the gaps
between questions provide students with possibilities of various thinking. Constructing QC
include three steps:
Firstly, finding the relationships between new topic and other topics, and thinking about
the connect-point of instruction.
Secondly, thinking about the essential problems of the new topic and their order.
Thirdly, based on students’ reality, constructing QC in teaching plan which also drive
students to learn in classroom.
Methodology
Because this study is practical innovation which teaching mathematics with QC,
design-based research (DBR) is applied as research methodology (Anderson, &Shattuck
2012).
Participants and procedures
Teachers participated in this study are the members of two projects, one is the Specialist
Teachers Professional Development Project of Shanxi Province including 6 teachers hosted
by the first author, another is an educational reform project of a senior high school in
Zhejiang Province including 17 teachers hosted by their principal.
This study conducted as such procedures: the first day, the ideal was introduced by the
first author; then, a specialist teacher(ST) and a novice teacher(NT) volunteered from the
two groups respectively to plan the appointed content by themselves; the third day, they
taught in classes, other teachers and three of Chinese authors observed and took notes. A
meeting after class was hosted by the first author and conducted as two stages: in the first

stage, ST and NT who implemented the classes talked about following aspects:(1)what is
your idea when you plan this lesson? (2) what is your purpose of the whole question-chain
and each question? (3) How do you comment about your lesson and the other teacher’s
lesson? In the second stage, other teachers commented the two classes.
The class of the NT is science class, another class is liberal arts class. The lessons were
videotaped, lesson plans were also collected.
Lesson topic
To demonstrate the influence from the new ideal more distinctly, “the definition and
standard function of parabola” was selected as the topic of lesson study. The prerequisite
knowledge of parabola was not learnt radically by students. In details, students of NT’s
learnt “the relationship between curves and functions”, but didn’t learn definition and
standard function of ellipse and hyperbola which were taken as prerequisite knowledge of
parabola in textbook. Students of ST’s didn’t even learn “the relationship between curves
and functions”.
Before this study, students’ prerequisite knowledge of both classes includes quadratic
function and its image, definition and function of straight line and circle, students of NT’s
learnt more about the relationship between curves and functions, and know more about how
to research curves from analytic geometry.
Data analysis
Data analysis for this study includes as follow: Firstly, the question-chain in lesson plan
and classroom were identified respectively, and purpose of each question was also identified
from interview and lesson plan, then the similarity and difference of question-chain between
NT and ST were analyzed. Secondly, important points, teaching rhythm and important
extent of each type activities in the two classes were compared by instruction time line.
Findings and discussion
We found there were 9 questions both in NT’s lesson plan and classroom, and 7
questions both in ST’s lesson plan and classroom at first level questions.
Connection between parabola and other topics
ST begun lesson with procedure of getting equation of straight line, to review the
method of research curves under analytic geometry. NT begun with the topic “parabola”, to
activate students’ experience, and connecting parabola and image of quadratic function,
then introduced new topic by telling students there are more features should be learnt than
junior high school. Of course, NT reviewed the methods of analytic geometry in Q3, but it
is taken as transition, then turn into parabola’s equation quickly.
Thus, when teachers are facing connection of contents or methods, ST prefer to
construct methods connection, and pay attention to provide students with opportunities to
experience methods. While NT prefer to construct knowledge connection. She also
connected with methods, but she took it for applying methods, not methods learning.
Analysis later also can indicate that NT took more important to teach knowledge and skills.

Relationship among questions and potential logic

Analyzed from first level questions in QC, there are same core questions and tasks in
the two classes expect the difference in instruction as follows: What features does moving
point on parabola have? How to describe the features by analytic geometry method? Are
there any relationships among parabola, focus point and directrix ? What are their equations
or coordinates, and how to apply them to solve related problems?
Thus, overall teaching ideas is similar in the two classes: finding geometry features of
parabola during drawing; getting standard equation of parabola with analytic geometry
method; and then applying standard equation and its relate conceptions. QC constructing
based on above idea, to demonstrate the progress of mathematics knowledge. Questions in
QC let students to understand the context and thinking of mathematics problem solving.
However, it is different in the second level questions in two teachers’ QC. It is paid
high attention on helping students to master knowledge in detail in a progressive layers of
teaching process. For example, after students got the definition of parabola during drawing
(Q2-2), NT asked them immediately, “look at the definition in textbook, why F cannot on
the straight line l (Q2-3)”. Whereas fine learning after rough learning, dispersed learning
with bedding and polishing were emphasized by ST. For example, after leaning all four
open end direction types of parabolas, the question why F can’t on l was asked(Q4-4).
Activities in these classes by time line
After open coding of classroom activities, there are 7 kinds activities in the two classes:
teacher’s explanation(TE); teacher’s demonstration(D); task assignment by teacher(A);
question/answer(Q/A); students fullfil the task(F); students explanation(SE); showing
students works by teacher(S).
NT:0:00 Q/A_0:57D_3:09Q/A_5:36D_6:17SE_6:44TE_7:17Q/A_8:47A_9:29F_ 13:26S_17:17Q/A_21:34A_21:52F_
25:02
S_27:52Q/A_30:41S_31:06SE_32:29F_33:02SE_34:22F_35:53SE_37:09F_38:34Q/A_40:28TE_40:49end
ST:0:00Q/A_7:53A_8:25F_9:02SE_9:30F_10:23TE_10:57D_14:13SE_14:29TE_15:10SE_15:53Q/A_16:14A_16:16F_
17:00
SE_17:50TE_19:50A_20:23F_24:08S_26:36A_27:58F_30:38Q/A_35:45TE_36:31A_37:50F_38:56Q/A_41:01A_43
:46
TE_44:08end
Activities in class are fragmented from time line showed as Figure1,which also take as
corroborative evidence that teachers would like to refine questions in class. Time proportion
of different activities are showed in Figure2. Q/A is the commonest activity in the two
classes, about 34% of one lesson time. The first reason is compromising to teaching
environment discussed as above, another reason is teachers were used teaching mathematics
with Q/A, and asked many small step questions unconsciously, which said as teachers
themselves.
The second common activities are students fulfilling tasks by themselves, 22.09% in
ST’s and 25.97% in NT’s. Specifically, students fulfill tasks about 10’36’’ in NT’s class,
including seeking standard equation during new knowledge learning stage (3’57’’), seeking

standard equation, directrix equation and focus point with given parabola (3’10’’), and
solving examples (3’29’’), all is evaluation. Accordingly, there are 9’45’’ in ST’s class,
including recalling the analytic geometry methods to seek straight line’s equation (37’),
constructing proper coordinate system (4’38’’) , seeking standard equation during new
knowledge learning stage(2’40’’), seeking standard equation, directrix equation and focus
point with given parabola(1’6’’), more than 50% is thinking about how to construct proper
coordinate system. It is obvious that ST emphasis mathematical methods, while NT pay
more attention to help students to master mathematics knowledge and skills.
Assign tasks more clearly is emphasized by ST, which took about 14.84%, only 2.45%
in NT’s class. ST said,” it is useful to prevent students from error.” So, though ST value
providing the progress of mathematics development, he would like control students’
learning among error-prone problems, which is one of reasons why he always explained
more detailed (about 9.93%, 2.20% in NT’s class). NT paid more attention on showing and
assessing students’ products (17.39%) and students’ explanation (10.86%), which were
5.59% and 5.17% in ST’s class accordingly. NT said,” students’ products is a kind of
important learning resource. And students’ explanation can teach other students, as well as
rearrange their own thinking.” Here, ST holds value of control, while NT holds value of
progress, and it is some conflict with the former analysis. It is also indicated that teachers’
value is also changeable in different contexts. I.e. ST holds with progress in learning stage
of new knowledge, and holds with control in practice. However, NT holds with progress in
practice, and wonders in the learning stage of new knowledge.
Figure1. Transformation of teaching activities in time-line
Figure2. Time percentage of different activities

Important points and teaching rhythm in classes
Important points, teaching rhythm in the two classes were also compared by teaching
procedure and time line. Teaching links was induced by purpose of questions in QC, which
include review, learning of concept of parabola (including figure construction and
observation, geometry features and definition), learning of equation of parabola (including

constructing coordinate system, seeking equation, learning standard equation), deepening

understanding, working out examples, assignment, brief summary.
Equation of parabola is important point in both class based on the judgment of teaching
time as Table1. However there are different in the second level of teaching procedure in two
classes. NT spent more time on seeking equation under given coordinate system, while ST
spent more time on how to construct more proper coordinate system. The attention degree is
different obviously in other teaching procedures. The attention degree from high to low in
NT’s class is deepening understanding (29.7%),examples(24%),concept of parabola(15%),
review(1.9%), brief summary(0.9%), and in ST’s classroom, it is review(24.8%), concept of
parabola(20.1%), deepening understanding(15%), assignment(6.2%), brief
summary(0.8%).It is same as above conclusion about emphasis mathematical methods or
knowledge and skills by ST and NT.
Table1
Time Percent of Each Teaching Procedure
Links Lesson-N Lesson-S

Review 1.9% 24.8%
Concept of Construction-observatio
5.8% 7.4%
parabola n
Features-definition 9.2% 12.7%
Equation of coordinate system 4.6% 15.3%
parabola Seeking equation 20.8% 9.1%
Standard equation 3.1% 3.8%
Deepening The relationship among
understanding equation,directrix, focus 7.4% 0.0%
etc
Other parabolas and
22.3% 15.0%
properties
Examples 24.0% 4.7%
Assignment 0.0% 6.2%
Brief summary 0.9% 0.8%
Teaching rhythm of ST is slack at the beginning and have to speed up towards the end,
which showed in Figure3. ST devoted students to learning methods of analytic geometry in
the former half class, and applied in the latter half class, especially demonstrated on
teaching link of ‘deepening understanding’. Such teaching rhythm did not be found in NT’s
class. She arranged important points dispersedly, especially on teaching link related with
evaluation and practice.

Figure3. Time percent of each teaching link

Conclusion and implication
Firstly, there are idea of teaching with QC and similar design logic among questions in
both classes, which indicated that two teachers are willing to teach with QC and hold similar
views of mathematics in general level. Furthermore, learning is deepened by QC, which
provided students with high-order mathematics, and students got a extent of exploring space
during individual working on questions.
Secondly, teachers highlighted “connection” both in lesson plan and classroom, but it is
different on connect-points in two classes: content connection in NT’s class versus methods
connection in ST’s class. The difference is not only found at review, but also found in
sub-questions in QC and important points, which also indicate different views and
knowledge about mathematics instruction.
Thirdly, though anticipated QC was finished, and students solved mostly questions in
QC in both classes, limited class hour is the main constraint of QC. Both teachers tried to
speed teaching rhythm by posing more specific questions and question/answer, but their
classes were still overtime. It is also found that method connection can speed teaching
rhythm in this study, so it is reasonable to adopt more method connection, which let
students to experience and attain basic viewpoint and general methods of mathematics
investigation.
References
Anderson, T., & Shattuck, J. (2012). Design-based research: A decade of progress in
education research? Educational Researcher, 41(1), 16-25.
Ernest, P. (1991) On Teacher’s Mathematics Education. Hamsphire: The Falmer Prsss.
Fan, L., &Zhu, Y. (2005). How Have Chinese Students Performed in Mathematics? A
Perspective from Large-Scale International Comparisons. In L.Fan, N.Y.Wong,J.Cai,&
S.Li(Eds.).How Chinese learn mathematics(p.18).Nanjin: Jiangsu Educational Press.
Gu, L., Yi, L., &Nie, B. (2003). Looking for middle zone: The trend of international
mathematics education reform. Shanghai: Shanghai Educational Press.
Gu, L., Huang, R., & Marton, F. (2007). Bianshi Teaching: A Chinese Way to Improve
Students’ Mathematics Learning. Education journal in Yunnan, 3:25-28.

Journalist of Southern Weekends. (2013,November 1).[The first dispute]Should

mathematics go out from university entrance examination. Southern weekends,
Retrieved June 24 , 2015,from http://www.infzm.com/content/95569.
Marton, F., & Booth, S. (1997). Learning and awareness. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum
Associates.
Shao, G., Huang, R., Ding, E., & Li, Y. (2013). Mathematics classroom instruction in China
viewed from a historical perspective. In Y.Li,& R.Huang. How Chinese teach mathematics
and improve teaching(pp.55-95).New York: Routledge.
Skemp, R.R.(2006). Relational understanding and instrumental understanding. Mathematics
teaching in the middle school ,12(2),88-95.
Stigler, J.W.,& Hiebert, J.(1999). The teaching gap. New York: Free Press.
Sullivan, P., & Mornane, A. (2014) Exploring teachers’ use of, and students’ reactions to,
challenging mathematics tasks. Mathematics education research journal, 26(2):193-213.
Tang, H., Peng, A., Chen,B., Kuang, K., & Song, N. (2013).Characteristics of “Two Basics”
teaching in secondary mathematics classrooms in China. In Y.Li,& R.Huang. How
Chinese teach mathematics and improve teaching(pp.96-129).New York: Routledge.
Wong, N.Y., Lin, Z., Wong, J., Ma, Y., &Han, J. (2002). Conception of mathematics hold by
middle school teachers in Chinese mainland. Curriculum, teaching material and
method,1:68-73.
Yang, Y. (2004). Comparative study about “classroom teaching driven by primitive
mathematics idea”. Doctoral thesis. Shanghai: East China Normal University.
Zheng, Y. (2009).Theory and practice of mathematics methodology. Nanning: Guangxi
Educational Press.

Tee, Leong , Abdul Rahim 391
FACTORS AFFECTING HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS’

MATHEMATICAL REASONING ABILITIES
Kiew Nee Tee, University of Malaya, Malaysia
Kwan Eu Leong, University of Malaya, Malaysia
Suzieleez Syrene Abdul Rahim, University of Malaya, Malaysia
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to unearth the factors that affect high school students’
mathematical reasoning abilities from the perspectives of self-motivational beliefs,
cognitive strategies used, and self-regulatory processes. Self-motivational beliefs consist of
self-efficacy, goal orientation, and task value. Cognitive strategies used include elaboration
and critical thinking skills. Self-regulatory processes encompass task analysis,
self-observation, self-judgment, and self-reaction. The study applied partial least squares
based structural equation modelling technique to test the relationship between the constructs.
This correlation study was conducted on 248 eleventh-grade students in one of the private
schools in Malaysia. The study found critical thinking skills as strongest predictor of
students’ mathematical reasoning abilities followed by task value and lastly self-efficacy.
All self-motivational variables significantly influenced students’ use of elaboration and
critical thinking skills. Implementation of task analysis had a significant direct effect on use
of elaboration strategies and self-observation function. Valuation of task significantly
affected one’s self-judgment. Self-observation significantly influenced the self-judgment
and self-judgment, in turn, influenced the self-reaction process. Besides, personal
self-efficacy directly influenced one’s reaction. Although self-reaction was not significantly
influenced mathematical reasoning abilities, however it significantly affected students’
academic mathematics performance. Students’ general mathematical reasoning abilities
significantly related to their mathematics performance. Hence policymakers and teachers
should take these path relationships into consideration when providing an instructional
design for reasoning tasks.
Keywords: Cognitive strategies; Modeling; Reasoning; Self-motivational; Self-regulatory.

392 Illustrating a Model of Task-Based Learning for Instructor Professional Development
ILLUSTRATING A MODEL OF TASK-BASED LEARNING FOR

INSTRUCTOR PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
JenqJong Tsay, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, USA
Shandy Hauk, WestEd and the University of Northern Colorado, USA
Billy Jackson, SUNY Geneseo, USA
In this article, we operationalize a theory of task-based learning (TBL) among two sets of
learners: college pre-service teachers and the faculty who teach them. Ultimately, the goal
is to provide a model of TBL useful for faculty professional development. The aim is that the
model is helpful both for those who design professional learning opportunities for faculty
and worthwhile for faculty who are learning to use tasks with their students who are future
K-8 teachers.
Key Words: Activity, Task-based learning, Professional development
While the idea of a mathematical task has a long history in mathematics education, modern
research views vary. Wittmann (1984) saw tasks as teaching units that integrated ideas,
incorporating mathematical, pedagogical, psychological, and practical aspects. For
Christiansen and Walter (1986), task and associated activity were components in a complex
interplay in the interaction between ideas, teachers, and learner engagement. Krainer (1993)
presented tasks as elementary building blocks of didactical thinking that had relevance in
instruction, research and communication. Most position TBL as a form of student-centered
learning. Such approaches have been shown to significantly improve undergraduates'
performance in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics courses (Freeman et al.,
2014) and, particularly, the learning of pre-service K-8 teachers (Laursen, Haasi, & Hough,
2016). Moreover, Connolly and Millar (2006) noted that faculty want professional
development experiences that use the TBL methods being advocated. A key ingredient for
faculty and for the target college learners in their classes is the special knowledge of
mathematics called mathematical knowledge for teaching.
Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching (MKT) for Grades K-8
Several decades of research rooted in Shulman’s (1986) work have indicated that there are
particular understandings and skills associated with effective instruction, a sociological
synergy of mathematics and mathematics education called mathematical knowledge for
teaching (MKT; Ball, Thames, & Phelps, 2008). MKT for elementary grades as modeled
by Ball and colleagues is made up of six kinds of knowledge. Three are types of subject
matter knowledge and three are rooted in pedagogical understandings. The subject matter
aspects include: horizon content knowledge, about how topics are related across the span of
mathematical ideas; specialized content knowledge which is specialized in the sense that it
is specific to the task of teaching, and common content knowledge. In particular, specialized
content knowledge includes ways to represent mathematical ideas, provide mathematical
explanations for rules and procedures, and examine and understand innovative solution
strategies from the student’s perspective. This specialized knowledge for teaching K-8 is

Tsay, Hauk, Jackson 393
sparse or absent for many with advanced mathematics expertise but little experience
teaching children (e.g., mathematics professors; Bass, 2005).
As an example, consider fraction division. Most novice teachers can use the
invert-and-multiply algorithm to divide fractions. Thus, this piece of knowledge is common
content. Yet, few can explain to someone why the algorithm is justified in some problem
situations and not in others, thereby making knowing the “whys” specialized.
The other three categories in MKT are types of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK)
and are neither purely pedagogical nor exclusively mathematical. Knowledge of curriculum
includes awareness of the content and connections across standards and texts (i.e., of the
intended curriculum; Herbel-Eisenmann, 2007). Knowledge of content and students (KCS)
is “content knowledge intertwined with knowledge of how students think about, know, or
learn this particular content” (Hill, Ball, & Schilling, 2008, p. 375). Knowledge of content
and teaching (KCT) is about teaching actions or moves (i.e., productive ways to respond
in-the-moment to students to support learning). So, in our fraction example, teachers who
are aware that students often invert the dividend instead of the divisor are demonstrating
KCS and might use fraction diagrams to scaffold understanding if they have the appropriate
KCT. Well-developed KCS and KCT are associated with improved student learning (Hill et
al., 2008; Hill, Rowan, & Ball, 2005). All six of the MKT components are situated in a
seventh kind of knowing, about the various ways communication about mathematics
happens in classrooms and among teachers (i.e., knowledge of discourses; see Hauk, Toney,
Jackson, Nair, & Tsay, 2014).
A related idea at the college level is mathematical knowledge for teaching future
teachers (MKT-FT). This is knowledge and ways of knowing held and used by college
instructors who teach pre-service teachers (Hauk, Jackson, & Tsay, 2017). A rich and
textured MKT-FT is especially vital in the inquiry-oriented or activity-based approaches to
teaching shown to improve college student learning, increase persistence, and reduce
inequities (Bressoud, Mesa & Rasmussen, 2015; Freeman et al., 2014; Holdren & Lander,
2012; Laursen et al., 2016; Laursen, Hassi, Kogan, & Weston, 2014). College instructors
acquire MKT-FT in many ways: grading, examining their own learning, observing and
interacting with students or colleagues, reflecting on and discussing their own practice and
the practices known to be effective in K-8 teaching (Kung, 2010; Speer & Hald, 2009;
Speer & Wagner, 2009).
Defining and Illustrating Tasks
With a focus on MKT and MKT-FT in mind, we examined the task and activity framework
of Christiansen and Walther (1986). Growing from social constructivist roots, their view
was that TBL is a kind of goal-directed human behavior in response to interactions between
the individual and the social, physical, and cognitive environments perceived by the
individual. Within this framework, the terms task, activity, action, and plan each play
distinctive roles. Christiansen and Walther explicitly characterize task as interplay among
teacher, students, curriculum and what they call objectified mathematics (see Figure 1).
Activity is implicit in the relations indicated by the unlabeled arrows in Figure 1.

A task is the "goal of an action, with the goal being framed by distinct conditions"
(p. 256). Specifically, a task is the assignment – typically set by the teacher – which is the
object for students’ activity. A mathematical task generally includes one or more problems
whose solving is expected (by the task designer) to involve mathematics. The task also
includes a set of instructions, directives, and/or extensions to which learners are expected to
respond.
Figure 1. The relational character of task and activity (Christiansen & Walther, 1986)
Two caveats here: (1) how explicitly the goals and conditions of the task are communicated
varies widely, and (2) replacing "mathematics" with "MKT" or "MKT-FT" in the paragraph
above provides parallel definitions for tasks in the context of college instructor professional
development for teaching.
Activity is a process that includes reactions and adaptations by the learner that are in
response to the changes in task conditions that arise during the work on the task (these are
theorized to be based upon learner-specific needs and motives). Activity is realized through
a collection of actions, goal-directed processes arising from a learner’s motives:
Activity exists only in actions, but activity and actions are different entities. Thus, a specific action may
serve to realize different activities, and the same activity may give rise to different goals and accordingly
initiate different actions. (Christiansen & Walther, 1986, p. 255).
Each action in activity serves to attain a goal of the task: the collection of actions is
goal directed and together forms a plan. For Christiansen and Walther, the teacher is the
central agent of authority. We argue that in contexts where students are adults, the locus of
control may well lie with the learner (e.g., future elementary teachers, faculty who are
learning about teaching). And, social, mathematical, and socio-mathematical mediation
occur among students and between students and instructor. That is, how an activity induces
action depends on the agents and their relationships. Moreover, moving between actions and
from actions to related plan (and back again) involves many decisions. Figure 3a
summarizes our interpretation of the framework, overall, and Figure 3b (next page)
illustrates one possible decision process across actions and planning.
Christiansen and Walther (1986) offer different non-exhaustive types for each element
in the framework. For instance, they distinguish different tasks by the type of mathematical
activity in which students will engage: exploratory, constructive, or problem-solving. Smith
and Stein (2011) offer a further delineation of problem-solving tasks as those that (a) call on
memorization, (b) use procedural knowledge but require limited connections to other

knowledge, (c) require procedural and connected knowledge, and (d) engage students in
actually doing novel (to the learner) mathematics by calling for conjecturing, reasoning, and
justification.
For Christiansen and Walther, educational activity is what leads to work in response to
a task-driven behavioral goal (e.g., produce a graph), while learning activity is activity that
results in someone achieving the intended learning outcomes. When engaged in an activity,
learner actions may be preparatory, observational/reflective, control-focused, safeguarding,
or corrective. Preparatory actions are those that establish conditions for success or which
facilitate another action (e.g., formulating a plan is a preparatory action). Observational and
an
Pl
induce Goals*
initiat s
Task es Activity
realize
s Actions
Figure 2a. Task and activity framework.

*includes individual and collective goals for task and for activity
Figure 2b. Example decision tree within an induced plan.

reflective actions develop or identify information needed to complete or plan other actions.
Safeguarding actions ensure that information and results obtained along the way in the task
are readily available to the learner later in the task. Control actions are calibrations: learners
compare the intended goals/actions with those that were actually achieved/performed.
Corrective actions refer to acts by learners to anticipate or remove possible errors.
Characteristics of Tasks and Task-based Learning (TBL)
Tasks can be good organizational units for mathematics instruction. A powerful task is a
small and flexible unit that is accessible to students and has manageable complexity
(Krainer, 1993) so students may readily engage in its demands (e.g., as opposed to the
demands of project-based learning). In fact, an effective mathematical task scaffolds
students in their zone of proximal development. In particular, Krainer (1993) emphasizes
two pairs of properties to ensure depth and quality of tasks. The first pair is
horizontal-vertical: a task links horizontally when it is connected with aspects of already
mastered materials and vertically when it calls on students to generate new ways of thinking

or knowing about the central task concept, sometimes foreshadowing

someday-to-be-mastered mathematics. Secondly, argues Krainer, tasks should have high
levels of action and reflection: the task provides opportunities for actions related to concept
generation and fosters questions for oneself and other learners that lead to new actions.
What Characterizes a Mathematical Task?
Having now established descriptions and a framework relating task and activity, we are in a
position to elucidate the defining characteristics of task-based learning as we have applied it
in the context of faculty professional development:
● Where called for by task design, learners work on a task collaboratively (i.e., with a
group goal for, and group product from, the task) or cooperatively (i.e., with shared
goals for, but individual products from, the task). Often tasks will include activity
with manipulatives, video, and/or other technology.
● As learners work to complete a task, they consistently engage in activity that is
mathematical and/or pedagogical in nature. The task is designed to elicit actions such
as sense-making, conjecturing, reasoning, justifying, problem posing, questioning,
challenging, role playing, reflecting, and anticipating.
● The task makes explicit queries about the nature of learners' thinking, reasons for
steps they take, and what they produce as they work to complete the task.
Instructional statements include challenges to learner productions, questions that
extend activity or call for re-planning, and brokering guidance for struggling
learners.
Note that the first element includes collaboration – working together towards a group goal
or outcome. This is different from cooperation – working together for mutual benefit
towards individual goals/outcomes. Both can be powerful supports for learning and for
building a community among learners (Banilower et al., 2013).
The idea of collaboration plays an important role in TBL. Often a task or collection of
tasks require that learners mediate between accomplishing individual goals while
simultaneously working to complete collective task goals as set by their group. For example,
in the design of a faculty short-course, the structure within which tasks are completed can
attend to professional learning for preparing, instructing, and reflecting on the experience of
both. As an illustration, the first short-course lesson experiment is made up of three tasks for
faculty:
[Preparing] Task 1: Select an instructional task from the teacher education practice
literature that partners agree is level- and course-appropriate for use in class.
Participants know they have completed the task when the material has been selected
and lesson goals have been written.
[Instructing] Task 2: Implement the selected activity/material in class as faculty partner
observes and makes notes using the Teaching for Robust Understanding (TRU)
protocol (a tool for observation and discussion of teaching, see Schoenfeld, 2017).
Participants know they have completed this task when the lesson ends.

[Reflecting] Task 3: Debrief with partner who observed the lesson using the TRU protocol
about the nature of student and peer experience during the lesson. Participants know
they have completed the task when each has individually reflected on the feedback
and made some decisions about the next lesson and possible future implementations
of the same activity in subsequent semesters.
Notice that in this collection of tasks, faculty participants are working together to
accomplish individual learning goals for how to prepare, implement, and reflect on a
task-based lesson. However, these individual goals can only be achieved after the faculty
team has accomplished its learning goals of selecting mutually acceptable materials and
discussing the implemented lesson through the lens of the TRU protocol.
How About an Example of Task-based Learning?

As an illustrative example of the framework, suppose an instructor of pre-service
elementary teachers hands out a collection of questions similar to the items in Figure 3.
Notice that based upon characteristics and definitions given here, such a collection of word
problems – by itself – does not constitute a task. There are no vertical/horizontal
connections or high levels of acting/reflecting on mathematical structure. In fact, there are
no instructions about what to do with the information in the table. Figure 3 is not a task.
Many students may attempt to answer the separate questions in the “Story Problem” column,
without explicit instructions. Yet, several different and productive tasks for students and/or
teachers and/or faculty might be generated based on the information in Figure 3.
Divisor Story Problem Dividend
(Group size) (Initial amount)
A. Suppose a whole serving is 3 cookies. How many servings can
I make from 10 cookies?
B. Suppose a whole serving is 1/5 of a pizza. How many servings

(whole or fractional) can I make from 2/3 of a pizza?
Figure 3. (Fraction) Division word problem

For example for 6th grade students, using Figure 3, a task with mathematical focus might be:
Task X. Use the pictures and problems in Figure 3 to do the following:
1. Answer question A using counters. Write the problem and answer in a number
sentence.
2. Answer question B using fraction bars. Sketch your work. Write the answer as a
mixed number.
3. Describe a connection between how you solved Problem A and how you solved
Problem B. What number sentence might represent Problem B and its answer?
Note that a child doing Task X is assumed to have mastered solving and using symbolic
representation for a problem with integer dividend and divisor. Children are expected to find
a solution to the problem procedurally and conceptually, then record their solution with
formal and/or informal semiotic systems (e.g., manipulative, draw diagram). Second, the

child is assumed to be familiar with equivalent fractions using manipulatives such as

fraction bars, and therefore, the task possesses the potential for horizontal links to other
fraction arithmetic problems. Also, within the task, the concept of an adequate action, such
as fair share and distribution (as measurement division) from the first problem can then be
vertically linked to the second problem.
Now consider what a task might look like for future teachers, one focused on the
aspect of MKT called specialized content knowledge. It might include Task X from above
and induce three more activities:
Task Y. Do Task X, then do the following:

4. Suppose you are a 6th grader who is completing Task X for the first time. You have
never been exposed to an algorithm for fraction division, but you have knowledge
already of how to do the first problem. Do the second problem using fraction bars
and sketch your work.
5. What algorithm for fraction division does the activity suggest would be appropriate?
HINT: To answer this, think about HOW you got your answers to each of the
problems.
6. Describe the connection between your sketch and your algorithm in a way a 6 th
grader would understand. Describe at least one conceptual connection between
the two division problems in a way a 6th grader would understand.
In Task Y, pre-service teachers are being asked to do more than to solve problems.
They are required to engage in several activities. One activity introduces planning and
actions for imagining (and then thinking like) a 6th grader. As mentioned, a task is the goal
of actions framed by conditions. In this case, a condition with no algorithm allowed has
been set up, and therefore, the pre-service teacher has to deal with both problems based on
the given context, in which fair share (for equivalent fraction) and ways of distribution (for
measurement division) would drive the action of problem solving. From our use of these
tasks with pre-service teachers, their work tends to include things like:
Problem A: Total amount is 10. Group size is 3. The number of groups is unknown:
10÷3.
Problem B: Total amount is 2/3. Group size is 1/5. The number of groups is unknown:
2 1
÷ .
3 5
Figure 4 illustrates the use of fraction bars to demonstrate the process of generating a
common denominator. For pre-service teachers, work on Task Y also requires an extension
into noticing and representing the 6th grade students’ previous mathematical knowledge, as
well as discourse knowledge for working with others as they engage with and give context
to their efforts. Figure 5 shows work by pre-service teacher Tanya (a pseudonym) to
generate a common denominator and Figure 6 shows her work of fair-share distribution
along with a connection between sketch and algorithm. In the course of completing the task,
learner actions tend to include reflection on what they have done in solving each of a set of
problems about serving size as it relates to an algorithm, safeguarding as they search for

patterns to determine the algorithm, and control actions as they begin to think about what a
typical 6th grader might know.
A whole
1/3 1/3 1/3
1/5 1/5 1/5 1/5 1/5
1/15 1/15 1/15 1/15 1/15 1/15 1/15 1/15 1/15 1/15 1/15 1/15 1/15 1/15 1/15
Figure 4. Comparisons on fraction bars for common denominator process.
Figure 5. Tanya’s work regarding the common denominator process.
Figure 6. Tanya’s work regarding fair share distribution and connection to

algorithm.
The two, Task X nested inside of Task Y, might be used for faculty learning in a task
with an MKT-FT development goal. A task for faculty might include doing all (or part) of
Task Z. Do Task Y to the best of your ability. Then answer the following:
7. Suppose you are a pre-service teacher who has is doing Task Y for the first time,
what is challenging? Why?
Tasks X and Y.
Thus, as designers of professional development for faculty we need to have in mind a

foundational task at the level of a child, vertical connection (vertical in MKT) to a task for
pre-service teachers, and then vertical again (in MKT-FT) to a learning goal for the faculty
member.

Juxtaposition with Other *-Based Learning

Task-based learning certainly shares characteristics with most uses of "inquiry-based
learning" we have encountered. It requires inquiry-oriented instruction in that teacher and
student play important roles in the process (Rasmussen & Kwon, 2007). Within the science
education community, inquiry-based learning is often categorized as structured, guided, or
open (Biggers & Forbes, 2012; Chinn & Malhorta, 2002; Kuhn, Black, Kesselman, &
Kaplan, 2000). In structured inquiry, the instructor provides the materials and procedures
necessary to complete the task, with the expectation that students will discover the intended
learning outcomes in the process. In guided inquiry, the instructor poses a problem and
provides necessary materials, leaving students to devise their own solution methods. In open
inquiry, students pose their own problems and seek their own solutions. By design, TBL is
either guided or structured, depending on how the task is presented to the learner. This is in
contrast to problem-based learning which is an open model starting with something
problematic for the learner rather than problems, which are the starting point for TBL.
Likewise, TBL is different from project-based learning because tasks as defined here are
not generally projects that require synthesizing significant amounts of information over
time.
Every task starts with a novel (to the learner) problem (i.e., not an exercise involving
a single stream of well-rehearsed actions). The activity and actions of learners required in
TBL ensure that they are doing mathematics (or MKT or MKT-FT, as the case may be).
Actions that occur during task activity form the basis for self-regulation, a critical
component of metacognition which is crucial for effective and efficient learning. Repeated
exposure to tasks that scaffold agency and self-regulation can support the taking up of
agency and self-regulation. The teacher’s role in TBL mirrors that in teaching problem
solving: as a cultural broker of mathematically rigorous meaning and facilitator of
self-aware use of mathematical language.
Enacting or assigning tasks does not guarantee learning. In much the same vein,
presenting students with problems to solve does not constitute teaching of problem solving.
Other criteria must be met by instructor and students. For example, having future teachers
use base ten blocks to demonstrate operations does not mean they can explain common
algorithms for the operations. Concretism does not always ensure that intended learning
activity will follow.
To achieve the desired activity and, ultimately the goal learning outcome, it takes
focused effort by the expert (teacher, instructor, facilitator of professional development)
during activity in the task to direct attention as needed. Thus, task-based learning for faculty,
where the goal is to build MKT-FT, must do more than tell participants to do something. As
an illustration, learning from watching classroom video takes more than a direction to watch
this mathematics classroom video and reflect on it (Seago, 2004). Specific prompts before
video viewing might direct people to prepare themselves to notice and identify evidence of
student thinking about the meaning of slope. Twice. That is, the task includes purposeful
repetition of activity. The prompt for two viewings makes explicit the goal and sets
expectations that participants will do a particular kind of intellectual work (notice, identify)

about particular aspects of the video (student utterances and actions that can be considered
evidence, slope). These prompts are intentional in preparing the participant for possible
extensions like: Create at least two potential responses to the noticed thinking.
Conclusion and Avenues for Further Investigation and Research
A task requires a problem. For faculty professional learning, rich problems of
instructional practice might center on pedagogical content or specialized content knowledge
for teaching future teachers or building understanding of the MKT that future teachers need.
In the collection of tasks associated with the cookies materials, participants realize the
principle of constructing MKT by engaging with the practice of reflecting on a task that
helps them become aware of facets of the knowledge of content and teaching their students
will use in their future jobs as elementary school teachers. Another illustrative example is
the task discussed earlier involving reading and discussing material from the research
literature. That task addresses the principle for connecting between research, practice, and
policy through the practice of using research about what effective instructors of future
teachers do to inform their own course design.
Next steps for research and development around task-based learning for the authors
include further, and more complex, models of the connections among short-course overall
and task-specific design. For example, each task or collection of tasks within and across the
authors' current PRIMED short-course for faculty uses modules that follow a pattern of
progressing in three phases as seen in Figure 7 on the next page. In the prepare phase,
faculty engage with an existing task from K-8 mathematics. Then in the do stage, faculty
watch video or read (e.g., articles, classroom transcripts) with directives on particular things
to notice and/or think about as they view/read. Finally, in the reflect phase, task instructions
explicitly call for meta-awareness and discussion about what they have just seen or read and
how it will inform their own practice. These tasks in concert are meant to work together to
ensure that learning goals for each module and the entire short-course itself are met, see
Figure 8 on the next page.
Areas for use of the TBL framework in research and development include addressing
questions such as: How do designers and facilitators know that they are effectively
implementing task-based learning in faculty professional development? What constitutes
evidence of this? Also, what are indicators of success of a task-based professional learning
experience? The productive use of tasks by participants in their own practice is one
important factor, but are there others? Finally, the scant research literature on professional
development for teaching in higher education has yet to delineate the conditions that
promote (or hinder) faculty success. For example, what experiences and supports may be
needed for faculty to use, as an instructor, a TBL model they have experienced as learners in
professional development?

Figure 7. PRIMED within-module structure across time. Grey boxes are

principle-driven tasks.
Figure 8. PRIMED across-module structure across time.
References
Ball, D. L., Thames, M. H., & Phelps, G. (2008). Content knowledge for teaching: What
makes it special? Journal of Teacher Education, 59, 389-407. 
Bass, H. (2005). Mathematics, mathematicians, and mathematics education. Bulletin of the
American Mathematical Society, 42(4), 417-430.
Banilower, E. R., Smith, P. S., Weiss, I. R., Malzahn, K. A., Campbell, K. M., & Weis, A. M.
(2013). Report of the 2012 National Survey of Science and Mathematics Education.
Chapel Hill, NC: Horizon Research.
Biggers M., & Forbes C. T. (2012). Balancing teacher and student roles in elementary
classrooms: Preservice elementary teachers’ learning about the inquiry continuum.
International Journal of Science Education, 34(14), 2205-2229.
Bressoud, D., Mesa, V., & Rasmussen, C. (Eds.) (2015). Insights and Recommendations from
the MAA National Study of College Calculus. Washington, DC: The Mathematical
Association of America.
Chinn C. A., & Malhorta B. A. (2002). Epistemologically authentic inquiry in schools: A
theoretical frame work for evaluating inquiry tasks. Science Education, 86, 175-218. 

Christiansen, B., & Walther, G. (1986). Task and activity. In B. Christiansen, G. Howson, &
M. Otte (Eds.), Perspectives in Mathematics Education (pp. 243–307). Dordrecht:
Reidel. 
Connolly M. R., & Millar S. B. (2006). Using workshops to improve instruction in STEM
courses. Metropolitan Universities, 17, 53–65. 
Freeman, S., Eddy, S., McDonough, M., Smith, M., Okoroafor, N., Jordt, H., & Wenderoth,
M. P. (2014). Active learning increases student performance in science, engineering, and
mathematics. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(23) 8410–8415.
Hauk, S., Toney, A. F., Jackson, B., Nair, R., & Tsay, J.-J. (2014). Developing a model of
pedagogical content knowledge for secondary and post - secondary mathematics
instruction. Dialogic Pedagogy: An International Online Journal, 2, A16-40. Available at
dpj.pitt.edu/ojs/index.php/dpj1/article/download/40/50
Hauk, S., Jackson, B., & Tsay, J.J. (2017). Those who teach the teachers: Knowledge
growth in teaching for mathematics teacher educators. In Proceedings of the 20th Annual
Conference on Research in Undergraduate Mathematics Education, (pp. TBD).
Herbel-Eisenmann, B. A. (2007). From intended curriculum to written curriculum:
Examining the "voice" of a mathematics textbook. Journal for Research in Mathematics
Education, 38(4), 344-369.
Hill, H. C., Ball, D. L., & Schilling S. G. (2008). Unpacking pedagogical content knowledge:
Conceptualizing and measuring teachers’ topic-specific knowledge of students. Journal
for Research in Mathematics Education, 39(4), 372-400.
Hill, H. C., Rowan, B., & Ball D. L. (2005). Effects of teachers’ mathematical
knowledge  for teaching on student achievement. American Educational Research
Journal, 42(2), 371-406.
Holdren, J. P., & Lander, E. (2012). Report to the President—Engage to excel: Producing one
million additional college graduates with degrees in science, technology, engineering, and
mathematics. Washington, DC: President’s Council of Advisors on Science and
Technology.
Krainer, K. (1993). Powerful tasks: A contribution to a high level of acting and reflecting in
mathematics instruction. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 24, 65–93.
Kuhn, D., Black, J. B., Kesselman, A., & Kaplan, D. (2000). The development of cognitive
skills to support inquiry learning. Cognition and Instruction, 18, 495-523.
Kung, D. T. (2010). Teaching assistants learning how students think. In F. Hitt, D. Holton,
and P. Thompson (Eds.) Research in collegiate mathematics education VII (pp. 143–169).
Providence, RI: American Mathematical Society.
Laursen, S. L., Hassi, M-L., & Hough, S. (2016). Implementation and outcomes of
inquiry-based learning in mathematics content courses for pre-service teachers.
International Journal of Mathematical Education in Science and Technology, 47(2),
256-275.

Laursen, S. L., Hassi, M. L., Kogan, M., & Weston, T. J. (2014). Benefits for women and men
of inquiry-based learning in college mathematics: A multi-institution study. Journal for
Research in Mathematics Education, 45(4), 406-418.
Rasmussen, C., & Kwon, O. N. (2007). An inquiry-oriented approach to undergraduate
mathematics. Journal of Mathematical Behavior, 26(3), 189-194.
Schoenfeld, A. H. (2017). Teaching for Robust Understanding (TRU) Framework -online
resources page: http://map.mathshell.org/trumath.php
Seago, N. (2004). Using video as an object of inquiry for mathematics teaching and learning.
In J. Brophy (Ed.), Using video in teacher education: Advances in research on teaching,
Vol. 10 (pp. 259–286). Orlando, FL: Elsevier.
Shulman, L. (1986). Those who understand: Knowledge growth in teaching. Educational
Researcher, 15(2), 4-14. 
Smith, M. S., & Stein, M. K. (2011). Five practices for orchestrating productive
mathematics discussions. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
Speer, N. M., & Hald, O. (2009). How do mathematicians learn to teach? Implications from
research on teachers and teaching for graduate student professional development. In M.
Carlson and C. Rasmussen (Eds.), Making the connection: Research and practice in
undergraduate mathematics education (pp. 305–317). Washington, DC: Mathematical
Association of America.
Speer, N. M., & Wagner, J. (2009). Knowledge needed by a teacher to provide analytic
scaffolding during undergraduate mathematics classroom discussions. Journal for
Research in Mathematics Education, 40(5), 530–565.
Wittmann, E. (1984). Teaching units as the integrating core of mathematics education",
Educational Studies in Mathematics 15(1), 25-36.
Acknowledgments
This work reported here is supported by grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF),
DUE-1625215. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed are
those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the NSF.
JenqJong Tsay, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, Jenqjong.tsay@utrgv.edu
Shandy Hauk, WestEd STEM Program, 730 Harrison St., San Francisco, CA 94107 USA,
shauk@wested.org
Billy Jackson, SUNY Geneseo, jacksonbi@geneseo.edu

Villamora, Li Fong, Lim, Sy, Hao, Poa 405
OF LANGUAGE AND MATHEMATICS: A QUASI-

EXPERIMENTAL STUDY ON THE USE OF PUTONGHUA AND
MINNANHUA IN TEACHING MATHEMATICS
Jacqueline Villamora, Chiang Kai Shek College, Philippines
Ryan Li Fong, Chiang Kai Shek College, Philippines
Cassandra Lim, Chiang Kai Shek College, Philippines
Aileen Sy, Chiang Kai Shek College, Philippines
Lester Hao, Chiang Kai Shek College, Philippines
Dory Poa, Chiang Kai Shek College, Philippines
Background of the Study

Chinese language education in the Philippines formally began in 1899 with the
establishment of the Anglo-Chinese School, currently known as Tiong Se Academy. Guo
(2013) describes the students of these Chinese schools at the time as children of first
generation immigrants from Fujian, China whose mother tongue was Minnanhua (閩南話;
popularly known as Hokkienese). Thus, the school’s language environment was conducive
to the learning of the Chinese language. Putonghua ( 普通話 ) was used as
medium-of-instruction (MOI) by teachers invited from Mainland China and Taiwan who
used their native curriculum and materials; on the other hand, Minnanhua was used by local
Chinese teachers. Furthermore, Zhang and Zhang (2012) comments that the Chinese
language proficiency of students at that time was much higher than that of today, and was
comparable to non-immigrant students in Mainland China and Taiwan.
Recent literature on the declining performance of students in the Chinese language
attribute the cause to the Filipinization decrees issued by then-President Marcos beginning
1973 to 1976 (Guo, 2013; Ni, 2013). These decrees entailed the following, among others: (i)
businesses in the Philippines can only be operated by Filipino citizens; (ii) schools should
prioritize the English and Filipino languages, thereby placing other languages as electives
and should not take up more than 120 minutes per week; (iii) Chinese immigrants were
granted easier access to acquiring a Filipino citizenship. Hence, learning the Chinese
language became a lesser priority given its reduced presence. Furthermore, with the
opportunities to become Filipino citizens and own businesses in the Philippines in mind,
succeeding generations of Chinese immigrants shifted their focus from learning the Chinese
language towards English and Filipino --- an after effect of the increased exposure to these
as stipulated by the Bilingual Education Program of then-Department of Education, Culture
and Sports (Fan and Zhang, 2013).
In addition, Chinese schools did not have a consensus as to how Chinese language
education in the Philippines would be implemented after the Filipinization decrees,
especially in terms of curricular standards and materials (Hao, 2009). However, Poa (2017)
comments that one common feature was the increased and steady presence of teaching
Putonghua, despite having Minnanhua as the lingua franca of the local Chinese community.

406 Of Language and Mathematics: A Quasi-Experimental Study on the Use of Putonghua and Minnanhua
in Teaching Mathematics
In the advent of the 2009 memorandum by the Department of Education, Mother

Tongue-Based Multilingual Education (MTB-MLE) aimed to introduce children to
schooling with the language they know best. Anchoring on this thought, Poa argues that
Minnanhua, as the mother tongue and working language of the local Chinese populace in
Manila, should be utilized as the medium-of-instruction in learning Putonghua as a second
language. Her claim is supported by data gathered by Wang (2009) from Chinese schools in
Metro Manila; the survey indicates that 23.94% and 53.98% of students have Minnanhua
and a mix of English, Filipino and Chinese as their language backgrounds, respectively.
Only 1.32% of respondents reported their language background to be Putonghua.
In light of the aforementioned, CKS College in Manila shifted into strengthening the
presence of Minnanhua in the classroom, even in the teaching of Mathematics. The unique
landscape offered by the school is described by Villaverde (2014) as a Westernized locality
in an Asian setting, with Hao (2017) further elaborating that the school offers two
mathematics classes at the K-10 level: one taught in English (reminiscent of methods used
by the Americans), and another in Chinese (reflective of methods used by mainland and
overseas Chinese teachers). Furthermore, the program design of the Grade School currently
employed by the school adheres to the combined model espoused by Metila, Pradilla and
Williams (2016): English and Filipino serves as the medium-of-instruction for subjects
prescribed by the Department of Education, with Minnanhua as the lingua franca used to
teach Chinese subjects.
Statement of the Problem
The present study explores the use of Putonghua and Minnanhua in teaching
Mathematics and its effect on performance.
Specifically, it aims to answer the following questions:
1. For the duration of the pilot study, was a difference noted between the test
performances of classes taught in Putonghua and Minnanhua?
2. What are the language preferences of the teachers and students in terms of the
medium-of-instruction in their Chinese Mathematics class?
Scope, Limitations, and Threats to Validity
The current paper, part of a broader research project, reports on the initial findings
obtained. Due to possible ethical implications, the current study is only limited to one topic
per language. The researchers recognize that this may imply threats to validity, as the length
of exposure might not truly make a difference in the performance of the students. However,
as it is only a pilot study, these results would serve as initial indicators, although
conclusions would not be drawn from them.
On the other hand, with respect to the teachers’ language ability, the
teacher-participants of the study are proficient in both Putonghua and Minnanhua. They
have been informed of the nature of the study; thus, language preference has been controlled
to prevent bias. However, it should be noted that within the context of this study,

medium-of-instruction is limited to the discussion of the lesson content; personal

interactions with the students were not considered as part of the MOI. Thus, when the
teacher was assigned to use Putonghua, the lesson was delivered in Putonghua, and includes
the following: motivational activity, conceptual discussion, guided demonstration, and drills
(e.g. paper-pen exercises, board work).
Methodology
The present study utilizes a quasi-experimental design since the subjects are
purposively-selected in order to prevent biases. Two classes each from Grades Six and
Seven were chosen for the study; these classes had students’ Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi (漢語
水平考試 HSK) results being classified as neither high nor low. This indicated that
Putonghua is not their native tongue, thus, avoiding language bias. At the same time, the
two classes were regular sections in terms of mathematical ability (i.e. there exists a
separate class for mathematically-gifted students), thus, avoiding ability bias. Hence, the
two classes are similar in terms of language proficiency and mathematics performance.
For the coverage of the first assessment, the experimental classes were taught primarily
in Putonghua. The topics covered were area of plane figures and dividing polynomials for
Grades Six and Seven, respectively. During the second assessment, the experimental classes
were taught primarily in Minnanhua; the topics covered were volume of solid figures for
Grade Six, and solving linear equations in one variable for Grade Seven. The quiz results
were statistically treated using z-test to determine if there is a significant difference between
the performance of the experimental and control groups for each grade level. It should be
noted that the quantitative results obtained might be inconclusive given the duration of the
experiment. However, the researchers believe that these data may provide a glimpse into the
phenomenon of interest.
Moreover, classroom observations and interviews were conducted with the teachers and
students in order to get insights into their actual preferences. Although results from
qualitative research techniques are not meant to be generalized, the data gathered from the
narratives provide a glimpse and understanding into the experiences of the subjects at the
field.
First Assessment
In the first assessment, experimental classes were taught using Putonghua. The
following hypothesis are presented for each grade level (at 95% confidence level):
Ho: There is no significant difference between the test scores of the two classes.
Ha: There is a significant difference between the test scores of the two classes.
Grade Six
Table 1. Comparison of scores for the first test between experimental and control groups in Grade 6
Criteria Experimental Control

Number of respondents 36 37
Mean 93.47222 93.73874
Variance 31.17063 42.65516
Standard Deviation 5.58307 6.53109
p-value (two-tailed) 0.85121 > 0.05
With a p-value of 0.85121, the null hypothesis is not rejected; there is insufficient
evidence to show that the mean test scores for the first assessment are different for the two
classes.
Grade Seven
Table 2. Comparison of scores for the first test between experimental and control groups in Grade 7

Mean 81.05556 80.15476
Variance 92.76501 101.08339
evidence to show that the mean test scores for the first assessment are different for the two
classes in Grade Seven.
Second Assessment
In the second assessment, experimental classes were taught using Minnanhua. The
following hypothesis are presented for each grade level (at 95% confidence level):
Ho: There is no significant difference between the test scores of the two classes.
Ha: There is a significant difference between the test scores of the two classes.
Grade Six
Table 3. Comparison of scores for the second test between experimental and control groups in Gr. 6

Mean 92.25694 92.74306
Variance 58.82316 60.96602


evidence to show that the mean test scores for the second assessment are different for the
two Grade Six classes.
Grade Seven
Table 4. Comparison of scores for the second test between experimental and control groups in Gr. 7

Mean 79.19444 78.05952
Variance 72.14958 138.46960
evidence to show that the mean test scores for the second assessment are different for the
two classes in Grade Seven.
The analysis of test scores reveals that the performance of the classes in both quizzes
are similar without significant difference. A contributing factor that was not considered in
the study is the English mathematics class attended by the students. The curricula for both
English and Chinese mathematics classes are synchronized; thus, the topics are common for
the same timeframe with approached and methods differing as described by Hao (2017).
This can be an indicator that there truly is a supposed positive impact with more exposure to
mathematics (Lee, 1995). However, the short duration of the experiment per assessment
poses a threat to internal validity; thus, conclusions cannot be fully drawn until the entire
research project has concluded.
Interviews and Observations
The researchers randomly interviewed some students in each of the two classes during
their free time. The interviews reveal that Grade Six pupils either prefer their teacher
speaking in Minnanhua or a mix of both Minnanhua and Putonghua. Some cited difficulty
in understanding terms in Putonghua as a reason, while others mentioned Minnanhua as the
language spoken at home thereby fostering easier understanding. One particular student
even cited his teacher to be the reason he prefers Minnanhua, since he personally
understands better when his teacher explains in Minnanhua.
On the other hand, Grade Seven students prefer Putonghua over Minnanhua. Most
responses were inclined towards treating Putonghua as a more globally-recognized language,
in addition to some even citing their teachers using it for most of the time. Furthermore,

there were Grade Seven students who mentioned that Putonghua is the language spoken at
home. When probed further, it was revealed that they were immigrants from Mainland
China, and were only beginning to learn Minnanhua. However, given the choice, there were
some in both grade levels who do prefer a mix of the two with English for better
understanding. These students particularly felt that if their teachers taught in this manner,
their understanding and achievement would improve.
Meanwhile, interview with teachers reveal a stark parallelism with the students. The
Grade Six teachers, along with some grade school teachers, prioritize the use of Minnanhua
in teaching mathematics since they felt that it is the language closest to home for the
students. This resonates with the aim of DepEd’s MTB-MLE (2009). On the other hand, the
Grade Seven teachers and some high school teachers who were interviewed reveal that their
preference in teaching higher-level mathematics is to use Putonghua, given the more
abstract nature of the subjects as compared to grade school arithmetic. This can be seen as a
manifestation of the different approaches in Chinese language learning employed by the
school: Minnanhua is dominant in grade school as it is seen as an important bridge towards
learning Putonghua, whereas Putonghua is dominant in high school as students are expected
to be equipped with the necessary foundations to immerse in a Putonghua-driven learning
environment (Guo, 2013; Ni, 2013).
Furthermore, classroom observations and teacher testimonials reveal that students
respond to teacher queries regardless of the language the teacher used. However, it is worth
mentioning that when the teacher-participants in both grade levels used Putonghua as their
primary MOI, they sometimes had to repeat their question --- even translating it to
Minnanhua in some cases --- before students responded. Despite this, Grade Seven students
still preferred Putonghua as the interview data reveals. Moreover, it should also be noted
that students who preferred their teachers code-switching were taught by teachers who
usually code-switched between languages. This can be treated as an indicator of student
adaptation wherein learners adjust to the conditions set forward by their environments.
Conclusions
The test results and succeeding analysis show that performance is similar, regardless of
the language used as medium-of-instruction, at least for the duration of the pilot study. This
can serve as an indication that provided with the necessary language foundation and
environment, learners can adapt to the medium-of-instruction employed by their teacher.
Moreover, the language preference of students changes from grade school to high school.
This can be attributed to the concept of students’ learning styles adapting to their
environment as the situation deems it necessary, especially in language acquisition whether
in first or second language learning (Ni, 2013). The grade school students preferred
Minnanhua since it is the language they are exposed to by their teachers; the same applies to
high school students with teachers primarily utilizing Putonghua as the
medium-of-instruction.

Recommendations
As the present paper is a portion of a larger research project, it is highly recommended
that the full project be reported once it has concluded. In addition, the researchers
recommend that a follow-up study be conducted in other grade levels to further investigate
the phenomenon concerning learners’ adaptation to their teachers’ medium-of-instruction.
Moreover, further research is necessary to conclude that the preferred working language of
both teachers and students in class is not related to actual test performance and to an extent,
overall mathematics achievement. In addition, if there indeed is evidence of adaptation, a
study to measure the length of time for students to adapt to their teacher’s
medium-of-instruction can be explored in a separate study.
References
Fan, Q.H. and Zhang, S.F. (2013). 菲律賓語言教育政策的回顧與反思–––兼論華文教育
的新機遇 [Review and introspection of language teaching policy in Philippines]. 2013 東
南亞本土漢語師資培養高端研討會論文集 [Proceedings of the 2013 Southeast Asia
conference on professional development of Chinese language teachers] (pp. 148-155).
Manila, Philippines: Chiang Kai Shek College. (in Chinese)
Guo, J.L. (2013). 菲律賓華語教師資專業化建設的幾點思考 [Some considerations in the
professional development of Chinese language teachers in the Philippines]. 2013 東南亞
本土漢語師資培養高端研討會論文集 [Proceedings of the 2013 Southeast Asia
conference on professional development of Chinese language teachers] (pp. 125-132).
Manila, Philippines: Chiang Kai Shek College. (in Chinese)
Hao, H.T. (2009). 菲律賓華語教學改革實踐的思考 [Reflecting on the implementation of
change in the Philippine Chinese language education]. 第八屆東南亞華語教學研討會論
文集 [Proceedings of the 8th Southeast Asia conference on Chinese language teaching].
(pp. 231-242). Manila, Philippines: Philippine Chinese Education Research Center.
Hao, L. (2017). When East Coexists with West: A Comparative Study on Grade 7
Instructional Methods of English and Chinese Mathematics Teachers in Linear Equations
and Introductory Geometric Reasoning. Master’s Thesis. Ateneo de Manila University,
Quezon City, Philippines.
Lee, Q. (1995). Eureka: thoughts on math. Pasig City: Anvil.
Metila, R., Pradilla, L., Williams, A. (2016). The challenge of implementing mother tongue
education in linguistically diverse contexts: the case of the Philippines. Asia-Pacific
Educational Research, 25(5-6), 781-789. DOI: 10.1007/s40299-016-0310-5
Ni, C.Y. (2013). 菲律賓華語教學模式探討 [The discussion of the Chinese teaching mode
in the Philippines]. 2013 東南亞本土漢語師資培養高端研討會論文集 [Proceedings of
the 2013 Southeast Asia conference on professional development of Chinese language
teachers] (pp. 159-165). Manila, Philippines: Chiang Kai Shek College. (in Chinese)
Philippines Department of Education. (2009). Institutionalizing mother tongue-based
multilingual education (MLE). Retrieved from
http://www.deped.gov.ph/orders/do-74-s-2009
Poa, D. (2017, April 17). Personal interview with J Go.

Wang, H.Z. (2009). 菲律賓華文教育的風雨歷程 [The course of Philippine Chinese

education]. 第八屆東南亞華語教學研討會論文集 [Proceedings of the 8th Southeast
Asia conference on Chinese language teaching]. Manila, Philippines: Philippine Chinese
Education Research Center. Retrieved from www.edu.jinjiang.com.ph
Villaverde, A. (2014). Investigating the Second Language Learning of Multilingual Chinese
Learners: The Relationship of Age, Gender, and Language Proficiency to Intrinsic
Motivation. Master’s Thesis. De La Salle University, Manila, Philippines.
Zhang, N. and Zhang, S.T. (2012). 菲律賓華文教育三十年困境的思考 [Reflecting on
the difficulties encountered by Philippine Chinese language education for the past 30
years]. 貴州社會科學 [Guizhou Social Sciences], 271(7), pp. 134-136. (in Chinese)
Acknowledgement
The researchers would like to express their gratitude to CKS College and its academic
administrators for allowing the study to be conducted. Additionally, they would also like to
thank the teachers of the Chinese Mathematics Learning Area for both Grade School and
Junior High School Departments and the students who participated in this study.
Authors
Jacqueline Villamora
Chiang Kai Shek College, Philippines
jacqueline.villamora@cksc.edu.ph
Ryan Chua Li Fong

ryan.lifong@cksc.edu.ph
Cassandra Lim
cassandra.lim@cksc.edu.ph
Aileen Sy
aileen.sy@cksc.edu.ph
Lester Cu Hao
lester.hao@cksc.edu.ph
Dory Poa
dory.poa@cksc.edu.ph

Wijaya, Kaur 413
A STUDY OF GRADE 10 INDONESIAN MATHEMATICS

TEXTBOOKS
Teresa Oktaviani Wijaya, National Institute of Education, Singapore
Berinderjeet Kaur, National Institute of Education, Singapore
Introduction
An education system involves a curriculum policy that influences students’ learning. In the
implementation of the curriculum policy itself, many aspects are involved, such as the plan
(intended curriculum), the implementation (enacted curriculum), and the instructional
materials (Remillard & Heck, 2014; Schmidt et al., 2001; Valverde, Bianchi, Wolfe,
Schmidt, & Houang, 2002). The implementation, or known as enacted curriculum, has been
considered as having the greatest impact on students learning, since it enables a direct
interaction between teachers and students (Remillard & Heck, 2014).
Furthermore, experts have mentioned that the enacted curriculum takes place in the
classroom is significantly shaped by the instructional materials, which one of these is
textbook (Kilpatrick, Swafford, & Findell, 2001; Remillard & Heck, 2014). Textbooks have
a strong influence in classroom practices as it reflects the intended curriculum of a system
and exemplifies its implementation (Fan, Zhu, & Miao, 2013; Kilpatrick et al., 2001; Pepin,
2008; Pepin & Haggarty, 2001; Schmidt et al., 2001).
Drawing on the importance of textbooks, an analysis of textbook is important. This
study aims to examine Indonesian mathematics textbooks, especially the layout and
physical characteristics, knowledge development, and alignment with the national
curriculum.
Review of literature
Textbook is a tool to concretize the curriculum policy into a form of instruction (Kaur, Low,
& Seah, 2006; Valverde et al., 2002). Textbook is also seen as a bridge between the intended
curriculum and the implementation as opportunities to learn (Schmidt et al., 2001). In this
section, we only present the review of specific literatures.
Use of textbooks by teachers and students

Pepin and Haggarty (2001) mentioned that textbook is a platform that enables a
collaborative work between teachers and students. Research have shown that both teachers
and students use textbooks in the teaching and learning process (e.g. Kaur et al., 2006; Li,
2000; Pepin, 2008; Pepin & Haggarty, 2001). They showed that teachers use textbooks to
plan the lesson, deliver explanation during lessons, provide examples, or give exercises.
They also provided evidence that students use textbooks to broaden their understanding,
complete their assignments, and have further learning.
Studies of textbooks

414 A Study of Grade 10 Indonesian Mathematics Textbooks
Textbooks from different countries are structured in distinct way (Valverde et al., 2002;
Pepin & Haggarty, 2001). Differences in the intended curriculum among countries, such as
students’ performance expectation, knowledge or skill emphasis, and mathematical content
taught, are evident from textbooks studies (Charalambous, Delaney, Hsu, & Mesa, 2010; Li,
2000).
A study of US and China textbooks (Li, 2000), using dimensions of problem
requirements (Figure 1), showed that these textbooks have similar mathematical and
contextual features, but different performance requirement.
Figure 1. Dimensions of problems requirement (Li, 2000, p. 237)
Charalambous et al. (2006) studied textbooks from Cyprus, Ireland, and Taiwan. They
developed a framework called horizontal and vertical analysis (Figure 2). Their study
showed that these textbooks were different in the sequence of topics and topics construct.
They were also different in how they set the requirement of cognitive demand.
Studies of textbooks in a system can adopt similar frameworks or use local curriculum
document to check for textbooks alignment with the curriculum. A study of Singaporean
textbook (Low, 2011) provided a content analysis method to see the alignment of the
textbook with the mathematics curriculum framework. There was also a study of Indonesian
textbook (Mailizar & Fan, 2014), where the authors examined the presence of authentic
tasks in the textbook; authentic task is one of the aspects promoted by the national
curriculum.

Wijaya, Kaur 415
Figure 2. Horizontal and vertical analysis (Charalambous et al., 2010, p. 123)
Conceptual framework
A conceptual framework guides the study (Figure 3). It is developed from the work of many
researchers. The conceptual framework and the following explanation were as seen in the
report of a larger study, which is a master dissertation submitted to National Institute of
Education, Singapore.
Dimension I: Layout and physical characteristics (Charalambous et al., 2010; Wijaya, van
den Heuvel-Panhuizen, & Doorman, 2015)
1. Background Information
i.e. title, authors, publishers and year of publishing, number of books in a set.
2. Layout/overall structure
i.e. number of units, sequence of the units, number of pages per unit, average pages per
unit.
3. Physical characteristics
i.e. number of pages, page size, colour/black and white, picture/illustration of real-life
context.

Figure 3. Conceptual framework for analysis
Dimension II: Knowledge development

1. Sequence of knowledge development in each unit
It provides an explanation on how the development of knowledge is sequenced in each
unit of the textbook.
2. Suggested methods of delivery
Textbooks may specify some suggested methods of delivery in some sections of the
textbooks. There can be various methods mentioned, such as direct instruction, guided
discovery, exercise, etc.
3. Types and number of mathematical tasks in each topic
Drawing on a research on mathematical tasks by Kaur (2010), four types of
mathematical tasks are observed in this study, i.e. learning, review, practice, and
assessment tasks. Additionally, there is another type of mathematical task added into this
study, which is tasks for collaborative learning.
a. Learning tasks
Learning tasks are examples or problems used by teachers to explain, illustrate, or
demonstrate new skills and knowledge to the students (Mok & Kaur, 2006). Drawing
on the work of Mok & Kaur (as cited in Kaur, 2010), learning task is divided into 4
categories based on the purposes. Learning tasks in the form of problems are also
analyzed based on the problem features (the same categories as the analysis of
practice tasks explained in section c).
b. Review tasks
Review tasks are also analyzed based on the purpose.
c. Practice tasks

Wijaya, Kaur 417
Practice task is a mathematical task meant to provide opportunity for students to

practice what they have learned. There is minimum or no teachers’ involvement in a
practice task. Practice tasks are analyzed based on the problem features of each item,
such as mathematical feature, contextual feature, response type, and cognitive
demand (Li, 2000; Stein & Smith, 1998).
d. Assessment tasks
Assessment task is meant to assess and evaluate students’ understanding. There is no
teachers’ involvement in assessment tasks; it is purely the work of a student. The
analysis of assessment tasks is similar to that of practice tasks.
e. Tasks for collaborative learning
Tasks for collaborative learning is meant to encourage discussion among students to
promote students’ collaborative attitude in a group work. The analysis of tasks for
collaborative learning is similar to that of practice tasks.
The study
The study reported in this paper is part of a larger study. It examines three Grade 10
Indonesian mathematics textbooks. They are developed using K13 (2016 revision)
curriculum. The research questions that guide the study reported in this paper are
i) What are the layout features and physical characteristics of the textbooks?
ii) What are the characteristics of learning tasks presented in the topic of Functions in each
textbook?
Methodology
To answer RQ 1, an examination of the outlook of the three textbooks was carried out based
on the first dimension of the framework. Subsequently, the background information, overall
structure, and physical characteristics were obtained from the title page of each book, from
the content page of the textbooks, and by identifying specific features. These identified
outlooks were documented in a coding sheet where the data were presented together (Figure
4), and later examined to find similarities and differences.

Figure 4. Coding sheet for layout and physical characteristics
The investigation for RQ 2 was guided by the second dimension of the framework.
This paper particularly explains about learning tasks. The researcher examined the purpose
of each item and classified it as one of the purposes shown in Figure 1. Learning tasks in
form of problems to solve were also examined based on the problem features (mathematical
feature, contextual feature, response type, and cognitive demand).
Coding sheets were used to document the findings (Figure 5). Each item is documented
in detail. Then, the total number of each criterion was computed and converted into
percentage to enable comparison. The summary of the data was tabulated to enable
exposition of similarities and differences of the characteristics of learning tasks.

Wijaya, Kaur 419
Figure 5. Coding sheets for learning tasks
Data and findings

RQ1: What are the layout features and physical characteristics of the textbooks?
Table 1 shows the similarities and differences among the textbooks regarding their layout
and physical characteristics.
The three textbooks have different detailed information in the title. They also have
different authors, publishers, and years of publishing. Two textbooks are from private
publishers with one author, while another one is from government publisher with seven
authors. Textbook C is divided into 2 books (for semester one and two separately).
Furthermore, textbooks B and C have an additional advanced book used by students taking
the natural science program.
The topics of the textbooks are the same, following the national syllabus. They are
different in the units. They are also different in number of pages, where textbook C has the
most number of pages, followed by textbooks B and A subsequently. Next, all textbooks
have similar physical characteristics, such as the page size, a combination of colour and
black-and-white pages, and availability of real-life pictures to illustrate the learning.

Table 1. Similarities and differences among three textbooks

NO ASPECTS SIMILARITIES DIFFERENCES
1 Title All textbooks include the word A only mentions Mathematics.
“Mathematics”. B also mentions the grade.
C mentions the grade and semester.
Author - A has seven authors.
B and C have only one author each.
Publisher - One government publisher and two private
publishers.
Year of - A and C were published in 2016.
publishing B was published in 2017.
Number of - A has 1 book. B has 2 books. C has 3
books books.
2 Number of - A has 4 units. B has 7 units. C has 9 units.
units
Sequence Same sequencing of topics: Algebra, Different sequencing of units.
of the units Functions, and Trigonometry.
Number of - C has the most numbers of pages.
pages A<B<C
3 Page size Similar page size -
Colour / A combination of colour and Different proportion of colour and
BW black-and-white pages black-and-white pages.
Pictures Available. -
RQ2: What are the characteristics of learning tasks presented in the topic of Functions in each
textbook?
Table 2 and 3 show the summary of the examination of learning tasks.
Table 2. Summary table of the purpose of learning tasks
Textbook Textbook
No Learning Tasks Textbook A
B C
1 Recall prior knowledge 1 2% - 49 24.5%
Introduce new concepts and

2 27 48% 119 73% 98 49%
skills
Make connections between new
3 8 14% 33 20% 49 24.5%
and old knowledge
Introduce knowledge beyond the
4 - 11 7% -
scope

Wijaya, Kaur 421
5 Combined purpose* 20 36% - 4 2%
Total 56 16 200
Note. Combined purpose is a combination of purposes 1, 2, and 3.
Textbook A has emphasis on introducing new concepts and skills, followed by
combined purpose. Combined purpose in textbook A is where the textbook uses guided
instruction to help students arrive in new concept by using their prior knowledge. Textbook
B has many items to introduce new concepts and skills. It also has some items that introduce
knowledge beyond the scope; in this case is the use of calculator, which is not common in
Indonesian high school mathematics. Almost half of the learning tasks in textbooks C aim to
introduce new concepts and skills, followed by items aim to recall prior knowledge and
make connections between new and old knowledge.
Table 3. Summary table of the problem features of learning tasks
Textbook Textbook Textbook

No Learning Tasks
A B C
1 Recognition of Concept 13 24% 18 14% 63 38%
Mathematical 2 Single Computation 2 4% 5 4% 6 4%
A
Features 3 Multiple Computation 36 67% 97 75% 89 53%
4 Integrated Features 3 5% 9 7% 9 5%
Pure Mathematical
Contextual 1
Computation 45 83% 119 92% 167 100%
B
Features 2 Real-life Context 9 17% 10 8% -
1 Multiple Choice Answer - - -

2 Numerical Answer 3 5% 24 19% 36 22%
Response 3 Numerical Explanation 39 72% 92 71% 96 57%

C
Type 4 Explanation of Solution 8 15% 2 2% 14 8%
5 Make a Representation 2 4% 11 8% 15 9%
6 Integrated Response 2 4% - 6 4%
1 Memorization - - -
Procedure without
2 Connection 29 54% 53 41% 88 53%
Comprehension of
Cognitive 3 Concept 14 26% 18 14% 42 25%
D Procedure with
Demand 4 10 18% 38 29% 30 18%
Connection
Problem Solving / Doing
5 Mathematics 1 2% 2 2% 2 1%
6 Other Cognitive Demand - 18 14% 5 3%

Total 54 129 167
Textbook A has emphasis on multiple computation features, followed by recognition

of concept. It is the same case for textbooks B and C. Textbooks A and B have a dominant
portion of pure mathematical computation. Textbook C does not even have any problems
with real-life context.
Majority of items in textbook A require numerical explanation response type. Again,
it is the same case for textbooks B and C. The second dominant response type in textbook A
is explanation of solution, while in textbooks B and C are numerical answer. The dominant
cognitive demand is also the same among the textbooks, which is procedure without
connection. The second emphasis of textbooks A and C is the comprehension of concept,
while for textbook B is the procedure with connection. They have only one or two items
requiring problem solving cognitive demand.

Based on the data analysis presented in previous section, there were similarities and
differences among the textbooks. The textbooks are similar in the sequence of topics and
physical characteristics. The biggest difference was found in the background information
and in the sequence of units.
They also have similar emphasis on the purpose of learning tasks. However, a
uniqueness is evident in textbooks A and B. Textbook A is unique with its combined purpose.
Textbook B is unique in introducing knowledge beyond the scope. The textbooks share
similarities in term of the problem features in their learning tasks. They are similar in the
emphasis on multiple computation and numerical explanation response type, as well as in
few (or none) availability of real-life context problems. They also have the same emphasis
on the level of cognitive demand required, which is procedures without connection.
This study provides a picture of the current stage of Indonesian mathematics textbooks.
However, this study cannot be generalized due to the uniqueness of topic and a wide
variation of textbooks in Indonesia. Further studies are important to study the textbooks
from other perspectives, such as the language used, the readability, etc. It is also important
to study other topics, since each topic is unique in their problem features. And of course,
studies of other textbooks are also needed to have more comparison.
This study may fill the gap of the limited studies of Indonesian mathematics textbooks.
It also provides a conceptual framework suited for mathematics textbooks analysis.
References
Charalambous, C. Y., Delaney, S., Hsu, H. Y., & Mesa, V. (2010). A comparative analysis of
the addition and subtraction of fractions in textbooks from three countries. Mathematical
Thinking and Learning, 12(2), 117-151.

Wijaya, Kaur 423
Fan, L., Zhu, Y., & Miao, Z. (2013). Textbook research in mathematics education:
development status and directions. ZDM: The International Journal on Mathematics
Education, 45, 633-646.
Kaur, B. (2010). A study of mathematical tasks from three classrooms in Singapore. In Y.
Shimizu, B. Kaur, R. Huang, & D. J. Clarke (Eds.), Mathematical tasks in classroom
around the world (pp. 15-33). Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.
Kaur, B., Low, H. K., & Seah, L. H. (2006). Mathematics teaching in two Singapore
classrooms: The role of the textbook and homework. In D. J. Clarke, C. Keitel, & Y.
Shimizu (Eds.), Mathematics classroom in twelve countries: The insiders’ perspective (pp.
99-115). Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.
Kilpatrick, J., Swafford, J., & Findell, B. (2001). Adding it up: Helping children learn
mathematics. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
Li, Y. (2000). A comparison of problems that follow selected content presentations in
American and Chinese mathematics textbooks. Journal for Research in Mathematics
Education, 234-241.
Low, K.S. (2011). Representation of the Singapore Mathematics Framework in Secondary
Textbooks. Unpublished master dissertation, Nanyang Technological University,
Singapore.
Mailizar, M. & Fan, L. (2014, July). Assessing a new Indonesian secondary mathematics
textbook: How does it promote authentic learning? Paper presented at the International
Conference on Mathematics Textbook Research and Development, University of
Southampton, UK.
Mok, I. A. C. & Kaur, B. (2006). ‘Learning task’ lesson event. In D. Clarke, J. Emanuelsson,
E. Jablonka, & I. A. C. Mok (Eds.), Making connections: Comparing mathematics
classroom around the world. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.
Pepin, B. (2008). Mathematical tasks in textbooks – developing an analytical tool based on
‘connectivity’. Paper presented at the 11th International Congress on Mathematical
Education (ICME-11) Discussion Group 17, Mexico. Retrieved Apr 21, 2009 from
11th International Congress on Mathematics Education (ICME-12) 2008 website:
http://dg.icme11.org/tsg/show/18.
Pepin, B. & Haggarty, L. (2001). Mathematics textbooks and their use in English, French and
German classrooms: a way to understand teaching and learning cultures. ZDM: The
International Journal on Mathematics Education, 33(5), 158-175.
Remillard, J. T. & Heck, D. J. (2014). Conceptualizing the curriculum enactment process in
mathematics education. ZDM Mathematics Education, 46, 705-718.
Schmidt, W. H., McKnight, C. C., Houang, R. T., Wang, H., Wiley, D. E., Cogan, L. S., &
Wolfe, R. G. (2001). Why schools matter: a cross-national comparison of curriculum and
learning. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Stein, M. K., & Smith, M. S. (1998). Mathematical tasks as a framework for reflection: From
research to practice. Mathematics teaching in the middle school, 3(4), 268-275.

Valverde, G. A., Bianchi, L. J., Wolfe, R. G., Schmidt, W. H., & Houang, R. T. (2002).
According to the book: Using TIMSS to investigate the translation of policy into practice
through the world of textbooks. Dordrecht, Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Wijaya, A., van den Heuvel-Panhuizen, M., & Doorman, M. (2015). Opportunity-to-learn
context-based tasks provided by mathematics textbooks. Educational Studies in
Acknowledgement
Participation in this conference is funded by Lembaga Pengelola Dana Pendidikan (LPDP),
Indonesia.
Teresa Oktaviani Wijaya

National Institute of Education
teresaowijaya@gmail.com
Berinderjeet Kaur
berinderjeet.kaur@nie.edu.sg

Wong, Kaur 425
DEVELOPING IN-SERVICE MATHEMATICS TEACHER

PRACTICE THROUGH A COLLABORATIVE AND REFLECTIVE
APPROACH
Wong Lai Fong, National Institute of Education, Singapore
Berinderjeet Kaur, National Institute of Education, Singapore
Introduction
Research has shown that professional development (PD) of teachers that is carefully
designed and implemented can have significant impact on teacher knowledge and skills
which in turn results in improved student achievement (Darling-Hammond, Wei, Andree,
Richardson, & Orphanos, 2009). Lipowsky and Rzejak (2015) identified several features of
effective professional development:
1. A minimum length
2. Combined and related phases of input, practice and reflection
3. Focus on students’ domain-specific processes of learning and understanding
4. Teachers experiencing the impact of their pedagogical actions
5. Feedback to teachers
6. Cooperation within professional learning communities
An extended period and a certain number of contact hours are necessary, though not
sufficient, for teachers’ learning during PD programmes (Timperley et al., 2007), to ensure
that teachers have the space and time to reflect on their learning and apply it in class what
they have learned between sessions (Garet et al., 2001). Teachers view PD initiatives as
effective if they have clear relevance to their day-to-day teaching and the programs have a
clear focus on specific aspects of teaching or facilitation of student learning (Maaβ &
Artigue, 2013). “Teachers’ everyday work could become a source of constructive PD” (Ball
& Cohen, 1999, p. 6) through the development of a curriculum for professional learning that
is grounded in the tasks, questions, and problems of practice. Teachers learn best when
observing, being observed, planning for classroom implementation, reviewing student work,
and presenting, leading, and writing (Stiff, 2002). Therefore, opportunities for teachers to
engage in active learning are certainly related to effectiveness of PD (Desimone, 2009;
Wilson & Berne, 1999). In addition, collective participation by teachers from the same
school, grade or department allow for a powerful form of teacher learning through
prolonged interaction and discourse (Desimone, 2009; Stiff, 2002; Wilson & Berne, 1999),
and PD programs that foster collaboration have been found to be effective (Borasi & Fonzi,
2002; Elmore, 2002).
Matos, Powell and Sztajn (2009) noted that in teacher PD, learning should not be
defined as the acquisition of knowledge of a propositional nature, but rather be
conceptualized as being situated in forms of co-participation in the practices of teachers.
Teachers participating in such learning may be said to belong to a community of practice
(CoP) (Lave & Wenger, 1991). Such a community does not exist when a group of teachers

426 Developing In-Service Mathematics Teacher Practice through a Collaborative and Reflective Approach
from several schools are interacting in a given setting such as attending a series of seminars
or workshops, nor with groups of teachers in the same school who are teaching the same
subject or year level but do not have mutual relationship and shared goals. According to
Wenger (1998), a CoP is a group of persons sharing the same practice. It has three key
features: the members of a community of practice have a mutual enterprise; a shared
commitment; and a common repertoire. This repertoire can contain material objects and
stories that are shared by members of the community. When teachers have shared goals
their professional conversations can provide them with the encouragement and support that
is needed to begin to experiment with new approaches to teaching (Britt, Irwin & Ritchie,
2001; Kaur & Wong, 2016) and support their sense of competence as they engage in the
work of changing practice (Arbaugh, 2003; Edwards & Hensien, 1999; Jaworski, 1998;
Kaur & Wong, 2016; Smylie, 1988).
Reflection is a fundamental aspect of learning and can be related to experience
(Reinholz, 2016) therefore in teacher PD “it is the act of processing an experience, action or
practice” (p. 444). Through reflection teachers can attempt to gain deeper insight into the
experience to better inform and guide their actions (Pavlovich, 2007). Engaging teachers in
retrospective reflection (i.e. understanding an experience that has already taken place) is the
beginning of the journey towards prospective reflection. Prospective reflection guides one’s
actions during an experience, a hallmark of competent disciplinary and professional
performance (Hatton & Smith, 1995). Schoenfeld (1985) in his work on problem solving
with students has shown that students can be moved from retrospective reflection, through
external prompting, to prospective reflection. It must be noted that the development takes
time and concerted action by both the teacher and students.
The Study
The study reported in this paper is on a part of the data of the Teaching for Metacognition
project. It examines the perceptions of the teachers in the project related to changes in their
teaching practice and student learning following participation in the project. The research
questions that guide the study are:
1. What were the perceptions of the teachers about how the collaborative approach
adopted by the project impacted their learning?
2. What were the perceptions of the teachers about their teaching practice following
participation in the project, specifically related to (i) reflecting on practice, and (ii)
teaching approaches?
3. What were the perceptions of the teachers about how their learning in the project
impacted their students’ learning?
Teaching for Metacognition Project
Teaching for Metacognition project, is a hybrid model of PD (Kaur, 2011) that integrates
the “training model of PD” (Matos et al., 2009) with sustained support for teachers to
integrate knowledge gained from the PD into their classroom practice. It exemplifies a
critical development in the professional development of teachers in many parts of the world.
This development reflects a gradual shift in the centre of gravity away from the

Wong, Kaur 427
University-based, “supply-side”, “off-line” forms of knowledge production conducted by

university researchers for teachers towards an emergent school-based, demand-side, on-line,
in situ forms of knowledge production by teachers with support from university scholars.
The aims of the project are threefold. The first is to provide teachers with knowledge and
know-how of crafting performative tasks and how teachers may engage their students in
metacognition during the learning of mathematics, i.e., metacognitive strategies. The second
is to facilitate teaching for metacognition, which is a reflective practice, in the classrooms of
teachers in the project. The third is to enthuse and support teachers to contribute towards the
development of fellow mathematics teachers in Singapore and elsewhere.
Design of the project
The five significant features of the project are i) it is focused on what to teach and how to teach, ii)
it is coherent with the needs of the teachers, iii) its duration is significantly longer than most
in-service courses teachers attend, iv) it engages teachers in active learning, and v) there is
collective participation at two levels – school and project (for a detailed description of the design
see Kaur, Bhardwaj & Wong, 2017).
Participants
Forty in-service secondary mathematics teachers from seven secondary schools (a minimum
of 4 teachers per school, with pairs of teachers teaching the same grade levels and course of
study) participated in the project. In the first year of the project, all the teachers attended the
PD workshops and completed the pre-intervention survey. In the second year of the project,
due to some teachers leaving their schools for studies, family reasons and other
administrative roles only 29 completed the post intervention surveys. The project was
facilitated by a professor and a research associate from the NIE, and a lead teacher from a
secondary school.
Implementation of the project
The project had three phases spread over two school years. A school year comprises two
semesters, each of 20-week duration. Details of the phases are as follows.
Phase I. Duration of this phase was the first semester of the first year of the project (i.e.
from January till May). The phase started with the participants completing the
Pre-Intervention Teacher Survey. The survey sought from teachers their understanding
about performative tasks, knowledge-building tasks, metacognition and teaching for
metacognition. The findings of data from the survey were used to plan the
knowledge-building workshops for the participants. Seven three-hour knowledge-building
workshops were organized for the teachers.
Phase II. The second phase of the project was the second semester of the first year of
the project. It was from July till November of the year. During this phase the school groups
of the project worked collaboratively and implemented their planned lesson. They wrote a
detailed lesson plan for the lesson they were carrying out. One teacher from the group
taught the lesson to his/her students and the lesson was video-recorded. The school group
met and viewed the lesson and prepared their presentation for the project group sharing

meetings. Two project group meetings were held in October. During the project group
meetings, the school group that presented solicited feedback from the project group. All
participants in the project group except the teachers from the presenting school, participated
in the feedback session. They used the four-lens noticing feedback framework, shown in
Figure 1, to give their feedback. The research team collected the feedback and the feedback
was collated before it was sent back to the school group that presented.
Following the sharing sessions, the research team organized a meeting with every
school group. Each meeting lasted between 2 to 3 hours. A total of seven meetings were
held. During the meetings the feedback from the project group was discussed and addressed.
The feedback was very helpful as it provided the views of many more pairs of eyes
reviewing the lesson. In addition, during the meetings the research team inducted the school
group into a four-step approach to facilitate working and learning collaboratively when
integrating their new knowledge into classroom practice. The four steps were as follows:
1. Plan and write a detailed plan of the lesson.
2. Enact and video-record the lesson.
3. Watch the recorded lesson, compare it with the lesson plan and write the lesson
narrative detailing the short comings and what the team would do differently the next
time. A set of prompts were provided by the research team to guide the writing of the
lesson narrative.
4. Write a reflection about your learning journey. Every member should do this
individually, subsequently meet as a group and share with each other the reflections.
The journal prompt was “Describe in detail your learning journey during the
planning, enacting and reviewing of your team’s lesson that was carried out with the
goal of teaching for metacognition”.

Wong, Kaur 429
Figure 1. The four-lens noticing feedback framework

Phase III. This phase was a year-long and in the second year. Participants of the project
continued to work in their school groups and integrate their new knowledge into classroom
practice. They attended periodic project meetings during which the school groups
showcased their lessons and invited critique and suggestions from the project group. In
addition, the school groups engaged in activities through which they contributed towards the
development of fellow teachers both nationally and internationally. The phase ended with
the participants completing the Post-Intervention Teacher Survey.
Data and Analysis
The source of data were the qualitative responses extracted from the participants’ reflective
journal and responses to the post intervention survey prompts as follows:
 How did working and learning as a team in your school help in you in your learning
journey?
 How did the large group (whole project group) sharings help you in your learning
journey?
 Has your classroom pedagogy been changed after the PD?
 How did the knowledge that you acquired during the PD impact your students’
learning of mathematics?
The data reported in this paper was collected at the end of the second year of the project.
The qualitative data from the post intervention survey was subjected to content analysis

(Weber, 1990). We adopted a deductive approach. We identified themes and searched for
characteristics that related to the specific research questions.
Findings and Discussion
Collaborative learning
The teachers in the project had cited several benefits of the collaborative approach in their
learning during the project such as advantages of team work over individual work, greater
teacher confidence, improved self-efficacy, openness to new ideas and practices. The gains
extend to collegiality, moral support through the stress of change, reassurance that other
teachers are also faced with similar problems and issues of concerns, and sharing of tasks to
ensure better use of time. Figure 2 shows examples of excerpts from the responses of the
teachers on their collaborative learning journey.
Figure 2. Sample excerpts about collaborative learning

Reflecting on practice
Figure 3 shows examples of excerpts from the responses of the teachers in the project about
reflecting on their practice. From the content analysis of the responses of the teachers it was
apparent that for some following participation in the project led them to be retrospective in
reflection. Through reflection they gained deeper insight into their classroom practice as
reflection is related to experience (Reinholz, 2016). Their students also appeared to be on
their journey towards prospective reflection (Schoenfeld, 1985). The four-lens noticing
framework helped some teachers in their reflection.

Wong, Kaur 431
Figure 3. Sample excerpts about reflecting on practice

Changes in approaches
The teachers in the project claimed that participation in the project led to changes in their
approaches for teaching mathematics. Figures 3 and 4 show samples of the excerpts.
Content analysis of the responses of the teachers show that teachers attempted to make their
lessons more student-centric through strategies such as self-assessing and evaluating their
own strengths and weaknesses. The knowledge gained whilst participating in the project
helped them to be effective facilitators as they were able to draw on appropriate thinking
prompts to scaffold their students’ thinking. They were also more cognisant of the use of
knowledge-building tasks in engaging students’ to construct their mathematical knowledge
and comfortable in posing open-ended questions. Furthermore, they appreciated that
evaluating students’ learning “goes beyond looking at quantitative data, e.g. test and
examination results”. They now understood how to help students enhance their learning
with the knowledge they had acquired.
Figure 4. Sample excerpts about changes in approaches

Impact on student learning

Figures 3, 4 and 5 show samples of excerpts that illustrate impact of teachers’ new
knowledge on student learning. The content analysis of the responses show that the apparent
impact was in three areas, namely attitudes, mathematical processes and metacognition. The
attitudes of the students were positively uplifted as they were actively engaged during
lessons with knowledge-building tasks that were at times challenging but manageable as the
teachers scaffolded students’ thinking in ways that empowered them to think “out of the
box”, take ownership of their learning, work collaboratively and learn from mistakes.
Figure 5. Sample excerpts about impact on student learning

The mathematical processes – reasoning and communication were also honed as
students verbalised their thoughts, justifying their responses and articulating solutions of
mathematical tasks they worked on. The students also felt comfortable presenting solutions
that were diverse and rationalising their approaches, which at times were erroneous.
Teachers reported that students appeared to be metacognating – “thinking about their work”.
They were questioning, critiquing their solutions and identifying gaps in their knowledge.
They also demonstrated more awareness of their thought processes and were developing the
habit of engaging in prospective reflection using scaffolds such as “can I do it in another
way”, “did I make an error” and “is my answer reasonable” (Schoenfeld, 1985).
Conclusion
In the Teaching for Metacognition project teachers’ practice was developed through a
collaborative and reflective approach. The teachers worked collaboratively in school-based
communities of practice and adopted a reflective approach to develop their classroom
practice. It is apparent from the perceptions of the teachers that following participation in
the project they were reflecting on their classroom practice and also infusing their new
knowledge into their classrooms that led to changes in their approaches to the teaching of
mathematics. The new approaches, adopted by the teachers, gave students opportunities to
engage, reflect and be empowered in the process of learning mathematics. It appears that the
project had an impact on teachers’ knowledge and skills that in turn led to desirable student
outcomes. This suggests that the PD designed and implemented was effective

Wong, Kaur 433
(Darling-Hammond, Wei, Andree, Richardson, & Orphanos, 2009). As reported in Kaur and
Wong (2016), these positive outcomes may also be attributed to the teachers having shared
goals and professional conversations that provided them with encouragement and support to
experiment with new approaches to teaching (Britt, Irwin & Ritchie, 2001).
The findings of this project are heartening but it is important to ensure that the changes
in the approaches are sustained and further enhanced to benefit student learning. The data
reported in this paper was collected at the end of the second year of the project.
Acknowledgement
This paper is based on data from the research project Teaching for Metacognition (AFD
02/14BK), funded by the Education Research Funding Programme, National Institute of
Education (NIE), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. The views expressed in
this paper are the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the host institution.
References
Arbaugh, F. (2003). Study groups as a form of professional development for secondary
mathematics teachers. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 6(2), 139-163.
Ball, D. L., & Cohen, D. K. (1999). Developing practice, developing practitioners: Towards a
practice-based theory of professional education. In L. Darling-Hammond & G. Sykes
(Eds.), Teaching as the learning profession: Handbook of policy and practice (pp. 3-32).
San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Borasi, R., & Fonzi, J. (2002). Professional development that supports school mathematics
reform. Foundations series of monographs for professionals in science, mathematics and
technology education. Arlington, VA: National Science Foundation.
Britt, M.S., Irwin, K.C. & Ritchie, G. (2001). Professional conversations and growth. Journal
of Mathematics Teacher Education, 4(1), 29-53.
Darling-Hammond, L. Wei, R., Andree, A., Richardson, N. & Orphanos, S. (2009).
Professional learning in the learning profession: A status report on teacher education in the
United States and abroad. Dallas, TX: National Staff Development Council.
Desimone, L. M. (2009). Improving impact studies on teachers’ professional development:
Toward better conceptualisations and measures. Educational Researcher, 38(3), 181–199.
Edwards, T.G. & Hensien, S.M. (1999). Changing instructional practice through action
research. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 2(2), 187-206.
Elmore, R. F. (2002). Bridging the gap between standards and achievement: The imperative
for professional development in education. Washington, DC: Albert Shanker Institute.
Garet M.S., Porter A.C., Desimore L., Birman B.F. & Yoon K. S. (2001). What makes
professional development effective?: Results from a national sample of teachers.
American Educational Research Journal, 38(4), pp. 915-945.
Hatton, N. & Smith, D. (1995). Reflection in teacher education: towards definition and
implementation. Teaching and Teacher Education, 11(1), 33-49.
Jaworski, B. (1998). Mathematics teacher research: process, practice and the development of
teaching. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 1(1), 3-31.

Kaur, B. (2011). Enhancing the pedagogy of mathematics teachers (EPMT) project: A hybrid
model of professional development. ZDM - The International Journal on Mathematics
Education, 43(7), 791-803.
Kaur, B. & Wong, L.F. (2016). A collaborative and reflective approach to Teaching for
Metacognition. In White, B., Chinnappan, M. & Trenholm, S. (Eds.) Opening up
Mathematics Education Research - Proceedings of the 39th Annual Conference of the
Mathematics Education Research group of Australasia (pp. 374-380). Adelaide, Australia:
Mathematics Research Education Group of Australasia.
Kaur, B., Bhardwaj, D. & Wong, L.F. (2017). Teaching for metacognition project -
Construction of knowledge by mathematics teachers working and learning collaboratively
in multi-tier communities of practice.. In Kaur, B., Kwon, O.N. & Leong, Y.H. (Eds.),
Professional development of mathematics teachers: An Asian perspective (pp. 169-187).
Singapore: Springer.
Lave, J. & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lipowsky, F., & Rzejak, D. (2015). Key features of effective professional development
programmes for teachers. RICERCAZIONE, 27.
Maaβ , K. & Artique, M. (2013). Implementation of inquiry-based learning in day-to-day
teaching: a synthesis. ZDM – The International Journal of Mathematics Education, 45(6),
779-795.
Matos, J. F., Powell, A., & Sztajn, P. (2009). Mathematics teachers’ professional
development: Processes of learning in and from practice. In R. Even & D. L. Ball (Eds.),
The professional education and development of teachers of mathematics (pp. 167 – 183).
New York: Springer.
Pavlovich, K. (2007). The development of reflective practice through student journals.
Higher Education Research and Development, 26(3), 281-295.
Reinholz, D.L. (2016). Developing mathematical practices through reflection cycles.
Mathematics Education Research Journal, 28(3), 441-455.
Schoenfeld, A.H. (1985). Mathematical problem solving. New York: Academy Press.
Smylie, M.A. (1988). The enhancement function of staff-development – organizational and
psychological antecedents to individual teacher change. American Educational Research
Journal, 25(1), 1-30.
Stiff, L. V. (2002, March). Study shows high-quality professional development helps teachers
most. NCTM News Bulletin, 38(7), 7.
Timperley H., Wilson A., Barrar H. & Fung I. (2007). Teacher professional learning and
development: Best evidence synthesis iteration (BES). Wellington: Ministry of Education.
Weber, R.P. (1990). Basic content analysis. Newbury Park, Cal.: Sage.
Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: learning, meaning and identity. New York:
Cambridge University Press.

Wong, Kaur 435
Wilson, S. M., & Berne, J. (1999). Teacher learning and the acquisition of professional
knowledge: An examination of research on contemporary professional development.
Review of Research in Education, 24(1), 173-209.
Wong Lai Fong

Nanyang Technological University
1 Nanyang Walk, Singapore 637616
laifong.wong@nie.edu.sg
Berinderjeet Kaur
Nanyang Technological University
1 Nanyang Walk, Singapore 637616
berinderjeet.kaur@nie.edu.sg

436 Effects of Different Adaptive Methods on Math Achievement, Cognitive Load and Time Allocation in
an Example-Based Learning System
EFFECTS OF DIFFERENT ADAPTIVE METHODS ON MATH

ACHIEVEMENT, COGNITIVE LOAD AND TIME ALLOCATION
IN AN EXAMPLE-BASED LEARNING SYSTEM
Huei-min Wu, Fo Guang University, Taiwan
Hui-chuan Huang, Fo Guang University, Taiwan
Chi-Jen Lin, Fo Guang University, Taiwan
Yu-Kai Chu, Yilan Yuan-Shan Public High School, Taiwan
Background
Shifting instructional method from teacher-center approach to student-centered approach is
a current trend in education (Norman & Spohrer, 1996). From constructivism’s perspective,
knowledge is discovered and constructed by the learners. Based on this assumption,
learning would be more effective if the instructional situation allows them to discover things
or their own solutions. The trend also stresses the importance of flexibility in instruction so
that it caters for individual differences. From cognition perspective, no learning will occur
if learners do not attend to the information or do not have sufficient time to process the
information. The efficiency in information processing is also related to learners’
background knowledge (Brunning, 1983). More knowledgeable learners are able to chunk
or link information to their prior knowledge, which allows them to process information
more efficiently than those are short of relevant schema or background knowledge. It
follows that ideally, instructional methods or instructional materials should be adaptive and
tailored to the needs of the learners. The idea unfortunately is difficult to implement in
normal classroom instruction.
With the advancement of technology, adaptive instruction becomes more feasible.
Technology has not only enriched the diversity of instructional content but also the path to
the learning goal. A variety of technology-based instructional material or learning system
allow students to learn at different levels, progress at their own path, and even to choose
materials that are of their interest. Learners are expected to play a more active role in their
own learning processes. Flexibility and learner control characterize an adaptive learning
environment. However, it remains a question regarding what an effective adaptive system
should stand on in order to achieve optimum results. What should be flexible and what level
of learner control should the material or system provide that would benefit learners?
Issues of learner control in an adaptive learning environment
A substantial number of studies have contributed to our understanding of factors that
influence the effectiveness of an adaptive learning environment. While flexibility in
instructional control has characterized an adaptive learning environment, Hannafin (1984)
has indicated that the level and type of instructional control is affected by the learning tasks
and learner characteristics. According to Hannafin(1984), high level of learner control
might not benefit young, low ability or beginning learners, nor is it recommended for
learning factual information or unfamiliar content.

Wu, Huang, Lin, Chu 437
Scheiter & Gerjets (2007), on the other hand, noted the differences of the structure for
different types of adaptive learning environment. They reviewed literature on learner control
and summarized the types of flexibility that learners control: (1) control the order of the
learning units (e.g. linear, or non-linear) (2)control the amount of information received (e.g.
to receive the information or to ignore) (3) control to display certain type of content (e.g.
auditory, visual or both) (4) to control the speed of content presentation (e.g. when to play,
pause, stop or repeat). The first three types of control were considered harder than the last
type. In other words, the flexibility of different adaptive design offers different types of
learner control and involves different complexity and structure of program or system design
and different structures of the information accessed. The question arises then not all learners
are capable of understanding their own needs or controlling their own learning path
(Kirschner & van Merriënboer, 2013).
Adaptive learning and Cognitive load
Sweller(2010) and Kalyuga (2007, 2009) argued from the perspectives of human cognitive
architecture and cognitive load theory, not learner preference, that learning should be
adaptive. According to Sweller, learning is most effective and efficient under conditions that
are aligned with human cognitive architecture. Human has limited working memory
capacity and long-term memory plays an important role in the process of information
processing. When learning new material or cultural created knowledge, learning can be
laborious and demand much cognitive capacity (Sweller & Sweller, 2006). Schema or prior
knowledge may reduce the cognitive demands. In addition, the way information is
structured and presented will also affect levels of cognitive load during the learning
processes. The more is not necessary the better since additional information may impose
more cognitive load on the learners or distract learners’ attention from the key aspects of the
learning tasks. Research on cognitive load theory also identifies several guidelines for
designing instructional material (See Sweller, 2010). While constructive approach to
learning has been a trend, empirical studies on cognitive load shows that example-based
approach to learning is more effective than problem-solving based approach to learning for
beginning or novice learners. On the other hand, what is an effective design for novice or
low prior knowledge learners may have negative impact for learners with more expertise. It
suggests that learning should be adaptive.
Purpose
Based on the above background, it is clear that an adaptive approach to instruction has its
necessity. The focus of this study was within the example-based learning environment,
how different types of adaptive methods could affect students’ learning performance
(achievement) , their allocation of time, and their perception of cognitive load.
Design and method
Two variables were investigated: presentation orders (worked example-practice, theWP
order, and practice-worked example, the PW order) and control mode (system control and
learner control). In the system control mode, the system determined when leaners should
study a worked example presented in a multimedia format, and in the learner control mode,

the learners had the option of choosing to study a worked example or not. Four types of
instructional materials were designed: Forced worked example-problem (FWP), forced
problem-worked example (FPW), Optional worked example-problem (OWP) and Optional
problem-worked example (OPW).
The four types of instructional mode was described as follows:
1. Forced Worked example-Problem condition(FWP): This was a system control mode. After
instruction, a worked example was given before the learners proceeded to solve similar
problems. Every time a mistake was made, the learners were forced to see the example again
before they solved the next problem in the problem set. Once they had got two consecutive
correct problem solving, they would be directed to the example of next problem set.
2. Forced Problem-Worked Example(FPW): This was also a system control mode. After
instruction, the learners were directed to problem solving. Every time a mistake was made,
the learners were forced to see the example again before they proceeded to solve the next
problem in the problem set. The procedure between the FWP and FPW was the same, except
the presentation order.
3. Optional Worked Example-Problem(OWP): This was a learner control mode. The
presentation order was the same as the FWP. The difference between FWP and OWP was
that on the appearance of the practice problem, learners in OWP could choose to see the
worked example or go directly to solve the practice problem.
4. Optional Problem-Worked Example(OPW): This was also a learner control mode. The
presentation was the same as FPW. The worked example button was available on every
practice problem. The learner could choose to see or to ignore. The difference between FPW
and OPW was that the learner in the OPW could still choose whether they wanted to see the
worked example or not after they made a mistake.
Material and learning system
The content for this study focused on learning the triangle area problems. Cheng, Kuo and
Chen (2014) conducted a test on area problems and analyzed the types of errors and
misconceptions that elementary students had on solving area problems. This provided an
important reference for our design of the learning content. Cheng, Kuo and Chen’s (2014)
study also shown that, for mathematics, there was a knowledge structure. Low level
knowledge was the basis for solving problems of high level knowledge structure. This
suggested that the structure of the instructional material was important. Tso (2014)
suggested a model of constructing instructional material by combining APOS theory (action,
process, object and schema) and cognitive load theory. This study followed Tso’s (2014)
model to construct our instructional material.
Six lessons were developed. Each lesson consisted of a pretest, worked examples and
practice problems, two cognitive load questions (effort demanded and effort invested) and
an immediate posttest. After completing the six lessons, there was a one-week delayed test.
Test instrument

There were a pretest and posttest for each lesson and a delayed posttest for the overall
lessons. All the test items were different items. Content validity was achieved by inviting
four scholars with PhD in math, math education, educational psychology and three
elementary math teachers to review the appropriateness of the wordings, the presentation,
difficulty level of the items, the grouping of the problem set and the appropriateness of the
example items for the problem set. Cronbach’s Alpha for internal consistency for the pretest,
immediate test and delayed posttest was .818, .785, .825 respectively.
Participants:
The participants were sixty-seven fifth graders and ten fourth graders (47 males and 30
females) from two elementary schools in Taiwan. They were randomly assigned to one of
the experimental conditions.
Results
The interest of this study was to examine whether there were differences in performance,
time on task and perception of cognitive load and motivation between two types of
instructional control (learner control and system control and within each control type,
whether the presentation order of the material (WP vs PW ) had an impact on performance.
Three planned comparisons were conducted:
1. Contrast 1 (C1) the effect of control mode (the two learner control modes, versus the two
system control modes),
2. Contrast 2 (C2: ) the presentation order effect within learner control (OWP vs OPW),
3. Contract 3 (C3): the presentation order effect within the system control mode (FWP vs
FPW).
The equal sample size required for planned contrasts was adjusted by Fan’s (1988)
statistical procedure.
Performance on problem solving.
The students’ performance on the test and practice items are shown on Table 1. ANOVA
analysis shows that there was no significant differences among groups in the pretest,
F(3,73)=.166，p=.91.
There was a significant difference in the number of problems practiced, F(3,73)=5.21，
p=.003. Contrast 1 shows that there was no difference in number of questions practiced
between types of learner control, t(73)=1.283, p>.05. Contrast 2 showed that there was no
significant presentation order effect within the learner control mode, (73)=-.970, p>.05, but
Contrast3 shows a significant presentation order effect within the system control mode,
t(73)= -3.669 p<001. Students in the WP order needed to practice significantly fewer
numbers of problems to meet the criteria of two consecutive correct responses in a problem
set than students in the PW order.
There were significant differences among groups in the proportion correct for the practice
problems, F(3,73)=3.45，p=.021., Contrast 1 showed that there was a significant difference
tween the types of control, t(73)=-2.78, p<.01, with participants in the system control mode

made significantly less errors and produced higher proportion of correct responses than
those in the learner control mode., t(73)=1.67, p>.05. Contrast 2 showed that the WP
presentation order (OWP) produced significant more correct responses than the PW
presentation order (OPW) within the learner control mode, t(73)=-2.071, p<.05. Contrast 3
showed that no presentation order effect was observed within the system control mode,
t(73)=.929, p>.05.
There were no significant differences among groups in the immediate posttest, F(3,73)=.745，
p=.528.
Due to time constraint, only thirty-two students finished the delayed posttest. The
preliminary data for the delayed test would be presented but no inferential statistics
conducted..
Table 1 statistics for test and practice performance
Time on task
Table 2 shows the statistics for students’ time on task, including their example studying
time and problem practicing time. There were significant differences in example study time
among the groups, F(3, 73)=18.002. p<.001. Contrast 1 shows that the learner control
groups (OWP, OPW) spent significantly less time than the system control groups (FWP,
FPW) in studying the examples, t(39.150)=-3.934, p=.001. Within the learner control group,
the difference between the two presentation orders was also significant, t(32.018)=10.456,
p<.001, with the OWP group spent significantly more time than the OPW group. Within
the two system control groups, the presentation order effect was also significant,

t(32.187)=2.216, p<.05, with the FWP spent significantly more time than the FPW. In other
words, participants in system control mode and WP presentation orders spent more time in
studying the examples than the learner control mode and the PW presentation order.
ANOVA analysis on problem solving time shows that there were significant differences
among the groups, F(3, 70)=6.013, p=.001. Contrast 1shows that there were no significant
differences between the two control g modes, t(70)= -.714, p>.05. Within the learner control
group, there was a significant presentation order effect, t(70)=-2.326, p<.05, with the OPW
group spent significantly more time in practice problem solving than the OWP group.
Within the system control group, there was also a significant presentation order effect
t(70)=-3.625, p=.001, with the FPW group spent significantly more time in practice solving
problems than FWP the group. In other words, participants in the PW order invested more
time in solving problems than the WP order.
Table 2 Statics for example study and problem solving practice time
Table 3 shows how students allocated their time under different control modes and different
presentation orders.
Table 3 Percentage of time allocation among the four learning group
Cognitive load
Table 4 shows the average perception of cognitive load among groups during the learning
and practice lessons. ANOVA analyses show that there were no significant differences

among groups in perception of laborious effort demanded, F(3,73)=.483, p>.05, and

conscientious effort invested, F(3,73)=.329, p>.05.
Table 4 Mean perception of Cognitive load during the learning and practice lessons

This study examined two types of control mode and two types of presentation order . Four
types of instructional materials were designed: Forced worked example-problem (FWP),
forced problem-worked example (FPW), Optional worked example-problem (OWP) and
Optional problem-worked example (OPW). The results showed that that when given
flexibility, learners tended to ignore the opportunity to study a worked example and devoted
most of their time in doing practice problems. This was clearly demonstrated in the OPW
group, which had the highest flexibility among the four conditions. This group spent very
little time in studying the example and most of their time in problem solving, since errors
were made, more practice was needed.
Presentation order of worked example and practice problems might affect students’
performance during the learning and practice session, but did not affect their final
performance in the posttest. The system required two consecutive correct responses in a
problem set. The presentation order effects in the practice session were significant within
the two control modes could be understood as the advantage of seeing an example. However,
the result of this study also demonstrated that when there was freedom to ignore the
examples, the learners would. The results also show that that the disadvantage of ignoring
the examples could be compensated by more practices, provided that the system was
well-structured and the content were organized as the one we used. The students could
acquire problem solving schema by solving lots of problems. Or put it in another way, by
learning from experts (the examples), less practice was required. It was then a matter of
allocating the time during the process. On the average, students in the WP order spent 58%
of their time in studying the worked examples and 42% in practicing solving problems, and
achieved 68%~77% correct, while those in the PW order spent 14%~29% of their time in

studying worked examples and 71%~86% practicing solving problems, and achieved
62%~69% correct. Regardless of the presentation order and control mode, they all achieved
at a similar level of proficiency at the posttest and perceived no difference in cognitive load.
Future study is needed to understand the long-term effect of the system, i.e. delayed
performance, and to examine ability difference under this system.
References
Brunning, I. L. (1983). An information processing approach to a theory of instruction. ECTJ.,
31(2), 81–101.
Cheng,C., Kuo,B., Chen,M. (2014) Research on Cognitive Diagnostic Evaluation under
Dynamic Geometry Learning Environment. Technical report for National Science Council,
Taiwan (NSC 102-2511-S-656-004-). Retrieved from Ministry of Science and Technology,
https://statistics.most.gov.tw//award/
Fan, D. (1988). The Importance and Statistical Procedures of Priori Comparisons among
Means. Journal of National Taiwan Normal University. 33. 163-185.
Kalyuga, S. （2007）. Expertise Reversal Effect and Its Implications for Learner-Tailored
Instruction. Educational Psychology Review, 19 （4）, p509-539.
Kalyuga, S. （2009）. Managing Cognitive Load in Adaptive Multimedia Learning. New
York： Information Science reference.
Hannafin, M. J. (1984). Guidelines for using locus of instructional control in the design of
computer-assisted instruction. Journal of Instructional Development, 7(3), 6–10.
Kirschner, P. A., & van Merriënboer, J. J. (2013). Do learners really know best? Urban
legends in education. Educational psychologist, 48(3), 169-183.
Norman, D. A., & Spohrer, J. C. (1996). Learner-centered education. Communications of the
ACM, 39(4), 24-27.
Scheiter, K., & Gerjets, P. (2007). Learner control in hypermedia environments. Educational
Psychology Review, 19(3), 285-307
Sweller, J. (2010). Element interactivity and intrinsic, extraneous, and germane cognitive
load. Educational Psychology Review, 22, 123-138.
Sweller, J., & Sweller, S. (2006). Natural information processing systems. Evolutionary
Psychology, 4, 434-458.
TSO,T (2014) Design, Construction and Evaluation of Dynamic Geometry Learning
Environment. Technical report for National Science Council, Taiwan (NSC
100-2511-S-003-038-MY3) Retrieved from Ministry of Science and Technology,
https://statistics.most.gov.tw//award/
Acknowledgement
This research was supported by a research grant from the National Science Council，
Taiwan (Grant no. MOST 104-2511-S-431-002)
.

[Huei-min Wu]
[Fo Guang University, No.160, Linwei Rd., Jiaosi, Yilan County 26247, Taiwan (R.O.C.)]
[hmwu@mail.fgu.edu.tw]
[Hui-chuan Huang]
[youzhen@mail.fgu.edu.tw]
[Chi-Jen Lin]
[cjlin@mail.fgu.edu.tw]
[Yu-Kai Chu]
[Yilan Yuan-Shan Public High School, No.92, Wenquan Rd., Yuanshan Township, Yilan
County 264, Taiwan (R.O.C.)]
[chuyk@ilc.edu.tw]

Wu, Hsieh 445
WHETHER HIGH SCHOOL MATH CURRICULUM HELP

UNDERSTAND COLLEGE MATH FOCUSING ON
MATHEMATICAL THINKING AND REASONING
COMPETENCIES
Pei-Chen Wu, National Taiwan Normal University, Taiwan
Feng-Jui Hsieh, National Taiwan Normal University, Taiwan
Abstract
This research concerned that whether high school math curriculum well prepared
students for college level math, Economics. Economics is one of the basic courses using
mathematics in college.
This study adopted content analysis, expended the mathematical competency framework
brought up by Niss(2003) and TEDS-M (Teacher Education and Development Study in
Mathematics) 2008 K-12 Mathematics Framework to investigate the required mathematical
competency and mathematical knowledge to understand an Economics textbook. This report
focused on mathematical thinking competency and reasoning competency. As a result, these
two competencies were found crucial in learning economics. Mathematical thinking
competency played an important role to distinguish and capture the characteristic of
mathematical objects in economics context. Mathematical reasoning competency was
required to check the validity of rules and theorems, to understand the logic of economic
context, examples and graphs. However, some learning confusions might be caused by the
mathematical knowledge that students learned before. The conventional usage of math in
mathematics is different from that in economics, which issue deserves more attention from
high school math teachers.

446 Regulation Strategies for Completely Flipped Classroom
REGULATION STRATEGIES FOR COMPLETELY FLIPPED

CLASSROOM
Ching-Ching Yang, Feng-Chia University, Taiwan
Yuh-Yih Chen, Feng-Chia University, Taiwan
Tzu-Chun Lin, Feng-Chia University, Taiwan
Abstrct
Flipped classroom approach requires students preview materials provided by online videos
in order to have meaningful discussion in class. Compound Interest course for a university
in Taiwan has transformed to completely flipped classroom with 11 material units and 37
corresponding videos, less than 13 minutes each, and encountered low view rate. As the
result, instructor has to review in detail and class process detained. Regulation strategies
are then proposed to raise view rates of teaching videos. Proposed strategies include (1)
sending reminding mails to students to preview by online leader when videos are on the
rack, before weekend, and one day prior to class; (2) online assessment tests are set via
Maple TA with numbers in test items altered, for example, the interest rate is different for
each student, and also the order of options changed; (3) online assessment tests are time
limited, which are closed prior to the first class of according unit; (4) scores of online
assessment tests are counted for final grades. The proposed strategies successfully raise
view rate to 83.7% in average.
Students’ performance evaluated through connected items in midterm and final
examinations show less difference on students in academic year 2015 and 2016. However,
for more complicate contents in final, differences in scores are nearly significant with α at
0.1 level. which indicates preview would make a difference in performance for complicate
course contents.
For students with less experience of flipped classroom learnings, reminding mails at least
two times are highly recommended; since 75% of students prefer more than 2 times in
questionnaire. Preview before class, online assessment tests, and group discussion are
critical parts of flipped classroom. 85% of students agree both preview and group discussion
were crucial, 81% agreed online assessment test was crucial for class engagement. If
teaching assistants are available to supervise group discussion, students would likely be
more concentrated; since only 60% of students agree they are devoted in group discussion.
Although students are engaged in flipped classroom for the first time, the learning
experience is regarded satisfactory for 81% of students. Flipped classroom approach do
draw students’ attention in class; since 79% of students agree more engaged in class
comparing to other courses. And students show sufficient increases intention on sharing
opinions and solutions in pre- and pro-questionnaires.
Keywords: Compound Interest, Flipped Classroom, Maple TA

Yap 447
THE TENSION BETWEEN VISION AND CONTEXT IN

PROFESSIONAL LEARNING COMMUNITIES
Romina Ann Yap, Ateneo de Manila University, Philippines
Introduction
A professional learning community (PLC) is generally defined as a group of teachers –
possibly with other concerned parties – collaborating over a sustained period of time for the
purpose of improving teaching and student learning (DuFour, DuFour, Eaker, & Many,
2010; Hord, 1997). It is a social infrastructure believed to be able to support teachers’
professional development. Hence, integrating PLCs in professional development initiatives
for mathematics teachers have become commonplace. However, the challenges of nurturing
PLCs to become effective vehicles of teacher learning are often underestimated. These need
to be unpacked to be understood and addressed better which in turn can make PLCs
function to their idealized potential.
In this paper, I focus on characterizing a challenge in PLC building arising from tensions
between the PLC’s vision of work and its existing context. I first define what the vision and
context may refer to in the PLC work of mathematics educators and position these concepts
using the lens of activity theory. I then illustrate the tension I wish to characterize using
previous studies that involved a PLC of secondary mathematics teachers, and then end with
a discussion.
The Vision and Context in PLC Work
Among the key features of working as a PLC is having a shared vision (Hord, 1997) of what
the PLC would like to accomplish. This is a concrete picture of what is desired providing a
guide for how the PLC work will move forward. For it to be shared, PLC members ideally
are involved in the process of developing this vision. Because the de facto setting of PLCs is
schools, this vision is related to the improvement of student learning. When mathematics
classrooms are involved, the vision then will be related to the improvement of students’
learning of mathematics.
I subscribe to what Ellis and Barry (2005) called the cognitive-cultural paradigm when
defining improvement in mathematics learning. In this paradigm, mathematics is seen as “a
set of logically organized and interconnected concepts that come out of human experience,
thought, and interaction—and that are, therefore, accessible to all students if learned in a
cognitively connected and culturally relevant way” (p.12). This is in contrast to the view of
mathematics as a collection of disconnected facts and procedures mechanistically mastered.
When PLCs work it is necessarily within a particular context referring to the physical locale
and the existing relationships, available resources, and prevailing culture, practices and
norms that come with it. In PLC work, the context will likely include the school, school
system, classroom structure and practices, faculty dynamics, etc. The district level system,
structure, practices, and dynamics may also need to be considered, as well as cultural
nuances that permeate certain settings. For PLCs that are engaged specifically in improving

448 The Tension Between Vision and Context in Professional Learning Communities
mathematics learning, studying its work context may also involve examining the prevailing
views about mathematics and its learning and how these are manifested in the school’s
practices.
Recognizing and Studying the Tension between Vision and Context in PLC Work
I first recognized that a tension between the vision and context in PLC work might be a
significant factor in its development when I acted as a facilitator for a beginning PLC of
secondary mathematics teachers in the Philippines. I also recognized a version of the same
phenomenon in another study (i.e., Rousseau, 2004) of what might be considered an
unsuccessful PLC. I suspected that it might not be reported as commonly in the literature as
it actually occurred in practice. I wanted to examine this phenomenon so as to gain more
insight into how to address it more effectively. To do this, I adopted the activity system
model as an analytic lens when viewing the events that transpired in the PLC I was involved
in as well as the PLC described by Rousseau. The data on the first PLC consisted of the
video recordings and the corresponding transcripts of ten collaboration sessions that was
conducted over a 7-month period. On the other hand, data for the second PLC was only
obtained from what was generally described in the paper. The use of the activity system
model in the analysis is described in more detail below.
The PLC Work as an Activity System
Because of the multifaceted nature of PLC work, I find it useful to view PLC work as
activity via the lens of activity theory using Engestrӧm’s (1987) activity system model.
Engestrӧm’s model (see Figure 1) builds on Vygotsky’s (1978) activity triangle which
depicts activity as composed of a Subject (which can be an individual or a collective) acting
on transforming an Object through the use of certain Tools. In Engestrӧm’s model, this
triangle is extended to account for the context in which activity is embedded. Context is
represented by three additional nodes namely Community, Division of Labor, and Rules.
Community refers to those who have a stake or interest in the activity. Subsequently, I will
refer to this node as Stakeholders to avoid confusion. Division of Labor refers to the
distribution of roles and tasks related to the performance of the activity. Finally, Rules refer
to the norms and regulations that govern the behaviors in the system.
Figure 1. Engestrӧm’s (1987) activity system model

Yap 449
PLC work can be translated into an activity system in various ways. Different planes of
analysis (Yamagata-Lynch, 2007) can be taken. The choice of plane – whether the personal,
interpersonal, or institutional/community point of view is taken – depends on the aims of the
research. For my purpose, I used the model to represent the collective work of the PLC from
its members’ point of view. Consider for example a hypothetical PLC of mathematics
educators whose work is guided by a vision of students who learn mathematics through
problem solving. Further suppose that the PLC works to bring about this vision by
designing problem solving lessons collaboratively. Previous works provide systematic ways
to construct the activity system model (e.g., Yap, 2015). For this paper, I just describe a
possible model for this hypothetical case in Table 1.
In Table 1, the vision of the PLC work is tied with the Tools node. Context is represented
by the base nodes Rules, Stakeholders, and Division of Labor. Translating the PLC work
into an activity system provide a better sense of the components at play. Tensions between
these components contribute to the challenges in PLC work.
Table 1. An activity system model of a hypothetical PLC working to bring about a vision of students
proficient in mathematical problem solving
Activity System Correspondence to Hypothetical Case
Model Node
Object The lesson plan. This is what is desired to be transformed particularly into one
that promotes and develops problem solving among students.
Subject The members of the PLC. They are the ones who act on the object to transform
it.
Tools The conceptual ideas that provide the basis for problem solving instruction and
learning (e.g., a model for problem solving, learning theories related to problem
solving, instructional strategies known to support problem solving); the material
tools that are used as resources in designing the lesson (e.g., problem solving
curricula or textbooks).
Rules The existing physical infrastructure, the prevailing social norms, the existing
systems and procedures.
Stakeholders The students, the school administration, the greater community.
Division of The roles and responsibilities that the subject and the stakeholders are tasked
Labor with in relation to fulfilling the vision.
Illustrative Instances of Tensions between the PLC’s Vision and its Context
In this section I provide illustrations of instances when tensions between vision and context
were manifested in PLC work using the cases involving secondary mathematics teachers.

Case 1: A PLC founded on a vision for problem solving instruction

This case is drawn from a PLC I was involved as a facilitator in 2012. The work of this PLC
was anchored on a vision of students proficient in problem solving. Collaboration sessions
were held regularly to discuss the tasks and the lessons that the teachers would be
conducting in mathematics classes designated for problem solving. Hence, the activity
system model of this PLC work is similar to that described in Table 1 where the Object
would be the problem solving task and lesson.
An instance during one of the collaboration sessions illustrates the tension between the
Tools and Rules nodes in the PLC’s activity system model. During that session, as the six
teachers were discussing the task for the next lesson, one of the teachers proposed to modify
the task which would make the task simpler. In principle, this was in conflict with a core
idea in problem solving classrooms that students should be given the opportunity to grapple
with the problem. The teacher, however, sought to make sure that students can finish the
problem within the limited classroom time so that they can receive adequate marks.
“But, how much time did we give them [the students] to… explore it?”
“They might not manage.”
Hence, two Rules were preventing her from fully putting into practice the conceptual Tool
of posing challenging problems to students, namely, the time allotment and assessment
structure for classes. Eventually, the PLC decided to keep the original form of the problem,
but teachers could give a hint in class if they find that the students were still stuck after
trying for ten minutes.
In the same PLC, tensions between the Tools and the Division of Labor were also observed.
Part of nurturing problem solving classrooms is to have problem solving teachers. In line
with this, teachers were expected to come to collaboration sessions with their own solutions
to the problem solving task. This enables discussion to generate a rich resource of ideas for
planning lessons. In a few sessions, however, some teachers came unprepared – either they
forgot to work on the task, or they were too busy with other school duties. This was a
reflection of how the teachers’ responsibilities at that time made it difficult for them to
accommodate new ones that were prescribed by the vision of the PLC work. In this
particular case, there was no resolution. The sessions proceeded even as teachers did not
always come prepared. No action was made beyond providing reminders.
Case 2: A PLC founded on a vision for reforming pre-algebra instruction
The second case I use for illustration is taken from Rousseau’s (2004) account of a PLC1
that worked on a shared vision of reforming how pre-algebra was taught and learned in their
classrooms. The five teachers who composed the PLC lamented how their students were not
learning pre-algebra with genuine understanding. The teachers therefore agreed to adopt a
reform-oriented curriculum. As an activity system model, the Object can be interpreted as
the teachers’ lessons that they desired to transform using Tools in the form of the reform
ideas for teaching pre-algebra and the curriculum materials they were to adopt.

Yap 451
During the early part of the implementation of the PLC work, noticeable differences in the
tasks posed in the classroom and the students’ activities were observed – tasks featured
multiple approaches to the solution; students were engaged in inventing strategies and
explaining their solutions to peers. However, succeeding observations over a 5-month
period revealed how teachers’ instruction gradually included more traditional teaching.
Eventually, the initiative to reform instruction was completely abandoned.
Through analyzing teacher interviews and interactions, Rousseau attributed the PLC’s
non-success to a failure in addressing the conflicts existing between two sets of teachers’
beliefs – their beliefs about teaching and learning mathematics, and their beliefs about their
students. Teachers “characterized their students as barriers to reform” (p. 793). They
thought that their students could not manage the lessons when carried out in the reform
manner, hence the eventual retreat. Among other things, teachers expressed that their
students had difficulty with using text-heavy materials in class and working in small groups.
As the students are part of the Stakeholders of the PLC work, this case manifests a tension
of this node with the Tools node. The deployment of the vision for reform teaching was
constrained by the state of the students or at least by the PLC members’ perceptions of the
abilities of their students.
Discussion
The tension between the vision and context in PLC work is probably not surprising because,
often, PLC work is intended to institute a reform vision not previously accommodated in the
existing context. Highlighting this tension, however, make us more aware of how we may
respond to it as the PLC work progresses.
Ignoring or not acknowledging the tension.
The tensions between vision and context could be easily dismissed as ‘growing pains’
especially in developing PLCs. But while the tensions may be natural, they should be duly
acknowledged and not simply dismissed. The nature and gravity of the vision-context
tensions can affect the success of the work and therefore the PLC should pay more attention
to how this tension plays out and more consciously work on how to address it.
The tension between the Tools and Division of Labor nodes illustrated in Case 1 is an
example where it appears that the tension was not sufficiently acknowledged. No venue to
address the tension was created.
Addressing the tension with “extremes”.
The tension can be addressed by primarily conforming to the existing context, or by
insisting on the vision without much regard for the context. Resorting to the first, if the
vision of the PLC entails change, the likely outcome would be for the PLC work to fail to
achieve its goals. The same outcome can be expected if context is completely disregarded.
Without considering the context, the work may come across as unrealistic to the PLC
members. Hence, PLC members may not develop sufficient buy-in for the vision intended.
A case in point would be the PLC described in Case 2. There is not enough information to
determine what specific actions were taken by the PLC that led them to abandon the

intended PLC work, but it appeared that despite initial work done to implement the vision,
the teachers eventually found it to be unfeasible for their context. Perhaps context was
therefore not considered sufficiently.
Finding a compromise.
In working towards achieving the vision, considerations of the context need to be made.
One might be tempted to suggest that compromise would be the best way forward. However,
compromise implies possible adjustments, which may unwittingly alter the vision to a form
inconsistent with its original intent. Thus, care must be exercised with compromises.
Compromises should not be carried out just for the sake of proceeding, but for genuine
implementation of the reform vision for instruction and learning of mathematics.
In the first account described in Case 1 a compromise was proposed – keep the task but
simplify it to make it more amenable to the context. However, this could have subverted a
basic aim of problem solving instruction to challenging students to think.
Working to make the vision embedded into the PLC’s context.
I suggest a conscious embedding of the vision into the PLC’s context. In this way, the
context is taken into consideration so that learning can be more grounded and realistic. But
instead of allowing merely context to drive learning in the PLC, there is a constant and
conscious effort to direct learning to be vision-driven. The vision should proactively shape
the context for it to be embedded with more effective enablers of the vision, if not the vision
itself – the Tools used in relation to the mathematics teaching reform promoted must
eventually be incorporated in the Rules, Division of Labor, and dealings with Stakeholders.
This process of embedding the vision in the context of the PLC work is expected to take
time. But transforming the context will enable the vision of the PLC to be realized and
endure.
For the PLC described in Case 1, a productive course of action might be to modify the
assessment structure such that students are encouraged to grapple with problems genuinely
rather than pressured to come up with correct solutions quickly. Steps to institutionalize a
designated time for teachers to solve problems can also be made to propagate the problem
solving culture among teachers. On the other hand, a productive course of action for Case 2
might be for the PLC to examine their beliefs about students’ abilities by collecting
classroom evidence. This might help in demystifying erroneous beliefs but also help address
valid ones. In the long run, teachers’ perceptions about their students as well as the students’
abilities may be transformed in such a way that the vision for reform teaching of pre-algebra
becomes more acceptable and realistic.
References
DuFour, R., DuFour, R., Eaker, R., & Many, T. (2010). Learning by doing: A handbook for
professional learning communities at work (2nd ed.). Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree
Press.

Yap 453
Ellis, M. W., & Berry, R. Q. (2005). The paradigm shift in mathematics education:
Explanations and implications of reforming conceptions of teaching and learning. The
Mathematics Educator, 15(1), 7-17.
Engestrӧm, Y. (1987). Learning by expanding: An activity-theoretical approach to
developmental research. Helsinki, Finland: Orienta-Konultit.
Hord, S. M. (1997). Professional learning communities: Communities of continuous inquiry
and improvement. Austin, Texas: Southwest Educational Development Laboratory.
Rousseau, C. K. (2004). Shared beliefs, conflict, and a retreat from reform: The story of a
professional community of high school mathematics teachers. Teaching and Teacher
Education, 20, 783-796.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes
(M. Cole, V. John-Steiner, S. Scribner & E. Souberman, Trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
Yamagata-Lynch, L. C. (2007). Confronting analytical dilemmas for understanding complex
human interactions in design-based research from a cultural-historical activity theory
(CHAT) framework. The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 16(4), 451-484.
Yap, R. A. S. (2015). Building professional learning communities with the aid of activity
theory. Paper presented at the 7th ICMI - East Asia Regional Conference on Mathematics
Education (EARCOME), Cebu City.
________________________
1
Instead of PLC, Rousseau used “teacher community” which is an equivalent term.
Romina Ann Yap

Ateneo de Manila University
Quezon City, Philippines
ryap@ateneo.edu

454 Understanding Students’ Typology of Math Anxiety and its Errors in Simplifying Polynomial
Expressions
UNDERSTANDING STUDENTS’ TYPOLOGY OF MATH ANXIETY

AND ITS ERRORS IN SIMPLIFYING POLYNOMIAL
EXPRESSIONS
Dennis Lee Jarvis B. Ybañez, Our Lady of Fatima University, Philippines
Angela Fatima H. Guzon, Ph. D., Ateneo de Manila University, Philippines
Maria Alva Q. Aberin, Ph. D., Ateneo de Manila University, Philippines
Introduction
Math anxiety is defined by Arem (1993) as “a clear-cut, negative, mental, emotional, and/or
physical reaction to mathematical thought processes and problem solving” (p. 1). Several
studies have shown that math anxiety strongly affects mathematics achievement of
elementary, middle and high school students (Hembree, 1990 as cited in Andrews, 2015).
In fact, one of the results from the study of Andrews (2015) showed that there was a
predominately negative relationship between mathematics achievement and math anxiety.
Moreover, based on anecdotal evidence, it was observed that secondary students with high
levels of math anxiety in different grade levels commit the same type of errors.
This paper presents common and persistent errors of Grade 8 and Grade 10 students
with high levels of math anxiety. To achieve this purpose, solutions of students in tasks
involving simplification of algebraic expressions were analyzed.
Related Literature
Different definitions are available in the literature regarding math anxiety. Wilder (2012)
asserted that math anxiety can be described using various descriptions. Vahedi and Farrokhi
(2011) state that math anxiety is characterized by “negative cognitions, avoidance behaviors,
feelings of pressure and performance inadequacy that interfere in solving math related
problems in both general life and academic situations” (p. 47). With this fear and avoidance, it
is apparent that math anxiety impedes the learning process of the students in mathematics
(Nolting, 2002). Furthermore, according to Akin and Kurbanoglu (2011), “math anxiety is
directly related to perceptions of one’s own mathematical skills in relation to skills in other
subject areas and with negative math attitudes” (p. 270).
The Modified Phobos Inventory (MPI) is an instrument which can be used to determine
the level and nature of a student’s math anxiety. It considers three dimensions of math anxiety
as the typology of math anxiety: Numerical Anxiety, Math-Test Anxiety, and Abstraction
Anxiety. This typology was mentioned by Nolting (2002) as the most common classification
of math anxiety. Numerical anxiety is a type of math anxiety that deals with numbers,
numerical figures, and arithmetic calculations. Math-test anxiety is one that deals with
anticipation, completion and feedback of math test while Abstraction Anxiety deals with
variables and more abstract mathematical concepts use to solve functions, equations, and
other higher mathematical concept.

Ybañez, Guzon, Aberin 455
Bessant (1995) stated that, despite substantial inquiries and studies into the dimensions
of math anxiety, several issues still remain unresolved. For instance, there was no information
in the literature that discusses students’ mathematical error in each dimensions of the
typology of math anxiety. In fact, most studies on errors are always confined among general
types of students (i.e. high, medium, low performing students). Given that there is a
predominant negative relationship between mathematical achievement and mathematics
anxiety, an analysis of errors regarding basic algebraic concepts among students with high
levels of math anxiety is essential.
The framework of the study was primarily concerned with the possible barriers that may
exist in constructing students’ mathematical knowledge. Identifying these barriers provides
a deeper understanding about student’s mathematical knowledge gaps and misconceptions
in the basic algebraic concepts. To understand certain misconceptions that may persist
during conceptual development, the study used Sfard’s theoretical model.
Sfard’s theoretical framework (1991) is a detailed framework which explains two
important approaches in learning mathematical concepts, namely, operational and structural
conceptions. Operational conception is simply concerned about the “processes, algorithms,
and actions” of certain mathematical procedures, whereas structural conception focuses on
seeing a mathematical entity as an “object” which is a part of a larger system (p. 4).
Although these two approaches are different from each other, they are both characterized as
necessary and complementary. Moreover, Sfard has mentioned:
“…the ability of seeing a function or a number both as a process and as an object is indispensable
for a deep understanding of mathematics, whatever the definition of “understanding” is. If we
take a scrutinizing look at any mathematical concept, more often than not we shall find that it can
be defined − thus conceived – both structurally and operationally” (p. 5).
It seems that when a student encompasses both operational and structural conception
within their learning process, both approaches prevent knowledge gaps across the student’s
cognitive development. Since these approaches are not mutually exclusive but indeed
complementary, the student’s movement from one approach to another is expected.
According to Sfard and Linchevski (1994), “the operational (process-oriented) conception
emerges first and that the mathematical objects (structural conceptions) develop afterward
through reification of the processes” (p. 191). It is innate among the students to start
learning mathematical concepts through definition and process before they can see the
whole entity as a part of a larger system. Thus, according to Sfard (1991), there is indeed, a
transition from operational to structural understanding through three stages: interiorization,
condensation, and reification.
Failure of the students to move from operational to structural understanding could be
one of the primary reasons behind students’ constant failure in solving math problems as
they move to a more advanced mathematical concept. Hence, this framework was used to

Expressions
understand and identify confounding elements that impede students’ conceptual

development in learning basic mathematical concepts.
Methodology
The participants
The participants were Grade 8 and Grade 10 students from a public school in a major city in
the Philippines. The study involved two (2) phases. In Phase 1, the total number of
respondents was 337 and 133 of these were identified to have a high level of math anxiety
in at least one of the dimensions of the typology. However, 21 students from both grade
levels were absent during the day the test was administered. Hence, the number of
respondents decreased to 112 in Phase 2 of the study.
Data Collection
The Phase 1 of the study involved knowing the student’s level of math anxiety. The
Modified Phobos Inventory (MPI), the items of which include the three dimensions of the
typology of math anxiety, was administered to students of both levels to accomplish this
purpose.
For Phase 2, qualitative data were collected from the student solutions for each item in the
Test on Simplifying Polynomials (TOSP) as well as from the interviews of randomly
selected students.
Data Analysis
The Modified Phobos Inventory has a 5-point Likert-type scale format where students
indicate the level of how a particular situation frightens them. The table below shows the
Five-Point Scale verbal description.
Table 1. Five-Point Scale Verbal Description
Scale Verbal Description

1 Not at All
2 Slightly Moderate
3 Moderate
4 High
5 Very High
The arithmetic mean was used to determine student’s level of math anxiety in each
dimensions of the typology. The computed mean of 3.5 – 5 is considered to be a high level
of math anxiety. The answers and solutions for the items in the TOSP were thoroughly
coded and analyzed using a well-defined categorization of error based from the study of

Lim (2010) with some modifications. The fourteen (14) different types of errors identified
in our study are defined as follows:
1. Exponential Error. This type of error occurs: (1) when students add or subtract the
exponents of a variable of like terms in the expression (e.g. 2𝑥 + 3𝑥 = 5𝑥 2 ); (2) when
students misinterpret the exponent of the variable (𝑎2 ) by thinking that 3𝑎2 is the
same as 32 𝑎; (3) when students simplify the expression 3𝑎2 + 4𝑎2 correctly (i.e.
7𝑎2 ) but wrote their final answer as 14a.
2. Detachment from the Negative Sign Error. In simplifying polynomial expressions with
a negative leading term (e.g. −6𝑎 + 3𝑎), two possible errors are likely to happen: (1)
when students perform the operation of addition or subtraction without considering the
negative sign attached to the leading term. For example, students simplify the
aforementioned expression as −9𝑎; (2) when students omit the negative sign attached
in the leading term and perform the operation of addition or subtraction. Thus, students
simplify the expression as 9𝑎.
3. Misinterpretation of Symbolic Notation Error. In simplifying polynomial expressions
involving variables such as 𝑎, 𝑏, and 𝑎2 , two possible errors are likely to happen: (1)
when students interpret the “invisible” numerical coefficients of 1 in 𝑎, 𝑏, and 𝑎2 as
0𝑎, 0𝑏, and 0𝑎2 ; (2) when students isolate the numerical coefficient from the literal
coefficient in the term. For example, when students simplify the expression −2𝑎𝑏 +
2𝑎𝑏 as 0𝑎𝑏.
4. Conjoin Error. This type of error occurs: (1) when students conjoin two unlike terms in
the expression such as 4𝑎 + 3 = 7𝑎; (2) when students conjoin an expression inside
the bracket such as 2(4𝑎 + 3) = 2(7𝑎). The second type of error fails to recognize
the concept of distributive property.
5. Subtraction of Integers Error. This type of error occurs: (1) when students interpret the
expression 3𝑎 − 6𝑎 as “larger value minus smaller value”. Thus, students write 3𝑎
as their answer; (2) when students misapply the rule of “negative times negative equals
positive” in simplifying polynomial expressions involving two successive negative
terms. It appears that addition of numerical values is carried out and multiplication rule
for the signs is applied (e.g. −2 − 5 = 7).
6. Addition of Integers Error. This type of error occurs when students seem to lose the
(+) sign as an operational sign (e.g. −6𝑎 + 3𝑎 = 3𝑎).
7. Distributive Error. This type of error occurs: (1) when students multiply the first
algebraic term and ignore the second in the bracket. For example, 2(4𝑎 + 3) =
8𝑎 + 3; (2) when students multiply the second bracket with pre-multiplier. For
example, 2(3𝑎 + 2) + (3 + 4𝑎) = 6𝑎 + 4 + 6 + 8𝑎, (2 is the pre-multiplier); (3)
when students interpret the expression 𝑎𝑏(𝑎 + 𝑏) as (𝑎 + 𝑏)(𝑎 + 𝑏).
8. Multiplication of Variable Error. This type of error occurs: (1) when students misapply
the rule of addition in simplifying the expression(𝑎)(𝑎). Hence, students write their
answer as 2𝑎; (2) when students interpret 𝑎𝑏 as one variable. For example,

Expressions
(𝑎𝑏)(𝑎𝑏) = 𝑎𝑏2 ; (3) when students multiply the exponent of the variable in the
expression (e.g. 𝑎2 × 𝑎3 = 𝑎6 ).
9. Bracket Error. This type of error occurs: (1) when students interpret the bracket as
“multiplication to be performed”. For example, students interpret the
expression 3𝑥 − (2𝑦 + 1) as 3𝑥(2𝑦 + 1); (2) when students cannot remove the
bracket in their final answer or cannot perform the operation itself involving brackets.
For example, when students write 11𝑚 + (−2𝑚) as their final answer; (3) when
students ignore the required operation by removing the bracket in the given
polynomial expression. For instance, when students interpret the expression
3𝑥(−2𝑦 + 1) as 3𝑥 − 2𝑦 + 1.
10. Incorrect Order of Operation Error. This type of error occurs when students simplify
polynomial expressions from left to right without thinking of the correct order of
operation. Frequently, it occurs in an expression when addition or subtraction appears
before multiplication.
11. Error in Recognizing Like Terms. This type of error occurs when students do not
understand the concept of like terms and the commutative property. For instance, when
students fail to recognize the terms 5𝑎𝑏 and 4𝑏𝑎 as similar terms.
12. Negative Pre-Multiplier Error. This type of error occurs when students do not change
the sign of the second algebraic term after multiplying out the brackets. For example,
−3(6𝑎 − 7) = −18𝑎 − 21.
13. Random Simplification Error. This type of error occurs when students simplify each
term with a common or random divisor. For example, the expression 4𝑥 − 6𝑦 is
simplified as 2𝑥 − 3𝑦.
14. Other Errors. This type of error occurs when students are unfamiliar with certain basic
mathematical concepts. This type of error has four sub types: (1) a product of
negligence (e.g. students write the terms in their solutions incorrectly such as at the
middle of their solution 4a becomes 9a without doing any mathematical operations).
Student’s handwritten and the time limit seems to be the factor that contributes in this
error; (2) arithmetic error (e.g. 3 + 27 = 57); (3) vague solution (i.e. a solution or
answer that has no well-defined explanation); (4) no answer.
The solution of each item in the TOSP could yield more than one type of error under
these categories. Hence, erroneous responses per item were quantified through the use of
frequency analysis. An error committed by at least 50% of the students within the same
grade level is considered to be common. Moreover, common errors committed by Grade 8
and are still present among 50% of the Grade 10 students are considered to be persistent.
Findings and Discussion

Proportion of Students with a High Level of Math Anxiety
The table below shows the percentages of the Grade 8 and Grade 10 students with a high level of math
anxiety in at least one of the dimensions of the typology.

Table 2. Percentages of Grade 8 and Grade 10 Students with High Levels of Math Anxiety
Grade Level n f %
Grade 8 174 57 33%
Grade 10 163 76 47%
It is interesting to note that the proportion of Grade 10 students (47%) with high level
of math anxiety is greater than that of the Grade 8 students (33%). The z-test was done at
𝛼 = 0.05 to test the significant difference in the proportions of students with a high level of
math anxiety. The computed p-value of 0.0085 indicates a significant difference in the
proportions of Grade 8 and Grade 10 students who have a high level of math anxiety (in at
least one of the dimensions). This result may be attributed to the nature and difficulty of
mathematical tasks students encounter in the higher grade level where concepts, procedures
and algorithms tend to be more numerous and complicated.
Persistent Errors
The following identified persistent errors across the dimensions of the typology in each
topic are presented and discussed below.
Table 3. Persistent Errors made in each Dimensions of the Typology per Topic
Topic Typology of Math Anxiety

Numerical Anxiety Math-Test Anxiety Abstraction Anxiety
 Error in  Conjoin Error Type  Conjoin Error Type
Recognizing Like 1 1
Terms  Error in  Error in
 Misinterpretation Recognizing Like Recognizing Like
Like and
of Symbolic Terms Terms
Unlike Terms
Notation Error  Misinterpretation of  Misinterpretation of
Type 1 Symbolic Notation Symbolic Notation
Error Type 1 Error Type 1
 Conjoin Error
 Subtraction of
Type 1 Integers Error Type
1
Multiplication  Multiplication of  No Persistent Error  No Persistent Error

of Variable Error
Variable Type 3
Bracket  Incorrect Order of  No Persistent Error  Misinterpretation of

Expressions
Expansions Operation Error Symbolic Notation

Error Type 1
A. Conjoin Error Type 1

This error is persistent across the dimensions of the typology of math anxiety in simplifying
like and unlike terms. Students tend to conjoin two different terms in the given expression
just like in a simple arithmetic procedure. For instance, students conjoined the terms 𝟏𝟕 −
𝟏𝟓𝒂𝒃 as 𝟐𝒂𝒃. Hence, they subtracted 15 from 17 and copied the variables. Moreover,
students also conjoined the terms 𝟒𝒓𝟐 𝒔 − 𝟐𝒓𝒔𝟐 as 𝟐𝒓𝒔. It can be noticed that their
solutions in both items are similar, however, they subtracted the exponents of the variables
in the second item. The result seems to suggest that the conceptual development of students
who have high levels of math anxiety is stalled in the operational level of arithmetic,
causing them to manipulate the numbers and letters randomly.
Furthermore, Conjoin Type I has its own detailed procedures on how students paired
the terms in the given expressions. The following are the basis of pairing:
 𝟕𝒃 − 𝟑  (adjacent terms)
 −𝟔𝒂 + 𝟕𝒃  (terms with both literal and numerical coefficients)
 𝒙 − 𝒙𝟐  (terms with variables only)
 all terms  (from left to right)
B. Subtraction of Integers Error Type 1
This type of error is deeply intertwined with Conjoin Error and is persistent among
students with a high level of math-test anxiety. Students tend to misapply the arithmetic
procedure of “larger value minus smaller value” in the polynomial expression. For instance,
the term 𝟐𝒂 − 𝟔𝒂 was simplified into 𝟔𝒂 − 𝟐𝒂 leading to 𝟒𝒂 as the final answer. Also,
an example of this error intertwined with Conjoin Error can be seen in the item where
students conjoined the terms 𝟓𝒓𝟐 𝒔𝟐 − 𝟖𝒓𝒔𝟐 as 𝟖𝒓𝒔𝟐 − 𝟓𝒓𝟐 𝒔𝟐 with 𝟑𝒓 as their answer. It
can be observed that the same process was applied in the exponent of the variables. The
result seems to support that students’ conceptual understanding regarding arithmetical
concepts remains on the operational level. This means that they cannot visualize counting
numbers as part of a larger system of integers, making them unable to distinguish negative
sign from the negative operation.
C. Error in Recognizing Like Terms
This type of error is considered as one of the misconceptions among the students across
the dimensions of the typology of math anxiety and has occurred frequently. Failure of the
students to establish structural understanding on the concept of like terms has been the
primary reason why they perceived −𝟒𝒂𝒙 and 𝟒𝒙𝒂 in one item and −𝟏𝟓𝒂𝒃 and 𝟓𝒃𝒂
in another item as different terms. Hence, it can be inferred that students may understand 2
× 3 and 3 × 2 as equal expressions procedurally but fail to discern 𝒂𝒃 and 𝒃𝒂 as
similar terms. The result seems to support that students’ conceptual understanding of
arithmetic operations still remains in the operational stage wherein they only understand a

certain mathematical entity as a process rather than an object which is part of a larger
system.
D. Misinterpretation of Symbolic Notation Error Type 1
This error has become problematic among the students across the dimensions of the
typology of math anxiety. For instance, students tend to interpret the “invisible” numerical
coefficient of 1 in the variables 𝒙 and 𝒙𝟐 as 𝟎𝒙 and 𝟎𝒙𝟐 , respectively, in the expression
𝒙 − 𝟏𝟐𝒙𝟐 + 𝟐𝟎𝒙 − 𝒙𝟐 . The result seems to suggest that the conceptual understanding of
students with a high level of math anxiety regarding symbols (variables) still remains on the
operational level of arithmetic.
E. Multiplication of Variable Error Type 3
This error is persistent in the topic of multiplying variables among the students with a
high level of numerical anxiety. They tend to multiply the exponent of the variables instead
of adding. For instance, students multiplied the variables (𝒂𝒙𝟐 )(𝒂𝟐 ) as 𝒂𝟐 𝒙𝟐 . The results
seem to support that students’ understanding of exponents remains in the procedural level.
In fact, these students failed to conceptualize the laws of exponents.
F. Incorrect Order of Operation Error
This is the most common kind of error among the students with a high level of
numerical anxiety on the item involving the expression 𝟏𝟑𝒎 − 𝟐𝒎(𝟗𝒎 − 𝟓𝒏 + 𝟕). Most
of the students simplified the expression using the left-to-right procedure without
considering the correct order of operations. Hence, they simplified it as 𝟏𝟏𝒎(𝟗𝒎 − 𝟓𝒏 +
𝟕). According to Kieran (as cited in Lim, 2010), a “possible cause of this error is the lack of
underlying knowledge of the structure of arithmetic operations” (p. 157).
Conclusion
Analyses of the student’s scores in the Modified Phobos Inventory showed that the
proportion of Grade 10 students with high levels of math anxiety is higher and significantly
different from that of Grade 8 students. The occurrence of students’ persistent errors in
simplifying polynomial expressions (conjoin, subtraction of integers, recognizing like terms,
misinterpretation of symbolic notation, multiplication of variables, order of operations)
indicates an insufficient structural understanding of the following basic mathematical
concepts: (a) arithmetic; (b) signed numbers; (c) variables; (d) exponents; (e) brackets; and
(f) basic mathematical properties. Further studies may be done to validate and strengthen the
inferences made herein. One can also consider looking into possible relationships of
students’ errors to the typology of math anxiety.
References
Akin, A., Kurbanoglu, I. N. (2011). The relationship between math anxiety, math attitudes,
and self efficacy: a structural equation model. Studia Psychologica: Journal for Basic
Research in Psychological Sciences, 53(3), 263-273.
Andrews, A., Brown, J. (2015). The Effects of Math Anxiety. Education, 135(3), 362-370.

Expressions
Arem, C. A. (1993). Conquering Math Anxiety: A self-help workbook. ISBN 0-534-18876-1,

California: Wadsworth, Inc.
Bessant, K. C. (1995). Factors Associated with Types of Mathematics Anxiety in College
Students. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 26(4), 327-345.
Lim, K. S. (2010). An Error Analysis of Form 2 (Grade 7) Students in Simplifying Algebraic
Expressions: A Descriptive Study. Electronic Journal of Research in Educational
Psychology, 8(1), 139-162.
Nolting, P. D., (2002). Winning at Math: Your Guide to Learning Mathematics Through
Successful Study Skills. (4th ed.). ISBN 0-940287-34-X, USA: Rainbow Books Inc.
Sfard, A. (1991). On the Dual Nature of Mathematical Conceptions: Reflections on Processes
and Objects as Different Sides of the Same Coin. Educational Studies in Mathematics,
22(1), 1-36.
Sfard, A., Linchevski, L. (1994). The Gains and the Pitfalls of Reification: The Case of
Algebra. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 26(2), 191-228.
Vahedi, S., & Farrokhi, F. (2011). A confirmatory factor analysis of the structure of
abbreviated math anxiety scale. Iranian Journal of Psychiatry, 6(2), 47-53.
Acknowledgement
Immeasurable appreciation and deepest gratitude to the Department of Science and
Technology – Science Education Institute (DOST – SEI) for funding this study.
Dennis Lee Jarvis B. Ybañez

Our Lady of Fatima University
denz_kit12@yahoo.com
Angela Fatima H. Guzon, Ph. D.

Ateneo de Manila University, Philippines
aguzon@ateneo.edu
Maria Alva Q. Aberin, Ph. D.

Ateneo de Manila University, Philippines
maberin@ateneo.edu

Gurjanow, Ludwig, Zender 463
AIDS AND OBSTACLES IN THE USE OF ICT - TWO SURVEYS

AMONGST MCM USERS
Iwan Gurjanow, Goethe University Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Matthias Ludwig, Goethe University Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Joerg Zender, Goethe University Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Introduction
In their publication “Learning Outside the Classroom”, the British Department of Education
and Skills strongly recommended doing lessons outside, respecitve the following benefits:
“nurture creativity, develop skills, improve attitude to learning, stimulate and improve
motivation” to name a few (DfES, 2006).
The advantage is at hand: going outdoors means to meet real life objects. For math
education, you can create authentic tasks, e.g. what is the height of a certain building. These
are tasks which require many process competences at once like problem solving, reasoning
and proof, communication, connections and representations. In the early 80s, Blane and
Clark came up with the idea to connect those kind of tasks to form a so called math trail
(Blane & Clark, 1984).
In short, a math trail is a set of mathematical outdoor tasks in walking distance. To solve the
tasks, you normally need tools like a measuring tape and so on, which should be listed in the
trail guide.
Although mobile devices and computers are widely used in every aspect of our daily lives
(especially among pupils), they play a minor role in education (Chen & Kinshuk, 2005).
Going on a math trail could greatly benefit from using mobile devices, because they allow
learning to occur in an authentic context and extend to real environments. At Goethe
University of Frankfurt am Main we started the MathCityMap project (MCM) which
combines traditional math trails with the opportunities of new technologies. In 2013, first
ideas were realised (Ludwig, Jesberg, Weiss, 2013), but it took until 2016 to finally launch a
web portal and a mobile application. These have been mainly released for teachers to use in
class, but everyone is free to use it.
In spring 2016, we started to promote math trails in combination with MCM by giving
in-service teacher trainings and student courses at the university. Although the feedback on
the trainings and courses was highly positive, the real usage of the MCM tools falls short of
our expectations. We did a survey at the end of 2016 amongst users and changed some
concepts. At the end of 2017, we did again a survey to investigate our progress. The results
will be shared in this article.
Theoretical Background
Challenges creating a math trail
Many mathematical tasks today are contextualized and claimed to be realistic. But are they
authentic? Following the definition Vos (2011) has given, an object is authentic if it is

464 Aids and Obstacles in the Use of ICT – Two Surveys Amongst MCM Users
clearly not created for educational purposes. It is not easy to find authentic tasks. The
objects in the tasks of mathcitymap.eu can be described as real-life objects, the authenticity
of the tasks depends on the creators. We provide assistance by offering trainings and also
best-practice examples.
Usually the creation process of a math trail consists of creating appropriate tasks and the
trail guide or trail booklet (Cross, 1997). On the one hand, creating the tasks can be
challenging for teachers as studies have shown (Jones & Pepin, 2016). On the other hand,
putting the tasks together manually into a trail guide which should also contain a map
overview and a title page, may be time consuming.
Difficulties integrating new technologies into math classes
Implementing new technologies into schools raises the question whether teachers work with
the new tools, how do they use them and so on. Paul Drijvers conducted a study in 2012
about the factors for successful use of new technology amongst teachers. One of the three
important factors is the role of the teacher (Drijvers, 2012). A majority of the German
teachers report to have not enough time beside their daily tasks at school (Schneider, 2015 p.
20). The time a new tool needs to be set up is an important issue. MCM simplifies the
creation process of designing tasks and trails and makes it less time consuming.
Kuntze, Siller and Vogl (2013) have shown that pre-service and in-service teachers
self-perception towards modelling is mainly negative. The in-service teachers lack
knowledge about new technologies and modelling. They feel unprepared for modelling by
their university education. Pre-service teachers on the other hand feel a lack of diagnostics
and not able to give good hints to the pupils. There is a difficulty to integrate modelling into
classes, especially with new technologies.
GPS-based applications in math education
Two examples of applications in math education, that already successfully use mobile
GPS-data, are Wijers, Jonker & Drijvers (2010). They developed a game which allows
students to walk along the shape of geometric objects outside the school. Sollervall and de
la Iglesia developed a GPS-based mobile application for embodiment of geometry
(Sollervall & de la Iglesia, 2015)
The MathCityMap project
The intention of MCM is to automate many steps in the creation of the math trail
booklet/guide and to provide a collection of tasks and trails that can be freely used or just
accessed to get inspiration for own tasks. Furthermore, it gives users (e.g. groups of pupils)
the possibility to go on a math trail independently by using mobile devices’ GPS functions
to find the tasks location, by giving feedback on the users answer, and by providing hints in
the case that one got stuck at a particular task. The core of the MCM project can be divided
into two parts, the MCM web portal and the MCM app.
MCM web portal - www.mathcitymap.eu
The web portal is a math trail management system. After a short registration, the user can
view public trails and tasks or create his own tasks and trails by typing in the necessary data

(e.g. position, the task itself, the answer, an image of the object etc.) into a form (see Figure
1). For every math trail, the math trail booklet can be downloaded as PDF or accessed via
the MCM App (see Figure 2). It contains all tasks information, a map overview and a title
page.
MCM app for mobile devices
The MCM app allows the user to access math trails created with the web portal. The trail
data, such as images and map tiles, can be downloaded to the mobile device. After this
procedure, it is possible to use a trail without internet connection (see Figure 2). This design
decision minimizes technical issues when using the app without mobile internet or in an
area with low connectivity. Furthermore, the app offers an open street map overview for
orientation purposes, feedback on the entered answers and a stepped hint system. The hint
system has the purpose to enable pupils to solve the tasks independently and additionally
has a positive impact on learning performance, learning experience and communication
(Franke-Braun, Schmidt-Weigand, Stäudel, & Wodzinski, 2008).
Figure 20. The MCM web portal form for tasks

Figure 21. Screenshots of the MCM App
To describe the pedagogical functionality of MCM, we use the model by Drijvers, Boon and
Van Reeuwijk (2010). It divides digital technologies into three groups of didactical
functionalities: (a) do mathematics, (b) practice skills, (c) develop concepts. MCM offers
mathematical tasks at real life objects where the user mainly can practice his or her skills.
Research question
After the teacher trainings in 2016, we had expected more teachers to become active by
creating own math trails with MCM. So we did a survey and changed several things. We
created a news section with “the task of the week”, we created a task wizard for fast creation
of tasks and we shifted the focus of our teacher training. To see whether these changes
worked out as expected, we did a second survey amongst users in 2017. This leads us to the
research question:
What are the aids and obstacles in the use of ICT in math education? By taking the example
of MCM.
Methodology
To promote MathCityMap as a digital tool (and therefore the usage of math trails in school),
we have implemented three teacher trainings with 143 participants and two university
student courses with 30 students during spring / summer of 2016. To evaluate the trainings
and gather further information for future improvements of the MCM tool, an online
questionnaire was set up. Additionally, we have analyzed the usage statistics. Following the
results of that survey (Ludwig, Gurjanow & Zender, 2016), we changed aspects. Also, the
interest in the MCM project grew and 15 teacher trainings with around 300 participants
were hold. Additionally, one university course took place and the project was presented on
three conferences for math educators.
Teacher trainings

The training was a two hour intensive training for in-service teachers. Since they have
already studied mathematics and have a lot of teaching experience, we kept the theoretical
parts on outdoor math and task design rather short and preferred to go out on a prepared
math trail so they could experience this kind of activity. Later on, we also let them find
tasks and focus more on the handling of the web portal and the app. In 2017, we tried to
offer longer trainings, three hours long and the focus shifted toward how to find a good task
outside and then to bring this task into the system. Also, before we often showed how to
create a task and changed that to a more learning-by-doing session, where everyone has a
Figure 22. Reasons why MCM was not used

device and create a task on his or her own.
Student courses
The student courses took place at Goethe-University in Frankfurt in the summer semester of
2016 and then again in the summer semester of 2017. Regarding the course, we did not
change a lot. It takes place during a whole semester with weekly meetings and enough time
for theory and practice. So the students learn about the theoretical background as well as
having several opportunities to create tasks do a math trail on their own. In the end, a school
class comes to walk a trail, so the students can observe pupils during this activity and they
get direct feedback on their tasks.
Online survey
About 500 people (200 participants of the teacher trainings plus registered users of the web
portal), were invited to take part in the survey. Thirty-five of them completed the
questionnaire
The online survey consists of 27 items from which twenty are closed questions or
statements and seven are open text fields. The questionnaire is divided into five sections:
1. General Information (Five closed questions)
Sample item: How did you hear about MathCityMap?

2. Usage of the MCM web portal (Seven mainly closed questions)

Sample item: Do you already have created a task in the web portal?
3. Statements about the MCM web portal (Seven 5-point Likert scale: I do not agree – I
agree)
Sample item: The interaction between web portal and app is easy to understand.
4. Feedback on MCM (Four mainly open questions)
Sample item: Which are the reasons for you to use MathCityMap?
5. General use of digital tools in math classes (Four closed and open questions)
Sample item: What are your requirements for using a digital tool in math classes?
Results
The first thing to notice is the change of the participants of our survey (see Table 1). In 2016
when MCM was quite new, we had lots of students in the survey. Now after presenting
MCM at three conferences in 2017, we have employees from universities in the survey. The
rate of teachers and others did not change marginally. With many more teacher trainings, it
is a bit surprising to have an equal rate of teachers participating in the survey. Looking at
the usage statistics of the web portal, we had 74 users in September 2016 and 473 a year
later in September 2017.
Table 12. Profession of the participants
Profession 2016 2017

Teacher 7 16
Student 8 6
Employed at a University 0 9
Other 2 4
Total 17 35
Regarding the reasons why MCM was not used (multiple reasons could be given), a
difference between 2016 and 2017 can be noted (see Figure 3). Having not enough time
beside school stays the main problem. Even with all the improvements we made, it is still
time consuming to create a mathtrail. However, as the system develops and more people
take part in it, the demand for public tasks is now satisfied. Also, regularly publishing the
“task of the week” and our focus on finding and creating tasks in a learning-by-doing
manner in the teacher trainings might have helped to reduce the reasons “not enough ideas
for fitting tasks”, “did not fit into current curriculum” and that “creating tasks/trails is too
complex”. Since now more teachers go on a math trail with their classes, the lack of proper
material occurs more often. The first two reasons why teachers do not use MCM are mostly
independent from the system we provide. The other mentioned reasons are: “I’m not a math
teacher”, “difficulties due to organisation” and “the system offers too little freedom for own
ideas”. For future teacher training we consider doing a short section about how to organise a

Figure 23. how many users have created tasks/trails on their own
math trail with a class. The freedom of task design is a problem, because automatic
feedback needs specific answers. The system will not replace a teacher, who can raise
interesting questions to start a discussion.
By Figure 4 we can see that the creation of tasks has increased amongst the users. As
mentioned above, we focus more on that aspect in our teacher trainings and additionally we
created a task wizard, to make it even faster to create generic tasks, which can be found
everywhere (e.g. the slope of a ramp). Also, we created a review system for public tasks to
ensure their quality. In September 2016, the users created 250 tasks and a year later, in
September 2017 it were already 1578 tasks. Independently from the MCM system, we asked
about the requirements of a digital tool in general (Figure 5). Regarding the shift of
participants from students to employees of a university, we see some minor changes in the
given answers, but the ranks in general are nearly the same. The three most important points
Requirements of a digital tool
easy to get
short period of familiarisation
positive experience with the tool
free to use
pupils have fun by using it
privacy protection
much material available
the tool is relevant for the pupils…
reduces workload on certain themes
scientific proof of effectivness
beautiful design
2017 2016
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
Figure 24. Requirements of a digital tool

are about the user experience. On fourth place is the free-to-get aspect, no costs for users.
We have a decrease in the importance and fun for the pupils, which seems to be less
important for the members of the university. On the other hand, we have an increase in
privacy protection, available material and scientific proof. The design still ranks very low.
Remarkably the material available is more important, thus no one reports to not use MCM
because of a lack of material (Figure 3). It seems to us, that we have managed to get to a
breaking point, where the material available helps others to create even more material
(Figure 4), like an upwards spiral, at least in Germany.
Discussion
What we have learned about the aids and obstacles in the use of ICT in math education is
that the user experience and the material available is of vital importance for the tool. We
found reasons why a tool is not used that lays not in the tool itself. Like Schneider (2015)
have reported, teachers are under stress, they do not have a lot of time. It seems obvious,
that they do not want to waste time by a complicated tool, which takes long to learn.
Moreover, when they have learned how to use the tool, it is important to have material
available from which they can start and learn. When creating a teacher training, the
scientific aspects are nice, but not so important for teachers. They can be kept rather short
and the time should be invested in an intensive practical part, how to work with the tool. At
the beginning, a tool needs time to be promoted. MCM is now in its third year and we think
that we might have reached the critical point for tasks and trails in Germany. It takes a lot of
time and endurance to create this amount of material and to encourage others to do the
same.
References
Blane, D.C. & Clark, D. (1984). A Mathematics Trail Around the City of Melbourne. Monash
Mathematics Education Centre, Monash University.
Chen, J. & Kinshuk (2005). Mobile technology in educational services. Journal of
Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia, 14, 91–109.
Cross, R. (1997). Developing Maths Trails. Mathematics Teaching, 158, 38–39.
Department for Education and Skills (DfES). (2006). Learning Outside the Classroom
MANIFESTO. Nottingham, United Kingdom.
Drijvers, P. (2012). Digital technology in mathematics education: Why it works (or doesn’t).
In S. Cho (Ed.), Proceedings of the 12th International Congress on Mathematics
Education (pp. 485-501). Seoul, Korea: Springer.
Drijvers, P., Boon, P., & Van Reeuwijk, M. (2010). Algebra and technology. In P. Drijvers
(Ed.), Secondary algebra education. Revisiting topics and themes and exploring the
unknown (pp. 179-202). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense.
Franke-Braun, G., Schmidt-Weigand, F., Stäudel, L., & Wodzinski, R. (2008). Aufgaben mit
gestuften Lernhilfen - ein besonderes Aufgabenformat zur kognitiven Aktivierung der
Schülerinnen und Schüler und zur Intensivierung der sachbezogenen Kommunikation. In
R. Messer & W. Blum (Eds.), Lernumgebungen auf dem Prüfstand. Zwischenergebnisse
aus den Forschungsprojekten (pp. 27-42). Kassel: Kassel Univ. Press.

Jones, K., & Pepin, B. (2016). Research on mathematics teachers as partners in task design.
Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 19/2, 105–121.
Kuntze, S., Siller, H.-S., & Vogl, C. (2013). Teacher‘ Self-Perceptions of Their Pedagogical
Content Knowledge Related to Modelling – An Empirical Study with Austrian Teachers.
In G.A. Stillman, G. Kaiser, W. Blum & J. P. Brown (Eds.), Teaching Mathematical
Modelling: Connecting to Research and Practice (pp. 317-326). Springer Netherlands.
Ludwig, M., Jesberg, J., Weiß, D. (2013). MathCityMap – eine faszinierende Belebung der
Idee mathematischer Wanderpfade. Praxis der Mathematik, 53, 14–19.
Ludwig, M., Gurjanow, I., Zender, J. (2016). Why do in-service teachers and student teachers
use MathCityMap and why don’t – A short survey on acceptance and user behavior of
MathCityMap. CERME 10, Dublin
Schneider, W. (2015). Zeit für Bildung – Eine Befragung unter Lehrerinnen und Lehrern. PM,
53, 14–19.
Shoaf, M., Pollak, H. & Schneider, J. (2004). Math Trails. Lexington: COMAP.
Sollervall, H. & de La Iglesia, D.G. (2015). Designing a didactical situation with mobile and
web technologies. In K. Krainer & N. Vondrova (Eds.), Proceedings of the Ninth Congress
of the European Society for Research in Mathematics Education (CERME9, 4-8 February
2015) (pp.2410-2417). Prague, Czech Republic: Charles University in Prague
Vos, P. (2011). What is ‘authentic’ in the teaching and learning of mathematical modelling?.
In G. Kaiser, W. Blum, R. Borromeo Ferri, & G. Stillman (Eds.), Trends in teaching and
learning of mathematical modelling: ICTMA 14 (pp. 713-722). New York: Springer.
Wijers, M., Jonker, V., & Drijvers, P. (2010). Exploring mathematics outside the classroom.
ZDM Mathematics Education, 42, 789–799.
Iwan Gurjanow
Goethe University Frankfurt am Main, Robert Mayer-Str. 6-8, D-60325 Frankfurt am Main,
Germany
gurjanow@math.uni-frankfurt.de
Matthias Ludwig
Germany
ludwig@math.uni-frankfurt.de
Joerg Zender
Germany
zender@math.uni-frankfurt.de

472 Enhancing Students’ Strategy Flexibility in Learning Mathematics through School-Based Picture
Books
ENHANCING STUDENTS’ STRATEGY FLEXIBILITY IN

LEARNING MATHEMATICS THROUGH SCHOOL-BASED
PICTURE BOOKS
Zhang Qiaoping, The Education University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China
Yeung Wing Ying, Fung Kai No.1 Primary School, Hong Kong SAR, China
Cheung Shuk Ping, Fung Kai No.1 Primary School, Hong Kong SAR, China
Introduction
Flexibility in mathematics education has been defined as the ability to switch between
different strategies during the solution of a problem (Elia, van den Heuvel-Panhuizen, &
Kolovou, 2009; Selter, 2009), the ability to use a range of representations and thought
reversals and the ability to move between procedural thinking and conceptual thinking
(Gary & Tall, 1994). These kinds of flexibility are influenced by the characteristics of the
tasks, students and context (Heinze, Star, & Verschaffel, 2009). Hong Kong students
generally achieve an outstanding performance on international assessments, but large
numbers of students do not enjoy learning mathematics and do not believe they usually do
well in mathematics. Their confidence in doing mathematics, attitudes towards mathematics
and engagement in mathematics lessons are also reported to be low (Mullis, Martin &
Loveless, 2016). These issues may be attributed to a narrow learning environment in the
classroom (Wong, Marton, Wong, & Lam, 2002). To broaden students’ learning space,
diverse learning activities should be arranged in the classroom. In Hong Kong’s newest
mathematics curriculum guide, the Curriculum Development Council (CDC) suggests that
teachers ‘adopt different strategies to cater for learner diversity, such as adapting the
mathematics curriculum and using the curriculum space created flexibly for consolidation
and enrichment’ (CDC, 2017, p. iv). However, the question of how to flexibly use the
curriculum space still lacks exploration.
Using children’s literature in mathematics can help enhance students’ interest in learning
mathematics and develop the skills of reading to learn and literacy, which in turn enhance
students’ flexibility in mathematics learning. Positive effects have been found not only on
children’s performance in mathematics, but also on their attitudes towards mathematics
(Elia, van den Heuvel-Panhuizen, & Georgiou, 2010). Picture books, as one kind of
children’s literature, are widely used in early childhood education in Hong Kong. At the
elementary stage, textbooks are the main material for student learning. Mathematical
concepts and symbols become complex and abstract when students enter the upper primary
level. The proportion of students who encounter difficulties in learning mathematics
increases from Primary 3 onward, and students’ interest in mathematics gradually
diminishes (Wong, Lam, Wong, Leung, & Mok, 2001). Through familiar language and
settings, picture books can enhance children’s communication skills, help them understand
the concept of mathematics and enhance self-confidence in problem-solving. Thus, teaching
mathematics through picture books can play an important role in creating the curriculum
space for students’ learning. In fact, learning to read in mathematics is a key area in the

Zhang, Yeung, Chueng 473
Hong Kong mathematics curriculum. Mathematics teachers are encouraged to help students
transfer literacy skills and strategies to the learning of mathematics (CDC¸ 2015, p. 13).
This policy often exerts influence at the school level in the form of reading promotion
programmes, with less access to the classroom level. There is little discussion of or research
on how to implement mathematics reading programmes in schools, and in particular little
research has been conducted on the integration of children’s literature with mathematics
teaching in the classroom. The current study aims to fill this gap.
A quasi-experimental study of two grade 5 classrooms in Hong Kong was used.
School-based picture books integrated with mathematics teaching were proposed. Through
the use of picture books, we investigated the opportunities provided for students to learn to
divide fractions, students’ attitudes towards mathematics and students’ strategy flexibility in
mathematics learning. We first review several theories and the literature on mathematics
reading to provide background for our study. We then describe the empirical part of the
study.
Literature Review
Background on Children’s Literature in Mathematics Education
Using children’s literature within mathematics instruction is not a new concept in teaching.
At the beginning of the 1990s, it was found that in many US elementary schools, students
had mastered the basic mathematical operations, but still had difficulty when they faced
word problems. Their problem-solving abilities were not strong. In addition, many
students’ attitudes towards mathematics became more negative as they advanced to higher
grades. After leaving school, though they had learned some mathematics skills, they still
did not have a good impression of mathematics (Whitin, 1992). NCTM (1989) proposed
that a mathematically literate student is one who has ‘learned to value mathematics, become
confident in one’s abilities, become a mathematical problem solver, learned to communicate
mathematically and learned to reason mathematically’ (pp. 5–6). To achieve these goals,
mathematics reading began to be used in the classroom and drew the attention of numerous
researchers (Gailey, 1993; Hong, 1996; Schiro, 1997, 2004; Thiessen, 2004; Thiessen,
Matthias, & Smith, 1992; Whitin, 1992; Whitin & Whitin, 2004).
According to the constructivist approach to learning, picture books offer an environment
in which children actively construct mathematical knowledge (Phillips, 1995). By using
picture books, teachers can set up a situation with which students are familiar. Children
resolve the cognitive conflicts that occur within the text and the pictures, an activity that is
based on Freudenthal’s (1983) ideas of mathematics as a meaningful activity. A picture
book may enable children to encounter problematic situations and may stimulate them to
ask their own questions, search for answers, consider different points of view, exchange
views with others and incorporate their findings into previously held knowledge. In this way,
picture books can support children in attaching personal meaning to the mathematical
objects involved in the books. Burns (2010) pointed out five benefits of teaching
mathematics using children’ literature. These picture books can i) help dispel the myth that
mathematics is dull, unimaginative and inaccessible; ii) spark children's mathematical

Books
imaginations in ways that textbooks and workbooks often do not; iii) help students who love
to read but are less enthusiastic about mathematics experience the wonder of math in the
same way they already enjoy the wonder of books; iv) help students whose first love is
mathematics look at books in a new way and v) help bolster teachers’ confidence in and
enthusiasm for teaching mathematics (p. 38).
Many storybooks used in mathematics demonstrate a variety of situations that teach
students how to solve personal problems, cope with conflict and take responsibility (Hong,
1996). According to Carney and Levin (2002), pictures may serve different functions in text
processing: decorative, representational, organizational, interpretational and
transformational. Thus, a good picture book offers opportunities to develop children’s
creativity and imagination and to help children visualise new concepts, which also can
develop students’ flexibility in problem solving.
Research on Using Picture Books in Mathematics Learning
Many studies have investigated the effect of reading picture books on young children’s
learning of mathematics. The integration of reading books and teaching mathematics has
typically involved other activities, such as playing with story-related (mathematical)
materials (Hong, 1996; Young-Loveridge, 2004) or singing mathematical rhymes
(Young-Loveridge, 2004). These findings have generally shown improvements in students’
achievement. At the same time, different learning areas has been investigated, such as
measurement (van den Heuvel-Panhuizen & Iliada, 2011), geometry (Hong, 1996), fractions
(Conaway & Midkiff, 1994), estimation (Whitin, 1994), classification and number
combinations (Hong, 1996).
The effect is not only on mathematics achievement; the use of literature in mathematics
has also been shown to improve students’ attitudes towards mathematics (Hong, 1996). For
example, Mink and Fraser (2002) conducted a study of student attitudes toward classroom
environments. The results showed that ‘using children’s literature in the mathematics
classroom empowers students to learn mathematical concepts’ (p. 21). Many children do not
value or like mathematics because they do not understand how it relates to their daily lives.
Beard (2003) examined the effects of integrated math and children¶s literature instruction on
mathematical achievement and mathematical anxiety and found that when teachers use
children¶s literature to teach mathematics concepts, they help children connect their
informal ideas with the abstract language and symbols of mathematics, which also reduces
math anxiety and negative attitudes towards mathematics.
Different students may benefit differently from using children’s literature. For example,
Murphy (1999) found that the visual representations in storybooks assisted some children
who were visual learners but had mathematical learning difficulties to understand difficult
concepts when they were portrayed through the ‘context of a story and illustrated through
diagrams, graphs and other visual related displays’(p. 122). Casey, Erkut, Ceder and Mercer
Young (2008) showed that a literature-embedded mathematics intervention that addressed
geometric skills was more advantageous to girls than to boys. Millard (1997) also suggested
that the focus on narrative books in school would have more appeal for girls than boys.

This study used fractions in Grade 5 as the teaching topic. When student learn fractions,
one of the main difficulties comes from the use of natural number properties to make
inferences about rational numbers, which Ni and Zhou (2005) called the ‘whole numbers
bias’. In classroom teaching, teachers often focus on rote procedures in a repetitive way.
Many students fail to understand the concept of fractions, even though they may be able to
calculate quickly and correctly. They treat the numerator and denominator as two separate
numbers (Cramer, Post & delMas, 2002). Many students ignore the fact that the fraction is
divided from a whole object. It is also difficult for some students to link fractions with
real-life experience. Therefore, we hoped to integrate picture books into the teaching of
fractions.
Methodology and Design
Participants
The participants were two classes of grade 5 students (25 boys and 28 girls), ages 9 to 10, in
a public primary school in Hong Kong. Class 5B was the experimental group, while class
5C was the control group. According to the results of their regular school exams, there were
no significant differences between two classes’ mathematics achievement. The experimental
group students used a picture book to learn fractions. The control group students used the
traditional teaching method.
Instrument
The data were collected via a questionnaire, a pre-test, a post-test and semi-structured
interviews. The pre-test and post-test were based on their knowledge of fraction division.
The questionnaire was related to their attitudes towards learning mathematics, which
included three dimensions: 1) attitudes towards mathematics (9 items), e.g., ‘I like any
schoolwork that involves numbers’, ‘I like to solve mathematics problems’; 2)
self-confidence in mathematics (7 items), e.g., ‘Mathematics is harder for me than for many
of my classmates’, ‘I am good at working out difficult mathematics problems’; 3)
mathematics anxiety (9 items): ‘Mathematics makes me feel uncomfortable, restless,
irritable and impatient’, ‘I get a sinking feeling when I think of trying hard math problems’.
School-based Picture Book
Many picture books present situations that can help students understand mathematics
concepts. In the experimental class, we provided several opportunities for children to learn
through activities based on our school-based picture book. This picture book was written
and illustrated by our school teachers for the purpose of using it to teach mathematical
concepts and skills. Specifically, the story is about an evil being who is going to invade a
village. The enemy will emerge from four tunnels. Villagers need to use six pizzas to cover
these tunnels. Therefore, students should think about how to divide six by four. This was an
interesting way to introduce fraction division to students. The situation also motivated
students to think about how the remainders can be divided. Figure 1 shows an episode from
the picture book.

Books
Figure 1. Picture book for fraction division
Implementation of Teaching a School-based Picture Book

Reading books is time-consuming. We therefore split the implementation into three stages:
before the lesson, during the lesson and after the lesson. Before each lesson, we asked
students to read an episode of the story by themselves (see Figure 2). They knew what the
learning objective of the coming lesson would be. Four lessons related to fraction division
had been arranged. Accordingly, there were four learning objectives (see Table 1). During
the preparation stage, students learned that the main character had encountered danger and
that they would learn a calculating skill to solve a problem to rescue the character. These
pre-class reading activities provided different problem-solving strategies. When they
entered the classroom, the teacher elaborated on the story and discussed problem-solving
strategies.
Table 1. Learning objectives related to the picture book
Picture The Legend of Sir Fraction
book name
1st lesson 2nd lesson 3rd lesson 4th lesson
Learning To understand that fractions A whole number Division of unit A fraction
objective can be interpreted as division divided by a unit fractions and divided by
and division of whole fraction whole numbers another
numbers that result in fraction
fractional answers.

Lesson 2 Lesson 3 Lesson 4

Figure 2. Episodes of the picture book
In stage II, the teachers designed related learning activities to engage the students. We
assumed that the students had read the story and thought about how to solve the problems.
The teachers thus had time to lead class discussions. During the lesson, we focused on the
theme of how to save the village. Each strategy was related to one problem-solving
method in fraction division. Thus, the story used a scaffold approach to lead students to
construct new knowledge, following the story plot. For example, we delivered six pizzas
and asked student to cut them to show how to share the pizza without remainders, which
was one method of saving the villagers.
Figure 3. Paper cutting activity

After students understood each calculation skill, they participated in an exercise that
involved role playing. They pretended to be the villagers. They had to save the other
villagers by finding the correct answer. Each episode of the story gave them a small task.
This teaching method empowered the students and motivated them to do the calculation
exercises.

Books
Lesson 2 Lesson 3 Lesson 4
Figure 4. Episodes used for role playing activity

After the lesson, in stage III, we asked students to reflect on their learning to deepen their
knowledge. They reviewed what they had learnt and how to solve the problem. Moreover,
we allowed students to create a problem in their picture book journals. This was an
open-ended assignment: they could create a question that interested them. Finally, they
answered a summary question that integrated all of the learning objectives in the unit. They
chose a problem-solving strategy and drew on what they had learnt.
Figure 5. Reflection log on the story


Students’ Attitude, Confidence and Anxiety
Based on the results of the questionnaire, an independent samples t-test was conducted to
evaluate students’ attitude, confidence and anxiety while studying mathematics in the
experimental group 5B and the control group 5C (see Table 2).
Table 2. Students’ Attitude, Confidence and Anxiety
Experimental Group Control Group
Pre-test Post-test Within Effect Pre-test Post-test Within Effect

group size group size
M SD M SD M SD M SD
t-test (d) t-test (d)
Attitude 2.91 .78 3.44 .57 3.98** .72 3.25 .80 3.21 .59 -1.41 .12
Confidence 2.73 .63 2.80 .48 1.05 .12 2.67 .52 2.71 .54 -0.58 .12
Anxiety 2.13 .68 1.83 .63 -2.84** .47 1.68 .57 1.70 .48 0.75 .05
Note. ** p< .01;
The pre-test showed no significant difference in the attitude scores for 5B and 5C. Similarly,
the confidence scores showed no significant difference between 5B and 5C. However, the
result revealed a significant difference between 5B and 5C in the scores for anxiety. As
there were more reversed questions about anxiety, the mean was lower than for the other
items. The post-test showed no significant difference in the attitude scores for 5B and 5C.
Similarly, the confidence scores showed no significant difference between the classes. The
result revealed no significant difference in the anxiety scores for 5B and 5C.
Overall, the post-test revealed that the students were more positive, more confident and less
anxious in learning mathematics than they were when they took the pre-test. In particular,
there were statistically significant differences between the pre-test and post-test scores for
attitude and anxiety, but not for confidence. The results showed that positive attitude and
confidence increased and anxiety decreased after exposure to the experiment.
A paired-samples t-test was conducted to compare students’ attitude, confidence and
anxiety about mathematics on the pre-test and the post-test. Table 3 shows the results.
Table 3. Paired Sample Test on Students’ Attitude, Confidence and Anxiety
Paired Differences Sig. (2-tailed)
95% Confidence Interval
of the Difference
Group Mean SD Lower Upper t df
Pair 1 Attitude.2 - Attitude.1 .61 .75 .29 .93 3.98** 23 .001
1
(5B) Pair 2 Confidence.2 - .13 .61 -.13 .39 1.05 23 .305
Confidence.1
Pair 3 Anxiety.2 - Anxiety.1 -.37 .64 -.64 -.10 -2.84** 23 .009
Pair 1 Attitude.2 - Attitude.1 -.12 .38 -.29 .05 -1.41 20 .175

Books
2 Pair 2 Confidence.2 - -.041 .32 -.19 .11 -.58 20 .569

(5C)
Confidence.1
Pair 3 Anxiety.2 - Anxiety.1 .063 .39 -.11 .24 .75 20 .461
Note. *p*< .05 **p < .01; ***p< .001
For the experimental group 5B, there was a significant difference in the attitude scores on
the pre-test and the post-test. These results suggested that the mathematics story had a
positive effect. Specifically, our results suggested that when students learn mathematics
through a story, their attitude to learning mathematics became positive.
Willingness to Create Their Own Mathematics Stories
Creating their own story is a flexible way for children to learn. On the post-test, we asked
students whether they were willing to create their own mathematics stories. More than half
of the students (56.0%) showed interest in making their own mathematics stories. Among
them, over 70% came from 5B. This may explain why more students from 5B had an
interest in making their own mathematics stories.
Positive Reflection
After each lesson, the students wrote in their reflection log books. In the feelings section,
most of them reported satisfaction with the learning process (see Figure 6). This showed
excellent motivation, which is important for learning. Because the students did not find
calculation boring, they were willing to do more exercises.
Figure 6. Student’s reflection log.

The classroom observation indicated that the intention of the calculation was higher in the
experimental group than in the control group. Overall, the students and teachers interacted
more in the experimental group than in the control group. Most students enjoyed the
lessons.
Conclusion
Using picture books is a flexible teaching strategy in the mathematics classroom. This study
used a custom-designed picture book and found not only that the students’ performance in
fraction division improved, but also that students’ attitudes towards learning become more
positive. During the class observation, we found that the learning atmosphere in the
experimental group was better than in the control group. More students were willing to
discuss problem-solving strategies in fraction division with each other. Students enjoyed
role playing and discussing mathematics. The flexibility of students’ problem solving was
enhanced. They were able to think of more strategies to solve fraction problems. However,
in Hong Kong, the teaching time is very limited. Producing a picture book requires a
significant investment of time. Therefore, it would be difficult to create many school-based
picture books. Moreover, not every topic is suitable for creating picture books. The
process of implementing picture books in teaching is not easy, which creates challenges.
References
Beard, L. A. (2003). The effects of integrated mathematics and children's literature
instruction on mathematics achievement and mathematics anxiety by gender. Doctoral
dissertation. University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg.
Casey, B., Erkut, S., Ceder, I., & Mercer Young, J. (2008). Use of a storytelling context to
improve girls’ and boys’ geometry skills in kindergarten. Journal of Applied
Developmental Psychology, 29, 29–48.
Curriculum Development Council (2015). Ongoing renewal of the school curriculum:
Focusing, deepening and sustaining (Updating the mathematics education key learning
area curriculum). Hong Kong SAR Education Bureau.
Curriculum Development Council (2017). Mathematics education key learning area
curriculum guide (Primary 1 - Secondary 6) .The Education Bureau, HKSAR.
Elia, Iliada, Van den Heuvel-Panhuizen, Marja, & Georgiou, Alexia. (2010). The role of
pictures in picture books on children's cognitive engagement with mathematics. European
Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 18(3), 125-147.
Elia, I, Van den Heuvel-Panhuizen, M, & Georgiou, A. (2010). The role of pictures in
picture books on children's cognitive engagement with mathematics. European Early
Childhood Education Research Journal, 18(3), 125-147.
Elia, I., Van den Heuvel-Panhuizen, M., & Kolovou, A. (2009). Exploring strategy use and
strategy flexibility in non-routine problem solving by primary school high achievers in
Mathematics. ZDM - The International Journal on Mathematics Education, 41(5),
605-618.
Freudenthal, H. (1983). Didactical phenomenology of mathematical structures. Dordrecht,
The Netherlands: Riedel Publishing Company.

Books
Mink, D. V., & Fraser, B. J. (2002). Evaluation of a K-5 mathematics program which
integrates children’s literature: Classroom environment. Paper presented at the annual
meeting of the American Research Association, New Orleans, LA.
Gray, E.M., & Tall, D.O. (1994) Duality, ambiguity and flexibility: A proceptual view of
simple arithmetic. The Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 26, 2, 115-141.
Heinze, A., Star, J. R. & Verschaffel, L. (2009). Flexible and adaptive use of strategies and
representations in mathematics education. ZDM - The International Journal on
Mathematics Education, 41 (5), 535-540.
Millard, E. (1997). Differently literate: Boys, girls, and the schooling of literacy. London: The
Falmer Press.
Moyer, P. S. (2000). Communicating mathematically: Children’s literature as a natural
connection. The Reading Teacher, 54(3), 246-255.
Murphy, S. J. (1999). Learning math through stories. School Library Journal, 45(3), 122-123.
Hong, H. (1996). Effects of mathematics learning through children’s literature on math
achievement and dispositional outcomes. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 11(4),
477-494.
Marston, J. (2010). Developing a framework for the selection of picture books to promote
early mathematical development. In L. Sparrow, B. Kissane & C. Hurst (Eds.), Shaping the
Future of Mathematics Education: Proceedings of the 33rd Annual Conference of the
Mathematics Education Research Group of Australasia Incorporated (Vol.2, pp. 383-390).
Fremantle, WA: MERGA.
Ni, Y., & Zhou, Y. (2005). Teaching and Learning Fraction and Rational Numbers: The
Origins and Implications of Whole Number Bias. Educational Psychologist, 40(1), 27-52.
Phillips, D.C. (1995), The good, the bad, and the ugly: The many faces of constructivism.
Educational Researcher 24(7): 5–12
Selter, C. (2009). Creativity, flexibility, adaptivity, and strategy use in mathematics. ZDM -
The International Journal on Mathematics Education, 41(5), 619–625.
Whitin, D. J. (1992). Explore mathematics through children’s literature. School Library
Journal, 38(8), 24-28.
Whitin, D. J. (2002). The potentials and pitfalls of integrating literature into the mathematics
program. Teaching Children Mathematics, 8(9), 503-504.
Whitin, D.J., & Wilde, S. (1992). Read any good math lately? Children’s books for
mathematical learning, K–6. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
Whitin, D.J., & Wilde, S. (1995). It’s the story that counts: More children’s books for
mathematical learning, K–6. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
Wong, N. Y., Lam, C. C.,Wong, K. M., Leung, F. K. S., & Mok, I. A. C. (2001). Students'
views of mathematics learning: a cross-sectional survey in Hong Kong. Education Journal,
29(2), 37-59.
Wong, N. Y., Marton, F., Wong, K. M., & Lam, C. C. (2002). The lived space of
mathematics learning. Journal of Mathematical Behavior, 21, 25－47.

Acknowledgement:
This reasearch was partially support by the Sumitomo Foundation Grant (168066) and the
Start-up Research Grant of the Education Univerity of Hong Kong.
Author
Zhang Qiaoping
Department of Mathematics and Information Technology
The Education University of Hong Kong
10 Lo Ping Road, Tai Po
New Territories, Hong Kong
Email: zqiaoping@eduhk.hk
Yeung Wing Ying

Fung Kai No.1 Primary School, Hong Kong
Email: wingying@fk1ps.edu.hk
Chueng Shuk Ping

Fung Kai No.1 Primary School, Hong Kong
Email: shyvana_cheung@ymail.com

484 Measuring Primary Mathematics Teacher’s Professional Competencies in Mainland of China
MEASURING PRIMARY MATHEMATICS TEACHER’S

PROFESSIONAL COMPETENCIES IN MAINLAND OF CHINA
Qinqiong Zhang, Wenzhou University, China
Xiaoying Chen, Chonnam National University, South Korea
Abstract
Although there were previous researches on teacher’s professional competencies, it is as yet
undetermined that how to effectively describe and measure primary mathematics teacher’s
professional competencies. Based on relevant researches, considering requirements of
China’s “Teacher Professional Standards for Primary and Secondary Schools” and
“Mathematics Curriculum Standards for Compulsory Educations”, this paper constructed a
theoretical framework of primary mathematics teachers' professional competencies
(PMTPC), and pointed out that the structure of PMTPC consisted of 4 dimensions:
professional intention; professional knowledge; professional practice; professional
commitment. There were also secondary indicators included in each dimension, professional
intention contained self-recognition, view of education, view of mathematics; professional
knowledge contained mathematical content knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge,
and mathematics pedagogical content knowledge; professional practice contained
mathematical content in specific topic, interpretation of the intentions of official
mathematics curriculum, understanding of students' mathematical thinking, and design of
teaching; and professional commitment contained devotion for education, identity of
teachers' profession and caring for students.
139 primary mathematics teachers from over 80 schools involved in two different teacher
training programs in Zhejiang Province were selected as the participants for this study, and
data were collected using questionnaires and interviews, and analyzed with qualitative and
quantitative methods. The results were discussed in 4 dimension of PMTPC: first, MPCK
played the most important core role in Professional Knowledge, and teachers’ MPCK
performed differently on difficult mathematical topics; second, professional competencies
of mathematics teachers need to be discussed in different mathematical topics, which
performed significantly in professional practice, moreover, design of teaching design stands
the central place on both topics of algebraic and statistics thinking, which was consistent
with the previous research; third, professional intention played a leading role for
professional knowledge and professional practice, and professional commitment was an
implicit but important element which cannot be ignored in PMTPC. Finally, all of the 4
dimensions are all crucial in the structure of PMTPC, and they can effectively reflect the
total score of professional competencies. But professional practice showed the best
performance of prediction, that is to say, from this dimension, it can reflect best the
professional competencies of mathematics teachers. What is more, dimensions of teachers'
professional competencies were found not directly related with each other, which further
indicates that structure of mathematics teachers' professional competencies is a complex and

Zhang, Chen 485
comprehensive system. It is necessary to consider the recessive elements such as

professional attitude, or even the elements that are not covered in these four dimensions.
Keywords: primary mathematics teacher’s professional competencies, professional

intention, professional knowledge, professional practice, professional commitment

486 Gender Equity in Mathematics Learning: The Case of Shanghai
GENDER EQUITY IN MATHEMATICS LEARNING: THE CASE

OF SHANGHAI
Yan Zhu, East China Normal University, China
Jiansheng Bao, East China Normal University, China
Abstract
As a traditionally stereotyped male domain, gender differences in mathematics learning
have long been a source of concern for many educators. In China, the issue of gender
equality in education is a particularly interesting topic to most families with the
implementation of one-child policy since the late 1970s. This study aims to have a closer
examination on the role of gender on Shanghai students’ mathematics attainment from a
perspective of three social factors via a secondary analysis of PISA 2012 Shanghai-China
mathematics data. More specifically, the analysis looked into mutli-children families vs.
one-child families, local students vs. migrant students, as well as students from various
types of schools. Discussions and implications about the existence and non-existence of
gender disparities will also be included.

SPECIAL SHARING GROUPS
Goos, Radford 489
WRITING FOR PUBLICATION IN MATHEMATICS EDUCATION

RESEARCH JOURNALS (I)
Merrilyn Goos, University of Limerick, Ireland
Luis Radford, Laurentian University, Canada
The conduct and dissemination of mathematics education research is an international

concern. Yet, research communicated in English language journals and conferences
dominates the literature in our field. This dominance of not only the English language, but
also culturally inflected ways of framing and communicating research, can present
challenges to multilingual researchers from non-Anglophone countries. The literature on
academic research, writing and publishing in mathematics education identifies three kinds
of barriers faced by such authors: (1) technical difficulties with the English language; (2)
subtle differences between semantic fields in different languages; and (3) differences in the
significance of research questions across cultural contexts (Bartolini Bussi & Martignone,
2013; Geiger & Straesser, 2015; Meaney, 2013).
In these two 60 minute sessions, the presenters – respectively the Editor-in-Chief and a
senior Associate Editor of Educational Studies in Mathematics – will share journal editors’
expectations for publishable manuscripts, engage participants in identifying challenges often
faced by authors from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds, and suggest ways of
overcoming these challenges.
The following activities are planned for the first session:
1. The presenters will share ESM manuscript submission, publication, and readership data by
geographical region to highlight the high level of interest in the journal in the Asia-Pacific
region.
2. In small groups, participants will identify challenges they have experienced in writing for
English language journals. Through discussion these will be interpreted in terms of relevant
literature.
References
Bartolini Bussi, M., & Martignone, F. (2013). Cultural issues in the communication of
research on mathematics education. For the Learning of Mathematics, 33(1), 2-7.
Geiger, V., & Straesser, R. (2015). The challenge of publication for English
non-dominant-language authors in mathematics education. For the Learning of
Meaney, T. (2013). The privileging of English in mathematics education research, just a
necessary evil? In M. Berger, K. Brodie, V. Frith, & K. le Roux (Eds.), Proceedings of the
Seventh International Mathematics Education and Society Conference (Vol. 1, pp. 65-84).
Cape Town: MES.

490 Writing for Publication in Mathematics Education Research Journals
WRITING FOR PUBLICATION IN MATHEMATICS EDUCATION

RESEARCH JOURNALS (II)
Merrilyn Goos, University of Limerick, Ireland
Luis Radford, Laurentian University, Canada
The conduct and dissemination of mathematics education research is an international

concern. Yet, research communicated in English language journals and conferences
dominates the literature in our field. This dominance of not only the English language, but
also culturally inflected ways of framing and communicating research, can present
challenges to multilingual researchers from non-Anglophone countries. The literature on
academic research, writing and publishing in mathematics education identifies three kinds
of barriers faced by such authors: (1) technical difficulties with the English language; (2)
subtle differences between semantic fields in different languages; and (3) differences in the
significance of research questions across cultural contexts (Bartolini Bussi & Martignone,
2013; Geiger & Straesser, 2015; Meaney, 2013).
In these two 60 minute sessions, the presenters – respectively the Editor-in-Chief and a
senior Associate Editor of Educational Studies in Mathematics – will share journal editors’
expectations for publishable manuscripts, engage participants in identifying challenges often
faced by authors from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds, and suggest ways of
overcoming these challenges.
The following activities are planned for the second session:
1. The presenters will draw connections between challenges that participants have identified in
the first session, in relation to writing for English language journals, and two key
requirements for publishable manuscripts: (i) making an original and significant contribution
to knowledge and (ii) being accessible and interesting to an international audience.
2. In small groups, participants will choose and analyse some of their own draft manuscripts.
With support from the presenters they will suggest modifications that orient the manuscript
to journal requirements while preserving important cultural and linguistic dimensions of the
research.
References
Bartolini Bussi, M., & Martignone, F. (2013). Cultural issues in the communication of
research on mathematics education. For the Learning of Mathematics, 33(1), 2-7.
Geiger, V., & Straesser, R. (2015). The challenge of publication for English
non-dominant-language authors in mathematics education. For the Learning of
Meaney, T. (2013). The privileging of English in mathematics education research, just a
necessary evil? In M. Berger, K. Brodie, V. Frith, & K. le Roux (Eds.), Proceedings of the
Seventh International Mathematics Education and Society Conference (Vol. 1, pp. 65-84).
Cape Town: MES.

Huang, Lin, Zhang, Zhu 491
PRACTICE AND RESEARCH ON ENGLAND-SHANGHAI

MATHEMATICS TEACHER EXCHANGE PROGRAMME
Huang Xingfeng, Shanghai Normal University, China
Lin Xumai, Shanghai Jincai Experimental School, China
Zhang Rongxi, Shanghai Peijia Bilingual School, China
Zhu Youqin, Shanghai Jianshe Primary School, China
Background
Since Shanghai joined the Program for International Student Assessment in 2009 ，
Shanghai basic education has enjoyed the good reputation around the world. More and more
countries come and want to understand Shanghai experience in basic education
development. As a case, England-Shanghai Mathematics Teacher Exchange Programme
was launched in 2014.
National Centre for Excellence for Mathematics Teaching and Shanghai Normal
University implements this programme, which is supported by Department for Education of
U.K. and Shanghai Municipal Education Commission. From 2014 to the present, four
rounds of England-Shanghai Mathematics Teacher Exchange Programme have been
implemented successfully, which is involved in about 560 teachers. The programme has
aroused positive social and culture response in China and U. K.
In each round, British teachers entered Shanghai local schools, and established
one-to-one partnership with Shanghai mathematics teachers. They spent two weeks
observing school lessons, attending teacher professional development activities and
communicating with expert teachers in Shanghai. After that, Shanghai mathematics teachers
arrived in England, and taught mathematics lessons in English in their partner schools for
two or three weeks, so that more local teachers had opportunities to observe Shanghai-style
lessons and discuss with Shanghai teachers.
The programme has played an extremely important role in deepening the exchange of
mathematics education between oriental and occidental cultures, and promoting teachers to
reflect and improve their teaching quality.
Activities planned
1. 5 minutes video show: Sharing the practice and experience on the exchange program
2. 15 minutes presentation by Huang Xingfeng: Difference of mathematics teaching between
China and UK.
3. 10 minutes presentation by Lin Xumai: A case study of teaching how to solve a British
mathematics problem in Shanghai Classroom.
4. 10 minutes presentation by Zhang Rongxi & Zhu Youqin: My experience on
mathematics teaching in England.
5. 20 minutes for Q & A.

492 Designing and Evaluating Teachers’ Professional Development Workshops: The Case of Just-Do-Math
Program
DESIGNING AND EVALUATING TEACHERS’ PROFESSIONAL

DEVELOPMENT WORKSHOPS: THE CASE OF JUST-DO-MATH
PROGRAM
Yuan-Shun Lee, University of Taiwan, Taiwan
Ying-Hao Cheng, University of Taiwan, Taiwan
Jian-Cheng Chen, Ming Chi University of Technology, Taiwan
It is common that learning mathematics is not easy for many students, and each country has
its own challenges in mathematics education. In Taiwan, although students with high scores
on mathematics assessments, reports also indicated that students often have negative
attitude and low confidence in learning mathematics. Furthermore, there are relative high
percentage of low-attaining students when compared to other East Asian countries (Mullis,
Martin, Foy, & Arora, 2012; OECD, 2014).
In order to overcome our problem in mathematics education, a Just-Do-Math (JDM)
program was proposed in 2014, and continuously developed in Taiwan. Mathematics
grounding activity(MGA) modules are designed and intended as a foundation of the JDM
program to trigger students’ motive to learn mathematics and to enrich their concrete
experience for learning school mathematics effectively. A MGA module is designed to be
used in manipulating and playing style. It is a package of topic specific mathematics
content, manipulatable materials, instruction guidance for teacher, and sequential learning
activities with worksheets. JDM also has been conducting series of professional
development workshops to facilitate teachers in implementing MGA module to help
student learn mathematics (MGA-teacher workshop) or in designing MGA modules
(MGA-designer workshop). After implementing the programs for years, a
research-based integrated project was initiated to evaluate and improve the JDM program
scientifically and comprehensively. One part of this project is to investigate the participant
teachers’ professional development, both cognitive and motive change, in JDM
program.
In this special sharing group, we aim to share our findings on the effectiveness of
teachers’ professional development in MGA-teacher workshop and MGA-designer
workshop. We think the MGA-teacher workshop and MGA-designer workshop, even
whole JDM program, are in an innovative setting. The purpose, evaluand, and timeline
are dynamically changed after once and once reflection of the interactions between
members, theories, expectations, and practice. In this perspective, according the
performance of participant teachers’ professional development, we try to analyse the
effectiveness of these workshops in the perspective of developmental evaluation (Patton,
1994). We will present three research findings after an introduce of JDM program and the
two kinds of teachers’ professional development workshops. The first two presentations
show the participant teachers’ comments on the MGA modules and MGA-teacher
workshop. These comments are categorized into types of attention, relevance, confidence,
and satisfaction according to the ARCS model of motivational design (Keller, 2009). The

Lee, Cheng, Chen 493
third presentation show the heavy challenge of MGA module designing to experienced
MGA-teachers, in both cognitive and motive components. After the presentation, we
invited all the participants to share their practical experience or research results
corresponding to issues the presenters proposed. We hope the participants are grouped with
different social-cultural background. After the group discussion, we invited every group
to share their comments and suggestions of teachers’ professional development program to
all participants. Details can be seen in Table 1.
Table 1. Schedule for special sharing group
Phases Description
Introduction (6 mins) Introduction of the background of the
special sharing group
the 1st presentation (8 mins) Evaluation of MGA modules: Teachers
comments.
presenter: Yuan-Shun Lee
the 2nd presentation (8 mins) Evaluation of MGA-teacher workshop:
Teachers comments.
presenter: Ying-Hao Cheng
the 3rd presentation (8 mins) The cognitive and motive challenge in
designing MGA module.
presenter: Jian-Cheng Chen
small-group discussion (15 mins) group discussion on issues the presenters
proposed
whole-group discussion (15 mins) sharing group discussion results
References
Mullis, I. V. S., Martin, M. O., Foy, P., & Arora, A. (2012). TIMSS 2011 international
results in mathematics. Chestnut Hill, MA: TIMSS & PIRLS International Study Center.
OECD. (2014). PISA 2012 results: What students know and can do--Student performance in
mathematics, reading and science (Vol. 1). Paris: OECD Publishing.
Patton, M. Q. (1994). Developmental Evaluation. Evaluation Practice, Vol.15, No. 3, pp.
311-319. JAI Press, Inc.
Keller, J. M. (2009). Motivational design for learning and performance: The ARCS model
approach. Springer Science & Business Media.

494 Doing Math Modelling Outdoors – A Special Classroom Activity Designed with Mathcitymap
DOING MATH MODELLING OUTDOORS – A SPECIAL

CLASSROOM ACTIVITY DESIGNED WITH MATHCITYMAP
Matthias Ludwig, Goethe University Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Iwan Gurjanow, Goethe University Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Joerg Zender, Goethe University Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Proposal for Special Sharing Groups

Mathematical modeling tasks in schoolbooks are often rather boring and they have a
lack of authenticity (Vos 2013). With the MathCityMap-Project (MCM-Project) we like to
motivate students to solve real world tasks by using expedient mathematical modelling
ideas. The MCM-Project is based on the math trail idea introduced in Melbourne,
Australia in 1984 (Blane &Clarke, 1984). A math trail is a walk where you can discuss,
solve but also phrase or formulate mathematical tasks (Shoaf et al, 2004). To solve a task
you have to interact with the place or with an object where the task is located. You also
need to deal with the idea of mathematical modeling, because you should transform the
real situation into a mathematical model where you can do mathematics.
With today’s technical opportunities, the math trail idea experienced a revival (Ludwig et
al, 2013). In the MCM-project we use a MCM app for mobile devices from which the math
trail walker can get their trail guide and different hints to solve the problem. The app can
also check your answers. Using the MCM-webportal we are able to give interested people
access to all the developed tasks. Users are able to have a look on the published tasks and
can customize these tasks easily to their needs. The registered users are not forced to
publish their own tasks but they can share them with friends.
During this interactive workshop the participants learn more about the possibilities of the
MCM-project and the underlying theoretical framework. We will create a math trail on the
conference venue. At the hands-on part of the workshop, the participants will walk this trail
and make the math trail experience themselves. We will provide measuring tools for that and
mobile devices for those who cannot bring one. After that, we will create tasks and a trail
together with the participants in a learning-by-doing way. So at the end of the workshop
everyone has experienced what a math trail is and has learned to create one with the
MCM-System. Please download the MathCityMap app from Google Play Store or App
Store (free of charge). You find everything also on www.mathcitymap.eu
We have had similar activities on ICMI-13 in Hamburg and on ICTMA-18 in Cape Town.
References
Blane, D.C. & Clark, D. (1984). A Mathematics Trail Around the City of Melbourne.
Monash Mathematics Education Centre, Monash University.
Ludwig, M., Jesberg, J., David Weiß (2013). MathCityMap – eine faszinierende Belebung
der Idee mathematischer Wanderpfade. Praxis der Mathematik, 53, 14–19.

Ludwig, Gurjanow, Zender 495
Shoaf, M., Pollak, H. & Schneider, J. (2004). Math Trails. Lexington: COMAP.
Vos, P. (2013). Authenticity in Extra-curricular Mathematics Activities: Researching
Authenticity as a Social Construct. In G. A. Stillman et al. (eds.), Mathematicalmodelling
in Education Research and Practice, Springer 105-113.

496 Multiple Meanings of Mathematical Playing in Early Childhood Mathematics Education
MULTIPLE MEANINGS OF MATHEMATICAL PLAYING IN

EARLY CHILDHOOD MATHEMATICS EDUCATION
Nagisa Nakawa, Kanto-Gakuin University, Japan
Masato Kosaka, University of Fukui, Japan
Background
At the children’s developmental stage for quality early childhood mathematics education,
learning through playing is thought to be crucial at the stage (e.g. Vogel, 2013; Wager, 2013;
Fleer, 2011). This is because the style of learning is thought to be developmentally
appropriate rather than implementing academically oriented learning (Wager, 2013; Fleer,
2011). At the same time, early childhood mathematics education should be culturally and
socially responsible (Fleer, 2011) and there must be a variety of curriculum in practice for
playing in different regions and countries (e.g. Wager, 2013). There also must be multiple
meanings of playing and related practices in class, for instance, free play or play-based
learning. The extent to pedagogical input by teacher in children’s playing is a focal point of
discussions. Thus, we would like to discuss the meaning and interpretation of playing in this
group comprehensively. Therefore, in this special sharing group, we firstly will take up a
Japanese case, showing a programme of the activity and video clip as an example for a
starting point for discussion, we would like to share your countries’ practices related to
learning through playing and learn better practices for the quality of education. Hopefully,
we will find common principles or characteristics in playing activities in the end of the
session.
Aims
The group will discuss the multiple meanings of playing and the balance between playing
and pedagogical support in early childhood mathematics education, taking up some
examples of Japanese kindergarten practices to find better practices from each other.
We will intend to make a network for specialists who are concerned about early childhood
mathematics education.
We will find the commonalities and differences in the practices related to learning through
playing.
Outline of the group activities
5 minutes: To introduce ourselves and participants and to state the aim of the session
15 minutes: To show one example of learning through playing by distributing a programme
of the activity and showing a vide clip
20 minutes: To discuss in a small group of 4-5 participants about (1) the clip by considering
their own countries’ cases (10 minutes) and (2) the principle of learning through playing (10
minutes)
15 minutes: To share the discussions in a cross-session

Nakawa, Kosaka 497
5 minutes: Way forward
References
Fleer, M. (2011). ‘Conceptual Play’: Foregrounding Imagination and Cognition during
Concept Formation in Early Years Education. Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood,
12(3), 224-240.
Vogel, R. (2013). Mathematical Situations of Play and Exploration. Educational Studies in
Wager, A. A. (2013). Practices that Support Mathematics Learning in a Play-Based
Classroom. English, D. L., & Mulligan, T. J. (eds.). Reconceptualising Early Mathematics
Learning, no. 3977-4525. (Kindle)
Acknowledgement
This is funded by JSPS Kakenhi grant no. 15H02911.

498 Facilitate Mathematics Teaching and Learning through Deepening Understanding of the Core Ideas of
Concepts
FACILITATE MATHEMATICS TEACHING AND LEARNING

THROUGH DEEPENING UNDERSTANDING OF THE CORE
IDEAS OF CONCEPTS
Haw-Yaw Shy, National Changhua University of Education, Taiwan
Ting-Ying Wang, National Taiwan Normal University, Taiwan
Yan-Ting Chen, National Taichung University of Education, Taiwan
Literature has revealed several teacher professional development (TPD) programs with
various aims, including mathematics content knowledge (MCK) and mathematics
pedagogical content knowledge (MPCK). These programs could have very different
connotations though they addressed the same issues. Mathematics teachers in Taiwan, as
well as those in other East Asian countries, performed well on MCK and MPCK in the
international comparison studies (Schmidt et al, 2011). Thus, what they need to be
developed is not basic understanding of the mathematics concepts in textbooks and how to
correctly demonstrate problem solving to their students. Instead, they require to deepen their
mathematics understanding by figuring out the core ideas of the concepts and to learn how
to let their students see those ideas in mathematics learning. For example, Taiwanese
teachers can fluently teach students how to transform between 3x=4y and x:y=4:3, but they
may never think about why learning x:y=4:3 rather than only 3x=4y is necessary. However,
only when students learn the core ideas, they obtain the opportunities to see how human
beings use mathematics to describe the world, and then further realize and appreciate the
value of mathematics, which Taiwan students did not do.
This SSG intends to introduce a project which deals with the development of teaching
materials (working sheets) and the TPD for primary and secondary mathematics teachers to
address the issues of student mathematics learning. The working sheets are developed to
facilitate student understanding of the core ideas of mathematics concepts through a simple
and intuitive way. The working sheets are featured with low cognition threshold through
which all students have opportunities to learn flexibly according to their own mathematics
abilities. The TPD program is designed to cultivate teachers’ MCK regarding the core ideas
of the concepts and MPCK regarding how to effectively teach students mathematics and
flexibly adjust instruction according to students’ various learning situation based on the
emphasis on the core ideas. The routes of the TPD program is shown as Figure 1.
The SSG provide opportunities for participants to think and discuss (1) what it means by
the core ideas of mathematics concepts and what the real examples are; (2) what the
effective teaching approaches are to allow students understand the ideas; (3) what the
effective routes are to develop mathematics teachers’ MCK on the core ideas and their
MPCK of pertinent teaching.

Shy, Wang,, Chen 499
Instruction by the teacher educator

Access required materials
 Demonstration of teaching
Access the  Reflect in advance
 Deepen teachers’ MCK
websites  Teaching video observation Reflection
 Introduce ideas of designing
 Adapt working sheets
working sheets
 Teaching practice
 Clarify teachers’ doubts
Attending TPD workshops in the four regions of Taiwan

 The workshop in each region contains 20 times of 3-hour courses a year.
Participate in TPD
 In each course, one working sheet will be discussed to clarify mathematics concepts
program
and their essence. The participating teachers can bring up any relevant teaching
questions for the whole group to discuss.
Figure 1. The routes in the teacher professional development program
The organization of the SSG is shown in Table 1.

Table 1. The organization of the special sharing group
Phase Activity
Introduction/5 min Background and guiding questions

Sharing of the ideas and outcomes of the project
Presentation/20 min (designed materials, approaches to faciliate TPD,
results of teacher and student leanring...)
Group work/20 min Discussion on guiding questions
Discussion/15 min Discussion on group results
References
Schmidt, W. H., Blömeke, S., Tatto, M. T., Hsieh, F.-J., Cogan, L., Houang, R. T., …
Schwille, J. (2011, January). Teacher Education Matters: A Study of Middle School
Mathematics Teacher Preparation in Six Countries. NY: Teacher College Press.

500 Designing and Evaluating Math-Grounding Activity to Develop Students’ Reasoning Competence: The
Just-Do-Math Project
DESIGNING AND EVALUATING MATH-GROUNDING ACTIVITY

TO DEVELOP STUDENTS’ REASONING COMPETENCE: THE
JUST-DO-MATH PROJECT
Kai-Lin Yang, National Taiwan Normal University, Taiwan
Hui-Yu Hsu, National Tsing Hau University, Taiwan
Each country has its special educational challenges. In Taiwan, although students
consistently outperformed in cross-nation mathematics assessments, reports also indicated
that students often have negative attitude toward the learning of mathematics and keep low
confidence in mathematics (Mullis, Martin, Foy, & Arora, 2012; OECD, 2014). Another
main challenge in Taiwan is the relative high percentage of low-attaining students when
compared to other East Asian countries (e.g., Singapore).
To overcome Taiwan special educational challenges, a nationwide program, namely
Just-Do-Math (JDM), was launched in 2014 in an attempt to develop students, including
low-attaining, the fundamental mathematics concepts, thus those students can subsequently
understand school mathematics. JDM has been continuously publishing a variety of
math-grounding activities (MGAs) that were developed based on both students’ cognitive
and motive needs. JDM also has been implementing a series of professional development
workshops to facilitate teachers in designing or using MGAs to help student learn
mathematics. After implementing the programs for a year, a research-based integrated
project was initiated to scientifically and comprehensively examine MGAs from the design
and the implementation perspectives that involve different tiers of participants (teacher
educators, teachers, and students) and the interplay among the tiers.
In this special sharing group, we aim to share our experiences with the design and the
evaluation of MGAs from both research and practice perspectives. We will elaborate MGAs
as to how they can well scaffold students in constructing mental images from the two
perspectives. We particularly focus on three types of reasoning competence: spatial
reasoning, deductive reasoning, and algebraic reasoning. The structure of designing
instructional sequences from Ruthven, Laborde, Leach, and Tiberghien (2009) will also be
deliberated in regard to how it can help create the MGAs specific to the three kinds of
reasoning. The special sharing group (SSG) will combine two presentations, group activity
and discussions. Details can be seen in Table 1.
Table 1: Schedule for special sharing group
Phases Description
Introduction
Introduction of the background of the special sharing group
(6 mins)
Experiences sharing that focuses on spatial reasoning and

The first presentation
deductive reasoning (K.-L. Yang)

Yang, Hsu 501
(12 mins)
Experiences sharing that focuses on algebraic reasoning (H.-Y.
The second presentation Hsu)
(12 mins)
Group activity
Working on guiding questions based on the two presentations
(15 mins)
Discussion
Discussion of group results
(15 mins)
References
Mullis, I. V. S., Martin, M. O., Foy, P., & Arora, A. (2012). TIMSS 2011 international results
in mathematics. Chestnut Hill, MA: TIMSS & PIRLS International Study Center.
OECD. (2014). PISA 2012 results: What students know and can do--Student performance in
mathematics, reading and science (Vol. 1). Paris: OECD Publishing.
Ruthven, K., Laborde, C., Leach, J., & Tiberghien, A. (2009). Design tools in didactical
research: Instrumenting the epistemological and cognitive aspects of the design of teaching
sequences. Educational Researcher, 38(5), 329-342.

WORKING GROUPS
504 International Perspectives on Using Video in Professional Development
INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES ON USING VIDEO IN

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Kim Beswick, University of Tasmania, Australia
Greg Oates, University of Tasmania, Australia
Tracey Muir, University of Tasmania, Australia
Tanya Evans, University of Auckland, New Zealand
Mary Beisiegel, University of Oregon, United States
This working group will build upon a Discussion Group at ICME 13 (Leong, Ho & Evans,
2016) and a Working Session, at PME 41 (Oates, Beswick, Beisiegel, Evans, King, &
Fielding-Wells, 2017) which focused on the use of video in professional development (PD). The range
of examples of use shared at these sessions highlighted the variety of audiences, participants,
and purposes for which video is used in PD. In addition, national and cultural contexts
appear to contribute to differing issues and priorities. At EARCOME we aim to
explore further the cultural dimensions of professional development, towards establishing
an online network of researchers for context specific and comparative research into the use
of video in PD. The following questions will be used to explore these issues and to frame
initial discussions in the WG:
1. How do audience, participants, and purposes influence the use of video in PD? How do these
impacts vary among countries?
2. What ethical issues might arise in the use of video for PD, how can they be negotiated and
how do these vary among countries? E.g., what role should/can the subjects of videos play in
its use?
3. What frameworks and theories are useful in guiding and interpreting the use of video in PD in
various contexts?
4. How can an international, online community share practice and conduct research on the use
of video in PD?
In Session 1 the presenters will provide an overview of the aims and background of the
WG (20 minutes). Participants will be invited to share their experience of using video in
PD (30 minutes). Questions 1-2 listed above will be discussed, modified and/or added to
(15 mins), before breaking into groups, each focused on a question. They will discuss
initial ideas about the question (15 minutes). The session will conclude with reports from
groups (10 minutes). Session 2 will begin with a reminder of Session 1 (15 minutes). Group
discussions will continue aimed at documenting: refined questions; how these could be
investigated; comparisons among countries that might be of interest; and how discussion
could be progressed online (45 minutes). Finally, groups will report (10 minutes), and
practical issues regarding: continuing the collaboration online; timelines for progressing
the work; and protocols for sharing videos and related materials within the group will be
discussed (20 minutes).

Beswick, Oates, Muir, Evans, Beisiegel 505
References
Leong, Y. H., Ho, W. K. & Evans, T. (2016). Videos in teacher professional development,
Discussion Group, Proceedings of the 13th International Congress on Mathematical
Education (ICME), Hamburg, 24-31 July 2016: ICME.
Oates, G., Beswick, K., Beisiegel, M., Evans, T., King, D., & Fielding-Wells, J. (2017).
Videos in teacher professional development: Fostering an international community of
practice. In Kaur, B., Ho, W. K., Toh, T. L., & Choy, B. H. (Eds.). Proceedings of
the 41st Conference of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics
Education, Vol. 1, pp. 155-156. Singapore: PME.

506 Leading Mathematics Education
LEADING MATHEMATICS EDUCATION

Peter Grootenboer, Griffith University, Australia
Catherine Attard, University of Western Sydney, Australia
Background:
In schools across all countries and contexts, mathematics education is led by
individuals who are responsible for the curriculum and pedagogy in their particular
site. In secondary schools these people often have titles like ‘Head of Department’ of
‘Faculty Head’, and in primary schools they might have a role like ‘Numeracy Coach’
or ‘Mathematics Curriculum Leader’. Regardless of their title, they have a critical role
to facilitate effective mathematics teaching in their school. However, there is little
research about these important leadership roles.
Over the last five years we have investigated middle leading in schools and early
childhood centres across a range of countries, at different levels of education, and in
regional and urban settings. In general, we have undertaken research and development
projects to understand and equip mathematics education leaders to facilitate curriculum
and pedagogical development in their schools sites.
Due to the close and direct impact of mathematics leading on the teaching and learning
that occurs in classrooms, there is a need for greater and more nuanced understanding
of these important leadership roles in schools. The conditions, focus, and nature of
mathematics middle leading are quite different to those required for principal
leadership, calling for different theories and models that are specific to these
specialized roles.
Guiding Questions
1. What are the practices of mathematics education leaders?
2. What conditions and arrangements support effective mathematics education leadership?
3. What professional development is needed for mathematics education leaders?
Outline of the Session
Given that this field is relatively under-researched and under-theorised, the session will be
dialogic and be focussed on sharing ideas and research, and facilitating networks for
future cross-national empirical work.
1. Introduction & Welcome (5 minutes)
2. Participants to share interest in the topic (1 minute each)
3. Report on Two Studies – Grootenboer and Attard (20 minutes)
4. Dialogue in small groups about the studies vis-à-vis the participants’ own contexts (25
minutes)
5. Whole group to report back and develop agenda for future collaboration (20 minutes)

Kim, Wang 507
FACILITATE TEACHER LEARNING THROUGH DESIGN-BASED

MATHEMATICS TEACHER PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
ACTIVITIES
Dong-Won Kim, Cheongju National University of Education, Korea
Ting-Ying Wang, National Taiwan Normal University, Taiwan
Mathematics teacher professional development (TPD) programs seek to increase the

competences of teachers to deal with whatever challenges they may encounter in teaching.
Literature has suggested various TPD activities which aim to accomplish this goal and
among them requesting teachers to design tasks for student learning is one critical type
(Zaslavsky, 2008). In the design-based TPD programs, the tasks which participating
teachers are asked to design often involve crucial mathematics teaching aims, such as
grounding students’ prerequisite knowledge, facilitating student learning through conjecture,
and diagnosing student cognition in learning processes. The activities organized by the TPD
programs for participating teachers often include design, evaluation, teaching experiments,
reflection and refinement. In these activities, teachers are expected to work collaboratively
with teacher educators and other participating teachers to think and discuss important
mathematics teaching elements such as student cognition, student learning difficulties, core
ideas of mathematics contents, teaching methods and processes, and the connections among
them. Ideally, teachers obtain the opportunities to connect theories and teaching practice
while designing and refining tasks for student learning. However, do teachers always learn
successfully in the TPD programs? Why or why not? What should teacher educators do to
promote teachers’ learning? How should TPD programs be designed to help teachers?
This working group intends to introduce four empirical studies pertinent to design-based
TPD programs in Korea and Taiwan. Each study considered teachers’ designing tasks for a
specific mathematics teaching aim. Which factors were considered when designing the TPD
programs and why, which factors affected the effectiveness of the TPD programs, and what
teacher educators and participating teachers experienced and gained in the programs will be
discussed. The goal of the working group is to motivate participants to engage in the
discussion of these issues and further consider the implicit factors which might be revealed
when simultaneously reviewing the findings in the two countries.
The organization of the working group is shown in Table 1.

508 Facilitate Teacher Learning Through Design-Based Mathematics Teacher Professional Development
Activities
Table 1. The organization of the working group
Phase Activity
Introduction/5 min Background and guiding questions

Sharing of the design and outcomes of the
design-based TPD project
1. Collaborative inquiry among mathematics
teachers in Korea: Professional learning
experiences through design-based PLC
(Professional Learning Community)
activity (D.-H. Lee, Korea)
2. Teachers‘ vulnerable hearts: Experiences in
TPD activities for desining tasks to
diagnose student cognitionn in learning
Presentation/40 min
(H.-Y. Hsu, Taiwan)
3. Learning together: Building of mutual
understanding between teachers and
researchers through design-based PLC
(Professional Learning Community)
activity (D.-W. Kim, Korea)
4. What teacher educators could do to help
teachers’ vulnerable hearts? Experiences
in TPD activities for designing tasks for
student conjecture (J.-C. Chen, Taiwan)
Group work/25 min Discussion on guiding questions
Discussion/20 min Discussion on group results
References
Zaslavsky, O. (2008). Meeting the challenges of mathematics teacher education through
design and use of tasks that facilitate teacher learning. . In B. Jaworski & T. Wood (Eds.),
The Mathematics Teacher Educator as a Developing Professional (pp. 93-114).
Rotterdam, the Netherlands: Sense Publishers.

Mizoguchi, Inprasitha 509
CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY ON LESSON STUDY

Tatsuya Mizoguchi, Tottori University, Japan
Maitree Inprasitha, Khon Kaen University, Thailand
Proposal abstract
The primary purpose of this Working Group is to understand the actual conditions and
constraints of lesson studies among different countries and cultures mutually. Our original
research concern is to make clear whether ‘lesson study’, ‘授業研究’, and ‘ß, " ß#,
0 + V6 / ’ besame
or corresponding, if not, what are different, and what are the reason for them. Of course, we
don't intend to unify the activities performed as ‘lesson study’, ‘授業研究’ or
‘ß, " ß#,
0 V6 / ’, etc. Rather, by clarifying various cultural backgrounds or conditions
+
and restrictions/constraints there, we intend to make better improvement of working of
lesson study mutually.
To date, collaborative research practices between Japan and Thailand has been conducted
partially. In this Working Group, we will first introduce these efforts and results.
Presentation 1: Contrasting and comparing of researchers' perspectives through observation

of video lessons between Japan and Thailand (1st stage of the Project, cf. Mizoguchi et al.,
submitting)
Presentation 2: Contrasting and comparing of lesson designs by pre-service teachers
(student-teachers) between Japan and Thailand (2nd stage of the Project, on going)
These presentations will be done by other members of our project than organizers1.
These are part of the whole works of the project (Mizoguchi et al., 2015), and the research
practices will be further expanded in the future.
Therefore, we aim to expand the possibility in this research field by sharing and
discussing not only the works of our project but also the following key questions with
participants:
Key question 1: How ‘lesson study’ is done in your country/region?
- what is the purpose of ‘lesson study’?
- what kind of process is ‘lesson study’ done?
- what is the role and relationship of practitioners and researchers in ‘lesson study’?
Key question 2: What kind of methodology(-ies) could be considered to contrast and
compare lesson studies internationally?
Key question 3: What kind of implications could we draw out from such international
collaborative research?
Planned structure (whole time: 90 minutes)
1. Opening remarks: Overview of the Working Group and introducing the project (10 minutes)

510 Cross-Cultural Study on Lesson Study
2. Presentation 1 and short Q & A session (15 minutes and 5 minutes)

3. Presentation 2 and short Q & A session (15 minutes and 5 minutes)
4. Discussion for key question 1-3 with participants (30 minutes)
5. Summarizing and closing remarks (10 minutes)
References
Mizoguchi, T., Inprasitha, M., Matsuzaki, A., ShinnoY., & Moonpo, P. (2015).
Cross-Cultural Study of Japanese and Thailand Mathematics Lesson Study: A Research
Design. Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Educational Research,
599-607.
Mizoguchi, T., Inprasitha, M., Changsri, N., Matsuzaki, A., Shinno, Y., Kunseeda, P., &
Hayata, T. (submitting). Reseachers’ eyes of seeing a lesson: As the first work of the
cross-cultural study on lesson study between Japan and Thailand.

Prodromou, Lavicza 511
BIG DATA IN EDUCATIONAL SETTINGS

Theodosia Prodromou, University of New England, NSW, Australia
Zsolt Lavicza, Johannes Kepler University, Austria
Data has been essential for corporations and governments to make decisions about the
future. In the past, collecting data was costly and time consuming. The emergence of the
Internet as a unified global platform for digital connectivity has provided for use diverse
new sources of human- and machine-generated data. These sources are often referred under
the rubric of Big Data, and include commercial transactions, remote imagery, sensor
measurements, geospatial positioning, web content, and online user activity.
The advent of Big Data accentuates the need to enable citizens to develop appropriate
skills, thinking and reasoning needed for representing, integrating and exploring complex
information from diverse sources in a Big Data Era and extracting some meaningful
information from these large volumes of data Big Data for decision making.
Research in this field is important and offers guidance to researchers who are seeking
suitable topics to explore. Research about the skills those data practitioners (data analysts,
data managers, statisticians, and data consumers, academics) use would provide insights
into the statistical skills, thinking and reasoning used by them and the skills needed in the
future to work with Big Data. Moreover, research about Big Data integration in educational
settings could provide a concise reference for policymakers, who must make critical
decisions regarding funding and applications. Therefore, the aim of this working group is to
bring together a community of researchers, who are interested in how Big Data could be
implemented in Mathematics Education and Research and the uses of Big Data in
Mathematics Education that are in need of research.
This working group will discuss both best practices and areas in which to invest future
research and development in line with the broader vision of supporting “informed decision
making” for representing, integrating and exploring complex information from diverse
sources in a Big Data Era.
This Working group will seek to explore:
1. the meaning of open data versus Big Data with examples;
2. the need to change the way we think in terms of the nature of data and its availability;
3. visualisation tools for visualising open data and Big data;
4. Big data and official statistics;
5. teaching visualisation in the Age of Big Data: Adopting old approaches to address New
Challenges;
6. implementation of Big Data in Secondary Mathematics classrooms;
7. the role of Big Data in Mathematics research;
8. how can Big Data be used in Mathematics (or Statistics) teaching and learning;

512 Big Dat in Educational Settings
9. the skills that are required for its interpretation in order to take into account the full
complexity of data Use of Big Data by practitioners (data analysts, data managers,
statisticians, and data consumers, academics, mathematics teachers);
10. what views must be included in a framework for teaching mathematical literacy or data
literacy in a new Big Data Era;
11. the instructional and research dilemmas in data revolution Era;
12. derive information from Big Data for decision making;
13. data infrastructures and Big Data in education;
14. your own topic to provoke conversation.
References
Prodromou, T. (2017). Data Visualization and Statistical Literacy for Open and Big Data.
Hershey: IGI Global.

Sponsors
View publication stats

EARCOME8ProceedingsVolume2 PDF

Încărcat de

Informații document

Titlu original

Drepturi de autor

Formate disponibile

Partajați acest document

Partajați sau inserați document

Opțiuni de partajare

Vi se pare util acest document?

Este necorespunzător acest conținut?

Drepturi de autor:

Formate disponibile

EARCOME8ProceedingsVolume2 PDF

Încărcat de

Drepturi de autor:

Formate disponibile

See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

Reviewing the Effect in the Practice of Lesson Study: Opportunities for

Conference Paper · May 2018

Lesson Study View project

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

Editor: Feng-Jui Hsieh

Taiwan Association for

Shi-da Institute for

The proceedings are also available online

Copyrights© 2018 left to the authors

All rights reserved

Cover design: Chia-Hsin Lin

I-II EARCOME 8—2018

ICMI-EARCOME 8 Conference Chair

EARCOME 8—2018 I-III

TOPIC STUDY GROUPS

MATHEMATICS LEARNING STRATEGIES OF PRIMARY SCHOOL STUDENTS ....................... 1

I-IV EARCOME 8—2018

EARCOME 8—2018 I-V

I-VI EARCOME 8—2018

EARCOME 8—2018 I-VII

SPECIAL SHARING GROUPS

WRITING FOR PUBLICATION IN MATHEMATICS EDUCATION RESEARCH

I-VIII EARCOME 8—2018

INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES ON USING VIDEO IN PROFESSIONAL

EARCOME 8—2018 I-IX

MATHEMATICS LEARNING STRATEGIES OF PRIMARY

Background of the Study

8th ICMI-East Asia Regional Conference on Mathematics Education

8th ICMI-East Asia Regional Conference on Mathematics Education

Results and Discussion

8th ICMI-East Asia Regional Conference on Mathematics Education

Meta-cognitive strategies were also used by the students in learning mathematics.

8th ICMI-East Asia Regional Conference on Mathematics Education

8th ICMI-East Asia Regional Conference on Mathematics Education

8th ICMI-East Asia Regional Conference on Mathematics Education

Schumaker, J. B., & Deshler, D. D. (2006). Teaching adolescents to be strategic learners. In

Bishnu Khanal, PhD

8th ICMI-East Asia Regional Conference on Mathematics Education

SOLVING WORD PROBLEMS OF DIVISION WITH DECIMAL

8th ICMI-East Asia Regional Conference on Mathematics Education

8th ICMI-East Asia Regional Conference on Mathematics Education

Lamon (1993) identified four semantic proportional problem types as follows;

8th ICMI-East Asia Regional Conference on Mathematics Education

8th ICMI-East Asia Regional Conference on Mathematics Education

Table 3.Correlation coefficient of division problems and proportional reasoning

Table 3.Typical examples of strategies in proportion problem (2)

8th ICMI-East Asia Regional Conference on Mathematics Education

Table 5.Strategies used by Grade 5

Table 6.Strategies used by Grade 6

Table 7.Typical examples of strategies in proportion problem (3)

8th ICMI-East Asia Regional Conference on Mathematics Education

Table 8.Strategies used by Grade 4

Table 9.Strategies used by Grade 5

8th ICMI-East Asia Regional Conference on Mathematics Education

Table 10. Strategies used by Grade 6

8th ICMI-East Asia Regional Conference on Mathematics Education

8th ICMI-East Asia Regional Conference on Mathematics Education

Lamon,S.(1999). Teaching fractions and ratios for understanding: Essential content

8th ICMI-East Asia Regional Conference on Mathematics Education

DEDUCTIVE REASONING ABILITY OF PROSPECTIVE

8th ICMI-East Asia Regional Conference on Mathematics Education

2. Logical Thinking in Mathematics