Search Results (610)

Demographic disparities in mathematics proficiency have been a persistent issue in the United States public schools for the entire history of the public school system. Previous research suggests that schools serving predominantly minority students often face challenges related to fewer certified teachers and lower mathematical achievement levels. This paper investigates how school demographic composition and socioeconomic conditions are associated with differences in mathematics achievement across Alabama public schools. Focusing on the relationship between school demographics and teacher qualifications, it examines how racial composition and economic disadvantage impact student outcomes. Data on mathematics proficiency, teacher certification, experience, and school demographics were analyzed. T-test results revealed significant differences in mathematics achievement between students attending predominantly white schools and those attending predominantly schools serving historically marginalized populations, including schools serving large proportions of economically disadvantaged students. Although linear regression showed a weak overall correlation between teacher experience and proficiency, the relationship between teacher certification and student performance was significantly different from zero, suggesting a meaningful connection. Full article

Improving the quality of science and mathematics teaching remains a persistent challenge in resource-constrained education systems, highlighting the need for effective, sustainable professional development approaches. This study employed a quantitative cross-sectional survey designed to investigate science and mathematics teachers’ retrospective perceptions of the sustainability and professional value of lesson study professional development. Data were collected from 117 teachers who had participated in a lesson study intervention facilitated through a university–school partnership. The lesson study intervention occurred between 2012 and 2014, and data were collected retrospectively in 2018 to examine teachers’ sustained perceptions of its professional value. Descriptive and inferential statistical analyses revealed that teachers generally experienced lesson study as a meaningful, collaborative, and school-embedded professional development approach. Participants reported perceived improvement in content knowledge, pedagogical practices, lesson planning, reflective teaching, and professional collaboration. Strong positive correlations were found among teachers’ understanding of lesson study, collaboration, preparation, implementation, and professional learning. However, time constraints and the need for sustained institutional support were identified as key challenges to implementation. The findings suggest that teachers perceived lesson study as having sustained professional value within their school contexts. While based on retrospective self-reports, the results suggest that lesson study may contribute to collective professional cultures when supported institutionally. By fostering collaborative learning cultures and embedding professional learning into everyday teaching practice, lesson study may strengthen education systems and align with broader sustainable development goals. It is recommended that lesson study be institutionalised as a sustainable, school-embedded professional development approach, with future research examining its long-term impact on authentic teaching practices and learning outcomes. Full article

This paper addresses the call for greater integration of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) in the context of creating a foundational focus for STEM, beginning in early childhood. The work draws on a birth-to-five developmental framework that models and connects seamlessly with the U.S. Framework for K-12 Science Education). These 3D frameworks integrate STEM across a small set of big ideas in four disciplinary areas (including engineering and technology), acquired through active engagement in science, engineering, and mathematical practices, and connected through meaningful crosscutting concepts. In addition, this project addresses the challenges and obstacles that teachers face in effective implementation by leveraging teachers’ comfort and young students’ enjoyment of storybooks as an additional level of integration, as recommended by the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine 2022 consensus volume on science and engineering from preschool through elementary grades. Finally, given the increase in young children in the U.S. who are learning more than one language as well as in other countries, the current study examined the instructional practices of preschool teachers during shared book reading sessions using a Spanish-English bilingual STEM storybook in an intentionally Spanish-English preschool setting. Findings support an increase in teacher use of three-dimensional (3D) STEM talk to provide information upon re-reading the storybook, regardless of the language(s) used to read. Interviews with the teachers revealed approval for the translational-equivalent structure of the bilingual storybook, and an appreciation of the STEM-embedded content format for introducing the content to these young students. This study extends findings on teacher practices and language use with a bilingual STEM-focused storybook in a bilingual preschool setting to support bilingual learners. Full article

Activity-based learning (ABL), as a student-centered approach, has gained significant attention for improving student achievement in mathematics worldwide. However, its practical use in different mathematics classrooms remains less explored. This review examines empirical evidence on how teachers’ pedagogical skills affect students’ learning outcomes in mathematics classrooms. A systematic literature review was conducted, focusing on peer-reviewed original studies published in academic journals. Two prominent databases, Scopus and Web of Science (WOS), were used to investigate various aspects of ABL, including teachers’ ability to effectively implement ABL, challenges they face, its impact on students’ math learning outcomes, and how ABL influences students’ understanding, engagement, and academic achievement. The findings highlight that teachers’ pedagogical skills are crucial for successful ABL implementation in middle and high school mathematics classes. Additionally, effective ABL use depends on several other factors, such as teachers’ professional development and training, available resources, infrastructure, technological tools, school culture, curriculum, and leadership. The results suggest that ABL has the potential to improve students’ learning, engagement, and academic performance in mathematics when implemented effectively. The study recommends that educators, school leaders, and policymakers consider local conditions and professional factors when adopting ABL strategies. Full article

This paper starts from an understanding of intelligence as learning potential that develops through mediated participation in social, material, and cultural practices. The study examines how mediation is conceptualized in early childhood mathematics education through an integrative literature review of 23 studies across mathematics education and related fields. While semiotic mediation provides a strong theoretical foundation for understanding the role of artefacts, signs, and teacher-guided interaction, the analysis highlights embodied, multimodal, environmental, and relational aspects that often remain implicit in research and practice. Informed by inclusive research, the study offers a conceptual framework for making these aspects more visible. The paper contributes to a more fine-grained understanding of mediation, with implications for inclusive approaches to early childhood mathematics education. Full article

This study examines how future mathematics teachers perceive the importance of AI-related and digital competencies and their self-reported performance in these areas. The study was conducted in a Mathematics Education course in Spain with 198 Primary Education students. Using an Importance–Performance Map Analysis (IPMA) framework, the questionnaire assessed six dimensions: AI awareness, AI usage, AI evaluation, AI ethics, AI trust, and digital skills, with items adapted from previous studies. The results showed that students assigned higher importance to all competencies than the level of performance they reported. AI evaluation, AI trust, and digital skills received the highest importance scores, whereas AI awareness obtained the lowest scores. The IPMA identified AI usage as the main priority for improvement, as students considered it relevant but reported comparatively lower performance. Differences by academic year and self-reported AI knowledge level suggest that students’ stage of training and perceived AI knowledge influenced their perceptions. These findings reveal a gap between the importance future teachers assign to AI-related competencies and their perceived level of development. The study highlights the need for more specific and pedagogically grounded AI training in Mathematics Education and offers practical implications for teacher education curricula in response to the demands of 21st-century classrooms. Full article

The application of artificial intelligence (AI) resources and robotics tools in education is considered vital for interdisciplinary fields to enhance the quality of the teaching and learning process. It also helps transform assessment techniques and revolutionize the whole pedagogical setting of science teacher education, in particular, AI and robotics integration in the teaching of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) subjects’ courses at the primary level. In this study, a scoping review was conducted involving seventeen peer-reviewed research papers published from 2021 to 2025. Efforts are being made to find the current perceptions and practices of preservice teachers (PSTs) at the primary level (Years 1–6; ages 6–12 in the Australian context) regarding the use of AI and robotics resources, for example, generative artificial intelligence (GenAI), foundational robotics and AI-driven robotics in teaching STEM subjects. Findings indicate that there was a significant gap in primary PSTs’ perspectives regarding their pedagogical practices to integrate STEM. As such, this influences future teachers’ knowledge, understanding, AI acceptance, and attitude toward the integration of smart AI and robotics resources in STEM classrooms. Policymakers and teachers’ education providers should align advanced technological AI resources and robotics applications with STEM curriculum guidelines and preservice teachers’ professional training programs within primary school education. Full article

Using theories of Afrocentricity (African Indigenous Knowledge) and of positioning, we investigated how Sub-Saharan African immigrant parents (SSAIP) support their Grade 6–9 children’s mathematics learning in Canada. Individual interviews were collected from twelve immigrant parents living in an urban community in Alberta and new to Canada (within five years). We ask: what are the mathematics experiences and perspectives of Sub-Saharan African immigrant families? We analyzed interview data from 12 SSAIPs from Greater Edmonton, Canada to identify the storylines they shared regarding their experiences and perspectives of mathematics learning. The prevailing storylines were interpreted through an African Indigenous Knowledge lens. We found that parents adjust their mathematics learning support for their children by negotiating their experiences from two cultural worlds of education: pre-colonial (African Indigenous Knowledge) and colonized worldviews, their home and host cultures, generally. We identified these storylines, some of which sit in tension with each other: “mathematics learning is a communal responsibility”, “mathematics teachers share responsibility for the moral upbringing of the child”, “mathematics as memory work is feared and stressful”, “adults tell children what to do”, “adults negotiate with children about what to do”, and “success in mathematics is a gift from God”. We interpreted the storylines through the Akan Adinkra epistemologies which manifest in the Adinkra symbols and sayings, and through our experiences living and working in Sub-Saharan Africa, to determine the way each storyline aligned with old African or new African ways. This study will be beneficial for educators wishing to adopt culturally responsive ways of engaging immigrant families in their children’s mathematics learning. Full article

Location-based games (LBGs) have increasingly been adopted in education for experiential, situated, and collaborative learning. While used in subjects such as geography and history, their application in mathematics remains underexplored, partly because mathematical concepts are abstract and hard to embed in spatial game environments. This study examines the feasibility and educational potential of LBGs in lower-secondary mathematics. Using a mixed-methods approach, two location-based activities were tested with 28 students aged 12–14. In the first, students used Global Positioning System (GPS)-enabled devices to reach landmarks (e.g., a volleyball court, a church), where they took on-site measurements and applied geometric reasoning to calculate areas, perimeters, and volumes. In the second, they followed a treasure hunt, solving algebraic equations and word problems to form a secret word. Questionnaires, observations, and teacher interviews showed high engagement, participation, and collaboration, with students viewing the activities as meaningful revision. Teachers found them valuable and feasible within curricular limits, despite challenges such as preparation time, technical issues, and regulations. However, given the small sample and exploratory design, findings should be interpreted with caution: no general inferences can be drawn, and no direct learning-outcome measures were used. The study offers empirical insights into designing mathematics-oriented LBGs and future research directions. Full article

Values are cultural tools that pre-service teachers can use in situations that require discernment and integrity. Promoting an axiological framework in the training of future educators is an urgent necessity for coexistence in today’s world. This study aimed to understand the preferences and meanings that third-year students studying to become primary school teachers of mathematics, Spanish, and English as a foreign language attribute to values, as well as how values are transmitted in degree programs and at selected universities. An exploratory case study was used as the research design. Thirty-two students were selected using purposive sampling until theoretical saturation was reached. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with the participants. Reflective thematic analysis was used to analyze the data. The findings revealed three themes: students’ value preferences are conditioned by their pedagogical training; values, as constructions of shared meaning, are conceived as normative guidelines that orient human action in all its dimensions; and teacher educators transmit values linked to the pedagogical role and teacher identity, while universities emphasize moral values oriented toward professional development, thus articulating two complementary levels of training. The study provides an empirical framework for moving from spontaneous value education to intentional communication, both in teacher training curricula and in the educational activities of each university. Full article

Mathematical creativity is positioned as a key competency for sustainable development, yet its classroom enactment often remains episodic and teacher-dependent. This qualitative study examines how prospective teachers conceptualize and organize the dynamics between divergent thinking (DT) and convergent thinking (CT)—analyzed through continuity, complementarity, and interaction—across a semester-long course involving textbook critique, task design, and microteaching. Twenty-seven prospective teachers critiqued textbooks, transformed tasks, and enacted microteaching lessons on five middle-school topics. Data included recordings, lesson plans, transformed tasks, and reflection journals. During textbook critique, participants diagnosed an authoritative CT bias and emphasized inquiry/DT, but rarely articulated how DT should transition into CT for justification and generalization. In task design, inquiry and content goals were listed in parallel, yielding a role split between teacher and students and weak complementarity. In enactment, added CT prompts remained largely teacher-directed; DT episodes were more multi-authority, whereas CT episodes concentrated authority in the teacher, producing monotonous continuity and unrealized complementarity. Findings suggest teacher education should explicitly scaffold goal-bridging routines, DT–CT transition prompts, and mechanisms for distributing authority—contributing to ESD aims by enabling creativity-oriented instruction to operate continuously rather than episodically in everyday mathematics classrooms. Full article

Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education and workforce participation are growing increasingly important for economic and social development, yet STEM disengagement and participation challenges persist. Existing research has predominantly focused on the aspirations of young people, leaving the retrospective perspectives of STEM professionals relatively underexplored, particularly in non-metropolitan contexts. This study examines how 79 STEM professionals, educated in non-metropolitan settings, rated and described influential factors in their STEM career journeys. A predominantly female sample working in health fields was obtained through convenience and snowball sampling approaches. Using a convergent mixed-method design, participants quantitatively rated 10 STEM career influence factors and qualitatively reflected on their educational and professional pathways. Repeated-measures analyses indicated personal interest/ability was rated as the most influential factor, followed by secondary/high school education and teachers. Qualitative cluster analysis identified a bifurcated pattern in which proximal personal, social, and school-based influences contributed to STEM trajectory establishment, while broader economic and cultural influences were associated with STEM trajectory resilience and maintenance. Participants also described circumstantial impediments, alternate pathways, and real-world experiences that challenged linear pipeline assumptions about STEM careers. The findings suggest that rural STEM participation involves both the establishment and maintenance of career trajectories shaped by related, but distinct, influences. Full article

There is limited understanding regarding whether and how teachers’ talent beliefs evolve across career stages. While most prior research conceptualizes talent beliefs across domains, emerging frameworks emphasize field-specific talent beliefs. An established multidimensional model of talent beliefs provides a theoretically grounded structure for capturing these domain-specific perceptions. Yet comparative evidence across teacher career stages remains limited. Our study examines if verbal and mathematical talent beliefs among in-service teachers and pre-service teachers differ in terms of sources, structure and levels. A total of 307 in-service teachers and 215 pre-service teachers completed validated six-dimensional talent beliefs instruments for both domains and reported sources of their beliefs. Participants—especially pre-service teachers—most strongly attributed their talent beliefs to personal school experiences, while educational science and subject-didactic coursework played a marginal role. Both the mathematical and verbal talent belief scales demonstrated configural and metric invariance, supporting equivalent factor structures and factor loadings across pre-service teachers and in-service teachers. Latent mean comparisons showed that pre-service teachers hold systematically different talent beliefs in comparison to in-service teachers. In-service teachers emphasize talent beliefs concerning domain-specific skills and, for verbal talent, passion—consistent with contemporary talent development frameworks—whereas pre-service teachers focus on external teacher influence and, for mathematical talent, on internal factors. These findings reinforce theoretical claims that talent beliefs are experience-sensitive, multidimensional constructs shaped through socialization in educational contexts. Teacher (further) education should deliberately address the dominance of personal schooling experiences by fostering structured reflection, explicitly targeting belief formation in practice-based courses, and ensuring coherence between higher-education instruction and school-based experiences. Teachers’ impact on their students’ talent development should especially be reflected in further education, since in-service teachers assess their own influence as lower than pre-service teachers do; additionally, passion as a key driver of talent development and the relevance of talent domains should already be highlighted in initial teacher education. Full article

Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) has emerged as a key priority in contemporary education systems, emphasizing the need to equip learners with the knowledge and competencies required to address complex environmental and societal challenges. Mathematics education can play an important role in achieving these goals by enabling students to analyse data, interpret real-world problems, and develop critical thinking skills related to sustainability issues. However, despite the growing interest in sustainability-oriented mathematics education, limited empirical evidence exists on how structured mathematical modelling interventions influence pre-service primary teachers’ perceptions, modelling orientation, and confidence in designing sustainability-based mathematics lessons. This study investigates the impact of sustainability-oriented mathematical modelling activities on pre-service primary teachers’ perceptions of integrating sustainability into mathematics education. The study employed a quasi-experimental design involving 68 pre-service primary teachers enrolled in a mathematics education course at a university. Participants engaged in a six-week intervention consisting of modelling activities based on real-world sustainability contexts, including water consumption, energy use, waste management, and sustainable transportation. Data were collected using a pre- and post-intervention questionnaire examining participants’ perceptions of sustainability integration, mathematical modelling, and teaching confidence. Statistical analyses, including reliability analysis, descriptive statistics, paired-sample t-tests, effect size estimates, and correlation analysis, as well as multiple regression analysis, were conducted to examine the impact of the intervention. The results indicate significant improvements in participants’ perceptions of sustainability-oriented mathematics teaching and their confidence in designing modelling-based sustainability activities. The largest improvement was observed in teaching confidence, while mathematical modelling perception emerged as a significant predictor of teaching confidence. The findings suggest that mathematical modelling can serve as an effective pedagogical approach for integrating sustainability topics into mathematics education and preparing future teachers to connect mathematical reasoning with real-world environmental challenges. The study contributes to the growing body of research at the intersection of mathematics education, teacher education, and sustainability education by providing empirical evidence on the potential of modelling-based learning for supporting sustainability-oriented teaching practices. More specifically, it shows how mathematical modelling can function as a concrete pedagogical mechanism for translating Education for Sustainable Development into primary mathematics teacher education. Full article

This study investigates how structural alignment between mathematics teaching and vocational welding practice can support student engagement and strengthen the perceived relevance of mathematics. The research examines an interdisciplinary intervention in Danish vocational education, where mathematics and welding teachers collaboratively designed modules linking trigonometric calculations to practical workshop tasks. Using Cultural–Historical Activity Theory (CHAT), the mathematics classroom and the welding workshop are analysed as interacting activity systems. The analysis draws on video observations, field notes, and interviews with teachers and students. The findings show that interdisciplinary collaboration reorganised relations between classroom and workshop practices by aligning artefacts, division of labour, and shared objectives across learning environments. Students reported improved understanding of how mathematics is applied in vocational practice, increased precision in workshop tasks, and more positive attitudes towards mathematics. Full article