{"title":"The role of guidance in student engagement with chemistry studies","authors":"P. Valto, Piia Nuora","doi":"10.31129/lumat.7.1.402","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31129/lumat.7.1.402","url":null,"abstract":"During recent years, the Department of Chemistry at the University of Jyväskylä has made an extensive effort to support chemistry students’ first study year. The first-year curriculum includes enhanced study counselling course, intensive orientation course and support for academic study skills via a specific course. In this study, the effects of the revisions were studied by exploring the chemistry students study continuation and what factors contributed to it. In 2015 to 2017, data were collected from first-year chemistry students (n = 106), who completed a questionnaire at the beginning and at the end of their first semester. The results show that the percentage of dropout rates after the first year decreased. Students’ current challenges are different than they have been previously, thus putting new demands on their guidance. The results of the study indicate that students value guidance and study counselling especially at the beginning of their studies.","PeriodicalId":380132,"journal":{"name":"Lumat: International Journal of Math, Science and Technology Education","volume":"67 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-11-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121021328","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Investigation of Finnish and German 9th grade students’ personal meaning with relation to mathematics","authors":"Neruja Suriakumaran, M. Hannula, Maike Vollstedt","doi":"10.31129/lumat.7.2.411","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31129/lumat.7.2.411","url":null,"abstract":"This study focuses on a comparison of personal meanings that students from Finland (FIN) and Germany (GER) assign to (learning) mathematics. Participants are 256 Finnish and 276 German ninth graders. The survey consists of 18 scales that are based on the theory of personal meaning. The original German version was translated into Finnish. Using item response theory (IRT) partial credit models, the psychometric properties of the scales were found to be good. As statistical procedure, Differential Item Functioning (DIF) analysis and mean comparisons were conducted to compare the two groups’ (FIN and GER) responses. Indicators of educational system and curriculum could be found in students’ responses to explain similarities and differences between the two samples. In both countries, social inclusion is meaningful for most of the students (Support by teacher, Experience of relatedness, and Emotional-affective relation to teacher). In addition, it is personally meaningful for Finnish students to do well in mathematics. This shows a link to identity-related questions such as confirming important aspects of the self. Hence, personal meanings related to mathematics are more common in Finland than in Germany (Active practice of mathematics, Cognitive challenge, and Self-perfection).","PeriodicalId":380132,"journal":{"name":"Lumat: International Journal of Math, Science and Technology Education","volume":"26 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-10-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131958672","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Exploring the influence of pre-service mathematics teachers’ professed beliefs on their practices in the Sri Lankan context","authors":"Gayanthi Malika Wadanambi, F. Leung","doi":"10.31129/lumat.7.2.405","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31129/lumat.7.2.405","url":null,"abstract":"Research on impact of teacher beliefs on their practices has been recognized as one of the important aspects in the discipline of mathematics education. This study reports the results of a case study that gives an insight about the influence of professed beliefs of pre-service secondary mathematics teachers on their instructional practices in the Sri Lankan context. The pre-service teachers’ professed beliefs were examined by using a questionnaire of six-point Likert scale items. Data on instructional practices were collected through classroom teaching observations and follow-up post-lesson interviews. Qualitative analysis of the audio-taped classroom teaching observation transcripts was performed, using a list of sensitizing concepts that reflected flexible and rigid beliefs aspects. The results reveal that professed beliefs encouraged them to adopt flexible practices, but to differing extents due to the influence of social expectations and contextual demands embedded within this educational context","PeriodicalId":380132,"journal":{"name":"Lumat: International Journal of Math, Science and Technology Education","volume":"27 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-10-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132134205","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"‘Playing it safe’ or ‘throwing caution to the wind’: Risk-taking and emotions in a mathematics classroom","authors":"E. Lake","doi":"10.31129/lumat.7.2.335","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31129/lumat.7.2.335","url":null,"abstract":"This paper attends to teacher intellectual risk-taking when attached to expression of positive emotions, in order to explore some of the reasons why teacher risk-taking may not appear in mathematics lessons. We know that risk-taking can be beneficial, but research has not really examined what form this might take in a classroom. In recent research, I investigated how positive emotions are discussed and used by experienced mathematics teachers. In particular how to examine the ‘in-the-moment’ emotions of the teacher, and what the modelling of experienced teachers tells us about the role of affect in mathematics teaching. This paper examines some affect episodes for elements of teacher risk-taking. The evidence suggests that teacher risk-taking enables the use of emotions, and vice versa, is integral to ‘good’ teaching, and that, in Bandura’s Social Learning Theory terms, modelling such behaviours appears beneficial to student learning and should be encouraged.","PeriodicalId":380132,"journal":{"name":"Lumat: International Journal of Math, Science and Technology Education","volume":"121 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-10-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121247340","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Lower secondary students’ views about mathematicians depicted as mathematics teachers","authors":"V. Hatisaru","doi":"10.31129/lumat.7.2.355","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31129/lumat.7.2.355","url":null,"abstract":"The present study examined lower secondary students’ images of mathematics, comprised of stated attitudes to and perceived needs for mathematics, and views about mathematicians and their work. A group of 1284 lower secondary students drew a picture of mathematician at work and described their drawings. The students’ drawings fell into two distinct groups: drawings that depicted their view of what a mathematician at work would look like, and drawings that depicted a mathematician who was clearly a mathematics teacher. This article presents the data regarding the latter group. Trends that emerged from the drawings in this sample included that mathematics teachers were: predominantly female; had a positive image; incorporated lectures, explanations, and demonstrations; and used whiteboards and books as tools of the profession. The article concludes with possible implications for practice and research.","PeriodicalId":380132,"journal":{"name":"Lumat: International Journal of Math, Science and Technology Education","volume":"22 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-10-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"117082991","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Teacher-student eye contact during scaffolding collaborative mathematical problem-solving","authors":"E. Haataja, M. Toivanen, A. Laine, M. Hannula","doi":"10.31129/lumat.7.2.350","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31129/lumat.7.2.350","url":null,"abstract":"Teacher’s gaze communicates consciously and unconsciously her pedagogical priorities to the students. By creating and responding to eye contact initiatives, people can communicate both status and affection. This research explores the frequency of teacher-student eye contacts and their connection to teachers’ scaffolding intentions. The data consisted of mobile gaze tracking recordings of two teachers and stationary classroom videos during three collaborative mathematical problem-solving lessons. The quantitative analysis showed that most of the teacher gazes on student faces did not lead to dyadic eye contacts and those gazes that did, occurred often during affective and cognitive scaffolding. These results offer us novel and important insight in the nonverbal part of scaffolding interaction.","PeriodicalId":380132,"journal":{"name":"Lumat: International Journal of Math, Science and Technology Education","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-10-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131144576","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Pre-Service mathematics teachers’ beliefs regarding topics of mathematics education","authors":"Katharina Manderfeld, Hans-Stefan Siller","doi":"10.31129/lumat.7.2.332","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31129/lumat.7.2.332","url":null,"abstract":"Beliefs are known to influence learning processes and thus become relevant in the instruction of pre-service mathematics teachers with regard to the pedagogical content knowledge taught in courses of mathematics didactics at university. In exploring beliefs about mathematics didactics of pre-service teachers training for secondary school, 50 bachelor students (ca. 5th semester) responded to two open-ended tasks in which they were asked to express their understanding of mathematics didactics. With the help of qualitative content analysis, topics related to mathematics didactics as identified by the participants are categorized. The category system shows that beliefs of participants differ in some respects from what selected research associates with mathematics didactics. Also, technical aspects of lessons like designing lessons are frequently mentioned within the answers, whereas topics with regard to learners or curriculum are rarely addressed.","PeriodicalId":380132,"journal":{"name":"Lumat: International Journal of Math, Science and Technology Education","volume":"39 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-10-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134464394","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Prospective mathematics teachers’ self-referential metaphors as indicators of the emerging professional identity","authors":"Päivi Portaankorva-Koivisto, Barbro Grevholm","doi":"10.31129/lumat.7.2.343","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31129/lumat.7.2.343","url":null,"abstract":"Ideals play a key role in a student teachers’ identity work. They form targets to strive for and a mirror for reflection. In this paper, we examine Finnish mathematics student teachers’ metaphors for the teacher’s role (N= 188). We classified the metaphors according to a model that identified teachers as subject matter experts, didactical experts, and pedagogical experts, with the addition of another two categories, self-referential and contextual. For the exploration of emerging professional identities, we studied the self-referential metaphors, which formed the most common category in the data. We observed that every third metaphor described either student teachers’ personalities or their incompleteness as teachers, or new beginnings or eras. Although these aspects were expected, they also inform us as teacher educators of the values and ideals that student teachers have in terms of teaching and being a teacher. The metaphors that mathematics student teachers produced illustrated their identity processes and their emerging identity as a mathematics teacher.","PeriodicalId":380132,"journal":{"name":"Lumat: International Journal of Math, Science and Technology Education","volume":"122 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-10-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124415077","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The issue of ‘proudliness’: Primary students’ motivation towards mathematics","authors":"Martin Nyman, L. Sumpter","doi":"10.31129/lumat.7.2.331","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31129/lumat.7.2.331","url":null,"abstract":"In this paper, we study year 2 and year 5 students’ expressed motivations for doing mathematics. The responses were analysed using thematic analysis; first with a deductive approach using themes from previous research, and then an additional inductive analysis searching for new themes. The results show that the children express both intrinsic motivation (cognitive-oriented and emotional-oriented), as well as extrinsic motivation (including outward and compensation). Two new categories of cognitive intrinsic motivation were found—normative and personal. The results also indicated an interplay not only between the different categories but also within categories, signalling that expressed motivation is double-layered. Some implications are discussed.","PeriodicalId":380132,"journal":{"name":"Lumat: International Journal of Math, Science and Technology Education","volume":"8 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-10-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124364686","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Antti Viholainen, T. Tossavainen, H. Viitala, Maria Johansson
{"title":"University mathematics students’ self-efficacy beliefs about proof and proving","authors":"Antti Viholainen, T. Tossavainen, H. Viitala, Maria Johansson","doi":"10.31129/lumat.7.1.406","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31129/lumat.7.1.406","url":null,"abstract":"We examine university students’ motivation and self-efficacy beliefs about proof and proving, i.e., beliefs about personal abilities to understand, construct and present mathematical proofs, as well as their certainty about self-produced proofs. The sample of the study consists of 29 Finnish and Swedish students who were studying mathematics in tertiary level. The results show that the students were highly motivated to learn to understand and construct proofs, but they were more uncertain about their proving skills. Moreover, the study revealed reasons for the uncertainty about proving achievements. Most of the reasons are caused by deficiencies with respect to knowledge of, understanding about or experience from proof and proving.","PeriodicalId":380132,"journal":{"name":"Lumat: International Journal of Math, Science and Technology Education","volume":"13 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-10-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126803612","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}