Questions tagged [education-research]
Questions about education research are related to the various social scientific research work being done in areas related to mathematics education.
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Whence the "everything is linear" phenomenon, and what can we do about it?
$$ \color{red}{(a+b)^2 = a^2+b^2}$$
$$ \color{red}{\sqrt{x^4+y^4} = x^2+y^2} $$
$$ \color{red}{e^{t^2+C} = e^{t^2}+e^C}$$
I've observed this phenomenon -- wherein, implicitly, students say, "...
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What does math education research know about difficulty vs. effectiveness?
I've asked basically the same question previously on on math.SE, then
cogsci.SE without much response, surely here is the place to ask this.
As anecdotal evidence is plentiful, but unfortunately ...
user370
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What Math(s) Ed literature is accessible to the working math(s) educator?
This site is - as far as I'm aware - for what I would term working maths educators. That is, on the whole the users of this site are not researchers in mathematics education. Rather, we are the ...
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"Calculators are so twentieth century."
Even though I studied maths, I became familiar with programming in my junior year at university. I'm indebted to the professor who encouraged me in that pursuit, as it provided me with an avenue not ...
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Is algebra really the gatekeeper to higher math, or is it multiplicative reasoning?
The National Mathematics Advisory Panel final report states that algebra is the gateway to higher math, to a college degree, and higher earnings from employment. It also states that success in algebra ...
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"Function" vs "Function of ...": how much does it contribute to students difficulties?
Most textbooks I've seen (and teachers I've met, myself included) are rather careless about the distinction between variables and functions.
For example, when we write $y=f(x)$ we all know that $f$ ...
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Learning Mathematics with the aid of spaced repetition systems
I am currently self-studying, so I learn using a textbook which I work through in a linear fashion. As I am introduced to new concepts I ask myself questions and I attempt to answer these questions ...
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Reason behind the dominance of particular countries in the IMO (International Mathematical Olympiad)
I was watching the result of IMO 2014 where I found that China was on Top and USA, Russia were following China. This is not the exceptional case, you can pick the results of each IMO in some of the ...
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How can a research mathematician transition into a mathematics education researcher?
Mathematics education research is generally very different than mathematics research. I am interested in collaborating with mathematics education professors at my next institution, and possibly ...
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How can I retain the mathematics that I've supposedly learnt?
First off sorry if this question isn't suited to matheducators.stackexchange I just thought here would be a good place to ask seeing as you would probably have experience with students. Anyway here is ...
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Discovery-based and inquiry-based learning
In general, I think (and I am told by students) that I am good as a tutor. However, I would like to become more rigorously familiar with the discovery-based and inquiry-based learning applied to ...
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Research supporting "recipe-style" calculus in senior high school?
Anecdotally, I've heard it said that in (Australian) grades 11 and 12 calculus needs to be taught in a procedural way involving merely recipes for doing calculus, rather than teaching for ...
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When is it a good idea to avoid talking about why something works?
I am teaching, among other things, a college algebra course this semester. In this course we do a lot of conceptual things but we also do some techniques to prepare students for calculus. One of the ...
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Research on how mathematics skills transfer to other areas
Briefly: I am looking for research on the extent to which learning mathematics (let's say "college algebra" if we want to be specific) impacts problem solving skills, abstract reasoning, etc.
Less ...
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Is there any research on the correlation between a professor's research ability and their ability to teach graduate level courses?
In most universities that I am aware of, graduate courses in Mathematics are taught almost exclusively by research mathematicians. My question has two parts:
What is the justification for this ...
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Is there a framework to study the mathematical competence in problem-posing?
I've read some articles about it and those papers show us that there are some facts to understand the mathematical competence in problem-posing. Besides that, those investigations show that there are ...
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How to think mathematically?
Later this year, high school teachers from the region will visit our university for a day and be given special lectures on different topics.
I've been asked to give a talk with the title "How to ...
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What math courses should be taught to undergrad electrical engineers: a 40 years update
I was browsing IEEE xplore the other day and found this gem called "What Mathematics Courses Should an Electrical Engineer Take? A Report on the National Study of Mathematics Requirements for ...
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What research is there on the effectiveness of multiple choice questions for summative assessment?
This is perhaps the question that some thought Grading scale: how to handle multiple choice questions with different number of choices really was. I'm of the opinion that multiple choice questions ...
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What studies exist, comparing the efficacy of exercise sheets with or without worked solutions?
I've been tutoring mathematics at university level for over 10 years, and one of the more common requests from students is worked solutions for sheets of exercises. Most educators I've worked with ...
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What does the research say about direct instruction vs. student centered approaches
I have heard contradicting views that both parties say are research based. Specifically, I am looking for research on which teaching methods (direct instruction or student centered approaches) are ...
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What is the correlation between students' contentment and educational quality?
In order to evaluate new educational material the contentment of students with this material is often measured. However, just because a student is contented doesn't mean that he/she has actually ...
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Effectiveness of proofs in secondary education
I'll have a department meeting in about 10 days and I want to bring the subject of proofs up. While most teachers do proofs in the blackboard, I want to argue that we should put problems to prove in ...
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Mathematics and the hermeneutic circle
Many students, teachers and parents view problems as confrontational. Many students develop a self concept in mathematics based on failed attempts to easily win such confrontations.
This leads me to ...
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Teaching algebra to visually impaired or blind students
I am currently writing an independent project investigating the teaching and learning of algebra for students with a visual impairment. I am struggling to find literature specifically about teaching ...
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Does playing tournament chess result in high-level mathematical gains, and not merely a skill whose benefits can be gained through any other activity?
https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/5199/does-playing-tournament-chess-help-one-in-the-field-of-chess-related-math
I often wonder whether the visualization of the various types of chess-related ...
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Typical rate of success in junior or senior level math courses at US universities
I am curious, if we define success or failure by grades earned, or pass-rate (pass meaning the student does not need to retake the course) then what is the typical pass rate for students in upper ...
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Different Teaching Styles for Different Genders?
I was recently looking through job listings in my local area (US high school, ages 14-18) and I found two boarding schools with vacancies, one was male-only and the other was female-only. This got me ...
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Creativity in mathematics
I have recently been engaging more and more with my creative side by drawing, writing, and (trying to) playing piano. I have come to see mathematics as much more of a creative field of study than I ...
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Is there a literature database like MathSciNet for Mathematics Education?
Is there a literature database like MathSciNet for mathematics education?
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What is the difference between "numeracy" and "number sense"?
Is there a difference between numeracy and number sense, or are they synonymous? In my language they are often both translated to the same word (tallforståelse).
I'm thinking that perhaps numeracy ...
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"Good" and "Bad" student intuitions when teaching and learning mathematics
I'm a college math/science tutor and I'm really interested in STEM education. I'm currently starting work on a project I hope to present in a couple of months at a tutoring conference and I was ...
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Adult Learners Returning to College Level Math
I am currently reflecting two educational experiences that have made me question if there's research around this particular topic.
1) A few years ago, I was an adjunct instructor for a Trigonometry ...
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Importance of exercises for learning mathematics
For me it seem to be obvious that exercises and exercise courses are important for undergraduates to learn mathematics and skills like finding a proof or writing it down. Was there any research ...
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Rewards based educaton
How important are rewards - read marks/grades - for students in education?
Can the thirst for grades/marks be replaced by a desire for learning?
Context
Problems are at the heart of mathematics ...
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Studies which compare students with and without math training
I am looking for studies which compare students who did not receive mathematical education beyond basic mathematics and those that learned maths upto introductory calculus, with the assumption that ...
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Book recommendations on mathematics education focusing on geometry
I will be teaching Euclidean geometry to future teachers, and I am feeling a bit lost (I know geometry, but I am not that familiar with mathematics education).
Is there some recent (as concise as ...
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Experimental results about the variability of grades on a math exam
"[Myth] that exams are objectively graded. Daniel Stark and Edward Elliot sent two English essays to 200 high school teachers for grading. They got back 142 grades. For one paper, the grades ranged ...
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Research into the mathematical education of adults with no prior formal mathematical experience
I am curious about the experiences of people who had no formal mathematical training in their youth, but learned mathematics as adults.
I imagine that there are a fair number of people in the US who ...
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Studies into the effects of having fewer classes per term
Have there been any studies done into the effect of having fewer classes per term on a student's comprehension of their mathematics course material? Also are there any examples of schools that have ...
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Teaching Calculus I to engineers
I am in a research project where one of our jobs is improving the first-year university experience for our students. One of the topics we are looking into is changing the way we teach our introductory ...
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Math Education for Students who use Right-to-Left Written Languages
Does anyone know of any studies or have personal experience dealing with difficulties (if any) faced by students studying mathematics if they come from countries which use languages written from right-...
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What are some best practices for creating student groups?
I came across Small-group composition and peer effects (Wilkinson & Fung, 2002) which got me thinking about the pros and cons of grouping students based on ability levels.
When is it a good idea ...
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Where can I publish on an undergraduate course that I helped develop and teach?
I co-developed and co-taught an interdisciplinary course with several colleagues from several departments for junior/senior college students. This was a very interesting experience, and I am wondering ...
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Literature on skill transfer
Motivated by this other question I'm interested in getting to know the literature on mathematics skills transfer within itself.
All I know is what I've read in David Perkins's book "Knowledge as ...
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Research into how students read algebraic expressions
In answering another question What is the justification to teach the (redundant) use of parentheses in multiplications? I was left wondering what we actually know about students' progression in terms ...
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References on British, German and French educational system
I'm writing a comparative study between mathematical teaching in my country (which sucks by the way) with others. However, I don't want to make it about today, globalization gives us a good notion of ...
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Should basic exercises be solved before formulas are introduced?
I was watching (as a fellow teacher) a lecture on arithmetic progression. It so happened that a formula was rapidly introduced and used.
The formula was $a_i = a_1 + (i-1)r$ (I trust the terms ...
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Literature on teaching and learning probability
In an earlier question, the book Exploring Probability in School (2005) (Link) was mentioned. It gives an overview of the research on the teaching and learning of probability up to that point.
Does ...
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Should we finish algebra before starting geometry?
Comparing an old french mathematics book for grade 9 and a new one, one obvious difference is the ordering of the chapters. In the old book, all the algebra chapters are grouped together then all the ...
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