To learn number system is a basic thing in school mathematics. In this paper, we analyze how number system is introduced in the 7th national curriculum and text books according to it. We found that the method of introducing number system is quite different from the former curriculum and former text books. There are many negative effects on the transition when compared with those of United States of America. There are many gaps between elementary school mathematics and middle school mathematics about levels and skills to deal with numbers. It is desirable to distinguish the negative sign from subtraction and to keep the concepts of commutativity and associativity of operations from the beginning. We also suggest to change the introducing timing and extension methods of number system in 7th grade mathematics.

In this paper we compared and analyzed the Korean and German mathematics textbooks for the middle school students. For the research we investigated only the area of algebra, which is consisted of the three sections-section of numbers and arithmetic operations, section of letters and expressions, and section of rules and functions. We expect that this paper would contribute on the development of the whole area in our nation's mathematical educations, including the organization and exploitation of the curriculums for the middle school students.

The purpose of this study is to make more reliable researches on the tendency of shirking from the mathematics by including those of the students in the other country, and there are a series of researches such as 'math-camp to raise the mathematical tendency of the students who make little progress in the study', 'establishment of factors causing the shirking tendency from the mathematics and development of the analyzing instruments for it' and 'study on the preference to each category of the school mathematics.' For this purpose, I used a test developed by the shirking tendency research team. I compared the average score and standard deviation between the Korean and the Australian students. As for the average score, that of the Australian elementary school students is about one point higher than the Korean students, and there was no remarkable difference in the deviation. Comparing the math-shirking tendency of the two groups, they show higher shirking tendency in the aspects of emotional and mathematical recognition that belong to the psychological and environmental sphere. And, as for an extent of association in difficulties according to each school grades, its degree of the Australian students is comparatively lower than that of the Korean students, therefore, the shirking tendency of the Australian students is intermediate level whereas that of the Korean students is the lowest. They show us a peculiar result in teacher factor. It is noteworthy in that the Korean students show a positive reaction in that factor, however, the Australian students show a comparatively weak reaction. It might be caused by a cultural difference. I also have compared the accumulated percentage according to each shirking tendency factors. It will not only be very efficient for teachers to establish a teaching plan but also a good data to understand the shirking tendency of each student. This will be a very good data for the planners of teaching policy to remedy the causes of shirking tendency. And, it will also be used effectively to write a new textbook. It has been uncommon that a psychological test is used in the research for the improvement of teaching and learning mathematics. In this aspect, I am sure that this study including the preceding research will be a good in studying the shirking tendency factors by using a psychological test. I believe that this research will be a help to grasp the outline of the shirking tendency and I will have to try continuously to make it be a reasonable and reliable study.

This study sought to provide an explanation of university students' concept understanding on the infinity and infinite process and utilized a psychological constructivist perspective to examine the differences in transitions that students make from static concept of limit to actualized infinity stage in context of problems. Open-ended questions were used to gather data that were used to develop an explanation concerning student understanding. 47 university students answered individually and were asked to solve 16 tasks developed by Petty(1996). Microgenetic method with two cases from the expert-novice perspective were used to develop and substantiate an explanation regarding students' transitions from static concept of limit to actualized infinity stage. The protocols were analyzed to document student conceptions. Cifarelli(1988)'s levels of reflective abstraction and Robert(1982) and Sierpinska(1985)'s three-stage concept development model of infinity and infinite process provided a framework for this explanation. Students who completed a transition to actualized infinity operated higher levels of reflective abstraction than students who was unable to complete such a transition. Developing this ability was found to be critical in achieving about understanding the concept of infinity and infinite process.

This study analyzes the effectiveness of cooperative learning in the instruction of the underachieved students. The result of this study showed that students who participated in the cooperative teaming tended to exert positive effects on the cognitive and affective(interest, self-confidence, motivation) domains. In the cooperative teaming, the underachieved students were encouraged in mathematics teaming and improved the efficiency of loaming in mathematics.

In this paper, we have studied the ways to enhance students' interest in infant math education. Firstly, we explain to the students the relation between the infant math skills and the college math contents. Next, the students practiced the subject about the infant education and the infant math education in real environment. Finally, the results of the practice are analyzed. From this study, we could find that the students got good experiences in infant math education activities and had the chance to change their mind in affirmative way for the infant math education and mathematics itself through performing given projects and investigations.

Analogy, based on a similarity, is to infer the properties of the similar object from properties of an object. It can be a very useful thinking tool for learning mathematical patterns and laws, noticing on relational properties among various situations. The purpose of this study, when manipulating hint condition, figure and table conditions and the amount of original learning by using algebra word problems, is to verify the effects of analogical transfer in solving equivalent, isomorphic and similar problems according to the similarity of source problems and target ones. Five study questions were set up for the above purpose. It was 354 first grade students of S and G middle schools in Seoul that were experimented for this study. The data was processed by MANOVA analysis of statistical program, SPSS 10.0. The results of this studies would indicate that most of the students would be poor at solving isomorphic and similar problems in the performance of analogical transfer according to the similarity of source and target problems. Hints, figure and table conditions did not facilitate the analogical transfer. Merely, on the condition that amount of teaming was increased, analogical transfer of the students was facilitated. Therefore, it is necessary to have students do much more analogical problem-solving experience to improve their analogical reasoning ability through the instruction program development in the educational fields.

Problem-centered learning has many implications on teaching and learning mathematics. Students devise their solutions to solve problems and participate in the discussion with teacher and other students to share and justify their solution during the problem-centered learning. Therefore, we purposed to provide problem-centered loaming materials to be able to use in teaching and loaming the 7th mathematics curriculum in this study. First, we reviewed the 7th curriculum and its textbooks to know what and how students learn and suggested the problem-centered learning as a teaching method to perform the 7th curriculum. Next, we developed the problem-centered loaming materials for 6th grade in elementary school and taught students with these materials to amend errors. Finally, we developed evaluation criteria to evaluate students while they teamed mathematics in the problem-centered learning.

Realistic Mathematics Education (RME) focuses on guided reinvention through which students explore experientially realistic context problems to develop informal problem solving strategies and solutions. This research applied this philosophy of RME to design a differential equation course at a university level. In particular, the course encouraged the students of the course to use numerical methods to solve differential equations. In this context, the purpose of this research was to describe the developmental process in which the students constructed and reinvented Euler algorithm in the class. For the purpose, this paper will present the didactical principle of RME and describe the process of developmental research to investigate the inferential process of students in solving the first order differential equation numerically. Finally, the qualitative analysis of the students' reasoning and use of symbols reveals how the students reinvent Euler algorithm under the didactical principle of guided reinvention. In this research, it has been found that the students developed deep understanding of Euler algorithm in the class. Moreover, it has been shown that the experience of doing mathematics in the course had a positive impact on students' mathematical belief and attitude. These findings imply that the didactical principle of RME can be applied to design university mathematical courses and in general, provide a perspective on how to reform mathematics curriculum at a university level.

The purpose of this study is to analyze the effects of the use of calculators in elementary school mathematics education. For this purpose, we established the subject matters of the research as folloows; (1) to develop the lesson plan and the students' activity sheet related to the use of calculators. (2) to analyze the effects of the use of calculators when we applied the materials developed. Four classes of sixth grade students were sampled two elementary schools in D city. Two of them were assigned to the calculator group and the others to traditional group. The experiment was conducted for 10 class times. Two kinds of test instruments were used: pretest and post test. The pretest scores guaranteed that both groups were homogeneous. Post-test was used to identify the effect of use of calculator and the post-test scores were analyzed by t-test. We also used questionnaire to identify the students' change of attitude toward mathematics. The results of this study as fellows: (1) The calculator group got scores significantly higher than the traditional group on the test. (2) The students' attitude in calculator group was changed a little positively.

The main purpose of this paper is to investigate effects of skewness and kurtosis on the one-sample test. We have found that type I error brought about a little bit change which is ignorable in relation to kurtosis. Also the change of type I error was completely based on skewness under the same size of the sample. We conclude that using t-test is more similar to robust than using z-test. In introductory statistics classes where data analysis includes techniques for detecting skewness, we recommend the t-test when skewness is smaller than the value 1 to the one-sample test for a mean when the variances is unknown using the probability of a type I error as the criterion of interest.