• Research in Mathematical Education
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.221-234
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• 2007

A comparison of mathematics teachers' personal beliefs between in- and pre-service teachers for Chinese secondary schools (grades 7-12) about mathematics theories, teaching and learning has been studied. In-service teachers' beliefs are close to constructivist's aspect and pre-service teachers' beliefs are close to absolutist's views. Based on the results, we give some suggestions to both teacher education and in-service teachers' training.

• Research in Mathematical Education
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.153-167
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• 2013

Mathematics has been stereotyped as a male-dominated subject, and there is considerable evidence to support this belief. There has been much research in the past three decades on gender-related differences in elementrny and secondrny school mathematics. The research found that teachers possess different beliefs about male and female students that influence their teaching behaviour, which then directly or indirectly impact their students' behaviours, beliefs, and achievements in mathematics. Based on data collected from teacher questionnaire surveys in the Chinese Mainland and Hong Kong, this study examines teachers' beliefs about the achievements of boys and girls in mathematics. The study also compares the findings in the two regions surveyed. Results showed that teachers gave more attention to boys than girls, regardless of the teacher's gender. Not only are teachers more likely to recall more boys than girls, but also more boys than girls with average academic standards.

• Research in Mathematical Education
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• v.10 no.3 s.27
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• pp.189-203
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• 2006

Teaching of fractions is very challengeable for elementary and middle school teachers. Many teachers feel uncomfortable teaching the subject. How shall we introduce the concept of fractions? Shall we focus more on concept development or computational procedures and skills? What methodology can be used in teaching those important topics? These are the kind of questions many teachers and researchers try to answer. In this article, the authors are to look at this issue from a cross nation perspective, by examining how the Chinese mathematics curriculum and the Chinese teachers deal with this subject.

• Research in Mathematical Education
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.33-51
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• 2007

The present study explores mathematics teachers' understanding of division by zero and their approaches to explaining the impossibility of division by zero. This study analyzes Chinese and Korean middle school mathematics teachers' responses to the teaching task of explaining the impossibility of dividing 7 by zero, and examples of teachers' reasoned explanations for their answers are presented. The findings from this study suggest that most Korean teachers offer multiple types of mathematical explanations for justifying the impossibility of division by zero, while Chinese teachers' explanations were more uniform and based less on mathematical ideas than those of their Korean counterparts. Another finding from this study is that teachers' particular conceptions of zero were strongly associated with their justifications for the impossibility of division by zero, and the influence of the teachers' conceptions of zero was revealed as a barrier in composing a well-reasoned explanation for the impossibility of division by zero. One of the practical implications of this study is those teachers' basic attitudes toward always attempting to give explanations for mathematical facts or mathematical concepts do not seem to be derived solely from their sufficient knowledge of the facts or concepts of mathematics.

• Research in Mathematical Education
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.235-249
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• 2008

The paper used the quantitative method to compare Chinese students' and teachers' mathematics related beliefs, including beliefs about mathematics, mathematics teaching and learning. The result indicated that there are some differences between their beliefs. Based on the results, we give some recommendations.

• East Asian mathematical journal
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.109-135
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• 2013

The purpose of the study was to investigate the reality of middle school mathematics teachers' subject matter knowledge for teaching mathematical conjecture and justification. Data in the study were collected through interviewing nine Chinese and ten Korean middle school mathematics teachers. The teachers responded to the question that was designed in the form of a scenario that presents a teaching task related to a geometrical topic. The teachers' oral responses were audiotaped and transcribed, and their written notes were collected. The results of the study were compared to the analysis of American and Chinese elementary and secondary teachers' responses to the same task in Ball (1988) and Ma (1999). The findings of the study suggested that teachers' approaches to explaining and demonstrating a mathematical topic were significantly influenced by their knowledge of learners and knowledge of the curriculum they teach. One of the practical implications of the study is that teachers should recognize the advantages of learning the conceptual structure of a mathematical topic. It allows the teachers to have the flexibility to come up with meaningful mathematical approaches to teaching the topic, which are comprehensible to the learners whatever the grade levels they teach, rather than rule-based algorithms.

• The Mathematical Education
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• v.43 no.4
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• pp.337-347
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• 2004

Korea and China have maintained close relationships since the ancient times along with Japan, which also shares the common Chinese culture. The three major players in Northeast Asia have been recognizing their increasing importance in politics, economy, society, and culture. Considering those relationships among the three countries, it's necessary to compare and investigate their mathematics terminology. The purpose of this study is to investigate the similarities and differences between the terminology of school mathematics in Korean, Chinese and Japanese. The mathematics terms included in the junior high school of Korea were selected, and the corresponding terms in Chinese and Japanese were identified. Among 133 Korean terms, 72 were shared by three countries, 9 Korean terms were common with China, and the remaining 52 Korean terms were the same as Japanese terms. Korea had more common terms with Japan than China, which can be explained by the influences of the Japanese education during its rule of Korea in the past. The survey with 14 terms which show the discrepancy among 3 countries were conducted for in-service teachers and pre-service teachers. According to the result of the survey, preferred mathematics terms are different from one group to the other, yet the Korean mathematics terms were more preferred in general. However some terms in Chinese and Japanese were favored in certain degree. This result may provide meaningful implications to revise the school mathematics terms in the future.

• Research in Mathematical Education
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• v.10 no.3 s.27
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• pp.205-213
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• 2006

In this research, we interviewed primary school teachers and students with hypothetical situations questions and got a comprehensive picture of the status quo of what is happening in the new mathematics classrooms of Mainland China, that is, teachers' conceptions of mathematics and their teaching approaches influence the students' conceptions of mathematics to a large extent. For the teacher who emphasizes the precision and rigidity of mathematics, her students focus on the superficial characteristics of mathematics. On the contrary, for the teacher who believes that mathematics is an open process, related to real life and rich in content, her students are more interested in mathematics and have more diverse conceptions.

• Research in Mathematical Education
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.209-221
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• 2014

In the last few decades there has been much interest in how mathematics can be effectively taught and learnt. The Third Wave is a unique ongoing international collaborative mathematics education research project, which aims to explore the relevant values of effective school mathematics teaching from both the teacher and student perspectives. As part of this project, this study investigates the related findings from students on the Chinese mainland. Multiple data were collected through classroom observations, focus group interviews, and written, open-ended questions. Twenty-four students from junior and senior secondary schools were invited to write down their views on an effective lesson, a good mathematics teacher, and how to do well in mathematics learning. Results showed that among the eight values determined in the study, the values of involvement, explanation, and examples were embraced by students across all grades. Students preferred teacher-led mathematics teaching. Junior secondary students placed more value on teachers' personalities, whereas senior students placed more value on teachers' teaching manners.

• Research in Mathematical Education
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.291-310
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• 2023

In this paper, we propose a theoretical framework for Chinese high school mathematics teachers use new textbooks based on the work of Remillard (1999) and Chau (2014). Based on this framework, a multiple case approach was used to investigate how two high school mathematics teachers from Shanghai use new textbooks. The results suggest that in the curriculum mapping arena, both the novice teacher and the expert teacher often planned to appropriate the unit content, and sometimes planned to add supplemental content. When organizing the unit content, novice teacher always planned to follow the new textbook in sequence, while expert teacher often would follow the new textbook in sequence, but sometimes planned to rearrange the unit content. In the design arena, both the novice teacher and the expert teacher tended to appropriate the introduced tasks and definitions. The novice teacher often planned to appropriate the example problems and exercise problems, while the expert teacher often intended to flexibly use the example problems and exercise problems. In the construction arena, the novice teacher seldom adjusted the planned tasks; in contrast, the expert teacher adjusted the planned tasks more frequently. In the reflection arena, the novice teacher often thought she should improve the mathematics tasks, while the expert teacher almost always thought he needed to improve the mathematics tasks. The framework shown in this paper provides a tool to investigate how mathematics teachers use textbooks.