• East Asian mathematical journal
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.235-255
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• 2017

This study focuses on the teaching of fraction related to curriculum, introducing time of fraction, the meaning of fractions in textbook, material of teaching of fraction concept, teaching model of introducing time of fraction concept, special cases of teaching fraction and common points of representation of fraction among Korea, New Zealand and Singapore. For this study, Korea's mathematics textbooks(3-1, 3-2, 4-1, 5-1, 6-1) and New National Curriculum Mathematics(3, 4, 5. 6. 7)of New Zealand and New Syllabus Primary Mathematics(2B, 3B, 4A, 4B, 5A, 6A)of Singapore were selected for comparison and analysis. As a results we will suggest a reference to the development of mathematical curriculum, teaching fraction and improving the quality of the textbook through a method of comparative analysis of Korea, New Zealand and Singapore.

• East Asian mathematical journal
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.109-133
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• 2012

In this research, I selected a Singapore elementary mathematics textbook which substantially reflects Singapore curriculum, and compared it with Korean one to understand how they differ in the contents system of the curriculum focused on the contents of the geometry and measurement strand, and analyzed their common points and different points intensively with textbooks for sixth-grade students. Also, I translated a chapter of the textbook, 'Mathematics in Action'. That chapter was about circumference and the area of the circle which is related to the shapes part. Then, I taught it to the experimental group to compare their achievement and the change of reaction to studying the shape-related parts with those of the control group. The results are the followings. First, when we analyze the contents of shape-related part of the textbooks for sixth-grade students of both countries, Singaporean textbook contains more contents that are introduced for the first time, which implies that it is more desirable to teach new concepts of shapes when students are in their higher grades. Second, as for the way they develop the activity of each chapter, Korean textbook sticks to a uniform way, while the Singapore textbook uses various ways for different subjects and grades. In addition, when they organize the contents of the textbook, they emphasize the importance of student's activity and lead students with various methods by suggesting several questions and situations.

• Research in Mathematical Education
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.111-130
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• 2021

This exploratory study focuses on analyzing three mathematics textbooks in Germany, Singapore and South Korea to reveal similarities and differences in their introductions of fraction concepts. Findings reveal that all three countries' textbooks introduce fraction concepts predominantly by using pictorial representations such as area models, but the introductions of multiple fraction constructs vary. The Singaporean and South Korean textbooks predominantly used a part-whole construct to introduce fractional concepts while the German textbook introduced various constructs sequentially in the first pages using several scenarios from different real-life situations. The findings were represented using visual representations, which we called textbook signatures. The textbook signatures provided configurations of the textbook features across the three countries. At the end of paper, we share insights and limitations about the use of textbook signatures in the research on textbook analysis.

• Journal of Elementary Mathematics Education in Korea
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.421-440
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• 2010

Our country has excessive amount of learning per hour compared with Japan and Singapore. And as there is no consistence for definition of time between grades, it deteriorates understanding of students. Our country teaches students focusing on time algorism whereas Japan and Singapore teaches their students focusing on flow of time. In composing of mathematics textbook in Korea, Japan and Singapore, textbook of our country contains far more of learning compared with the amount designated in textbooks. Textbooks of Japan contains less teaching elements, but instead it contains much activities to expedite time sense As time is distributed in activities of students, it is more important to construct textbooks with experience of students rather than algorism approaches. In addition, textbooks of Singapore contains various examples and clarified concepts compared with those of our country. Like above, time teaching deployment methods of Japan and Singapore gives us good lessons for teaching time in our country, and it is expected be good reference for future development of our textbooks.

• School Mathematics
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.473-491
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• 2010

In the TIMSS assessment goal and open TIMSS 2007, Singapore recorded a lower overall achievement level compared with Korea; however, the excellent results shown by Singapore furnished an opportunity for various countries to research into the education in Singapore. This paper conducted a comparative analysis of the "Proportion, Proportional Expression, and Percentile" area out of the three topics involving "Fractions and Decimals", "Proportion, Proportional expression, and Percentile", and "Measurement", in all of which Singapore exhibited a higher percentage of correct answers than Korea. The paper was able to discover the following differences through a comparative analysis of how Korean and Singaporean textbooks deal with the open questions of TIMSS 2007 after looking into them according to four assessment goals. First, the Singaporean textbook introduced the concept of proportion one year ahead of the Korean textbook. Second, the Singaporean textbook repeatedly coped with the topic of "Proportion, Proportional Expression, and Percentile" in depth and by academic year, and its volume was larger than that of the Korean textbook. Third, there was a difference in the introduction and definition of the concept of proportion. Fourth, the way of introducing a proportional expression was also different, and the Singaporean textbook proposed many more questions that utilize this expression in ordinary life. Based on these differences, the paper suggested implications that could be applied to the Korean curriculum and textbook.

• Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.25-43
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• 2009

The fraction concept consists of various meanings and is one of the abstract and difficult in elementary school mathematics. This study intends to find out the implication for introducing the fraction concept by comparing mathematics textbooks of Korea and Singapore. Both countries' students peformed well in recent TIMMSs. Some implications are as follows; The term 'equal' is not defined and the results of various 'equal partitioning' activities can not easily examined in Korea's mathematics textbook. And contexts of introducing fractions as a quotient and a ratio are unnatural in Korea's mathematics textbook in comparison with Singapore's mathematics textbook. So these ideas should be reconsidered in order to seek the direction for improvement of it. And Korea's textbooks need the emphasis on the fraction as a measure and on constructing fraction concept by unit fraction.

• Journal of the Korean School Mathematics Society
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.509-521
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• 2020

This study began with the discovery of the concept of frequency density in Singapore textbooks and in a set of subject contents of the UK's General Certificate of Secondary Education. To understand the mathematical meaning of frequency density, the mathematical connection of frequency density was considered in terms of mathematics internal connections and mathematics external connections. In addition, the teaching method of frequency density was introduced. In terms of mathematical internal connections, the connections among the probability density function, relative frequency density, and frequency density in high school statistics were examined. Regarding mathematical external connections, the connection with the density concept in middle school science was analyzed. Based on the mathematical connection, the study suggested the need to introduce the frequency density concept. For the teaching method of frequency density, the Singapore secondary mathematics textbook was introduced. The Singapore textbook introduces frequency density to correctly represent and accurately interpret data in histograms with unequal class intervals. Therefore, by introducing frequency density, Korea can consistently teach probability density function, relative frequency density, and frequency density, emphasizing the mathematical internal connections among them and considering the external connections with the science subject. Furthermore, as a teaching method of frequency density, we can consider the method provided in the Singapore textbook.

• Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.443-465
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• 2016

The study aims to compare our newest mathematics curriculum with Singapore's and analyse the differences of them. Because the levels of our mathematics education have been evaluated to be difficult to our students, we try to find that the evaluation is appropriate and there are other characteristics we have to notice carefully, and provide some implications for our mathematics curriculum. We mainly compared both mathematics curriculums focussed on the national documents of mathematics curriculum, and textbooks in the level of middle school. The results are following. Firstly, Singapore has three tracks based on students' abilities and there are three kinds of textbooks on the tracks. This is a different from our teaching on students level. Secondly, the introductions of our mathematics curriculum contents are not faster than Singapore's, but they have more concrete ranges of contents than us. Thirdly, the focus of Singapore's mathematics education lies on problem solving, and we can find some good examples of contents of textbook focussed on problem solving. Some mathematical concepts are introduced simply without any process of students discoveries or investigations, and the focus lies on the problem solving using the concepts. Fourthly, Singapore's mathematics textbooks are more emphasis on the internal connections than ours.

• Education of Primary School Mathematics
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.251-278
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• 2022

The purpose of this study is to obtain implications for mathematical education by analyzing how the multiplication and division of decimal numbers are presented in the elementary mathematics textbooks in Korea, Japan, Singapore, and Finland. Compared to the fact that students often have misconceptions about multiplication and division of decimal numbers, there have been not many comparative studies in recent elementary mathematics textbooks. For this study, we selected elementary mathematics textbooks those are widely used in Japan, Singapore, and Finland along with Korean elementary mathematics textbooks. We chose the textbooks because the students in the selected countries have scored high in international achievement studies such as TIMSS and PISA. The analysis was examined in terms of elementary mathematics curriculum related to multiplication and division of decimal numbers, introduction and content, real-life situations, use of visual models, and formalization methods of algorithms. As a result of the study, the mathematics curricula related to multiplication and division of decimal numbers includes estimation in Korea and Finland, while Japan and Singapore emphasize real-life connections more, and Finland completes the operations in secondary schools. The introduction and content are intensively provided in a short period of time or distributed in various grades and semesters. The real-life situations are presented in a simple sentence format in all countries, and the use of visual models or formalization of algorithms is linked to the operations of natural numbers in unit conversions. Suggestions were made for textbook development and teacher training programs.

• Journal of Elementary Mathematics Education in Korea
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.453-473
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• 2018

In this study, we analyzed the contents of speed concept presented in Korean, Japanese, Singapore, and American elementary mathematics textbooks, and drew implications for the teaching of speed concept in elementary schools. We developed a textbook analysis framework by theoretical discussions on the characteristics of the speed concept based on the proportional relationship and the previous researches on the speed in elementary mathematics. We analyzed the textbooks of four countries and drew some suggestions for improving the teaching of speed concept in Korean elementary schools.