• The Mathematical Education
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• v.45 no.4 s.115
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• pp.407-438
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• 2006

This study investigated school mathematics curriculum of England, newly revised in 1998, focused on the 'shape, space, and measures' domain among three major domains of the English curriculum. On the basis of its understanding, this domain was compared and analyzed with school mathematics curriculum of Korea. In doing so, this study explored its plans and procedures and established a frame of comparison for the curriculums between the two countries. The structure of the National Curriculum in England is composed of programmes of study and attainment targets. The former sets out what should be taught in mathematics at key stages 1, 2, 3, and 4 and provides the basis for planning schemes of work, and the latter sets out the knowledge, skills, and understanding that pupils of different abilities and matures are expected to have by the end of each key stage. Attainment targets are composed of eight levels and an additional level of increasing difficulty. According to the results of the present study, Korea focuses on the formal and systematic mathematical knowledge on the basis of sound understanding of certain mathematical terms or concepts. On the other hand, England curriculum tends to deal with the content which can be understood more intuitively, flexibly, and naturally through the experience and aquisition based on the concrete manipulation. Particularly, it emphasizes that mathematics be realistic and useful in solving a diverse problems confronted in everyday life.

• Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.283-304
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• 2004

This study is to make strides toward an enriched understanding of changing a prevailing teacher-centered mathematics classroom culture to a student-centered culture by analyzing six reform-oriented classrooms of three elementary school teachers throughout a year This study provided a detailed description of important classroom episodes to explore how the participants in each class established a reform-oriented mathematics microculture. Despite the exemplary form of student-centered instruction, the content and qualities of the teaching practices are somewhat different in the extent to which students' ideas become the center of mathematical discourse and activity. Given the similarities in terms of general social norms and the differences in terms of socio-mathematical norms and mathematical practice, this study addresses some crucial issues on understanding the culture of elementary mathematics classroom in transition.

• The Mathematical Education
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• v.55 no.4
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• pp.485-501
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• 2016

This study was to explore the factors that mathematics teachers actually need to improve their students' creativity and character to pursue education in the direction of the revised curriculum. We first temporarily extracted the elements to reinforce mathematics teachers' professionalism for creativity and character education through literature review, and then conducted the modified delphi technique and interview by targeting secondary school mathematics teachers. Based on the discussion of previous studies, we divided into five areas for mathematics teachers' professional development of creativity and character education: 1. understanding of creativity and character education, 2. creating an environment, 3. understanding curriculum for creativity and character education, 4. instructional design and apply for creativity and character education, 5. evaluating for creativity and character education. Actually content elements highly required by mathematics teachers were reset 17 items. The results of this study are expected to be used as the basis for teachers' professional development of creativity and character education in mathematics education.

• Journal of the Korean School Mathematics Society
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.539-564
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• 2011

This study examined how elementary teachers perceive and use "problem-posing" as a way to improve students' problem-solving skills in their mathematics classrooms. In the study, a total of 193 teachers in metropolitan areas were surveyed and a subset of 4 teachers were selected for depth-interviews. Results of the study included that teachers did not have a clear understanding of the study included that teachers did not have a clear understanding of the intended meaning of "problem-posing" although many of them have heard about the idea itself. Therefore, "problem-posing" was not fully utilized in their mathematics instructional and assessment. It is suggested that there is a need to develop instructional materials and related professional development of teachers for better instruction of problem-posing in the mathematics classroom.

• Journal of the Korean School Mathematics Society
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.111-122
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• 2000

This study is focused on vocational high school students who feel hardly interested in mathematics and are considered to have very limited basic scholastic ability. It analyzes the data obtained by applying the material, extracted from the Internet and literature to school classes from March to July, for the purposes of improving the degree of scholastic achievement on the basis of the fact that interest induced learning materials were developed and applied to the students to bring about their motivation resulting in a positive change in understanding and attitudes to mathematics. According to the result of the analysis, the level of students' scholastic ability of both the comparative class and the experimental class were too low to become interested in mathematics. However, the experimental class students seemed to feel familiar to the learning materials rather than reluctant, and it appeared that their interest and behavior of learning began to change gradually in an extent. In addition to that, as an aspect of scholastic achievement there was not considerable difference between the two classes, but as time went, some valuable changes were found. Unfortunately, the size of group of the research was small and the period of the experimental classes was not extensively long, and therefore the same result might not occur in other groups. However, it is believed that in class-time, educating students by putting in learning materials bringing about relevant motivation to the class, will lead them to become interested in mathematics, and change their attitudes and understanding of mathematics. After all, scholastic achievement will be effective.

• Journal for History of Mathematics
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.135-152
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• 2008

In this paper, we survey the thought of students for the reason of the study of mathematics, for mathematics, for the textbook of mathematics and the attitude appling mathematical knowledge in the real life and analyze that. We have a correct understanding how to study mathematics and that motivates study of mathematics to students. Student have a correct understanding how to use basic knowledge of mathematical theory in the real life and have for the study of mathematics. In this article, we investigate the reason for studying mathematics in the real life and analyze the way how to use basic knowledge of mathematical theories through actual examples. The reasons for studying math are divided into 3 categories: mathematics for obtaining common sense and wisdom, practical mathematics for application, and mathematics as a liberal art for promoting our characters and recreation. We investigate the reasons for studying mathematics in each category. By theses results, we make the effectual educational method for mathematics and investigate the effect.

• Journal of Elementary Mathematics Education in Korea
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.237-255
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• 2014

The purpose of this study is to investigate elementary school students' understanding the concept and operations of decimal fraction. The survey research was performed for this study. This survey was done by selecting 156 students. Questionnaire were made in five areas with reference to the 2007 revised mathematics curriculum. Five areas were the concept of decimal fraction, the addition, the subtraction, the multiplication and the division of decimal fraction. The results of such analysis are as follow: The analyzed result of understanding about concepts and operation of decimal fraction showed a high rate of correct answer, more than 85%. Students thought that multiplication and division of decimal fraction is more difficult than addition, subtraction, concept of decimal fraction. As the learning about concepts and operation of decimal fraction progress, the learning gap is bigger. Effort to reduce the learning deficits are needed in the lower grades. Mathematics is the study of the hierarchical. Learning deficits in low-level interfere with the learning in next-level. Therefore systematic supplementary guidance for a natural number and decimal fraction in low-level is needed. And understanding concepts and principles of calculations should be taught first.

• The Mathematical Education
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• v.56 no.1
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• pp.19-39
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• 2017

Taking samples of data and using samples to make inferences about unknown populations are at the core of statistical investigations. So, an understanding of the nature of sample as statistical thinking is involved in the area of statistical literacy, since the process of a statistical investigation can turn out to be totally useless if we don't appreciate the part sampling plays. However, the conception of sampling is a scheme of interrelated ideas entailing many statistical notions such as repeatability, representativeness, randomness, variability, and distribution. This complexity makes many people, teachers as well as students, reason about statistical inference relying on their incorrect intuitions without understanding sample comprehensively. Some research investigated how the concept of a sample is understood by not only students but also teachers or preservice teachers, but we want to identify preservice secondary mathematics teachers' understanding of sample as the statistical literacy by a qualitative analysis. We designed four items which asked preservice teachers to write their understanding for sampling tasks including representativeness and variability. Then, we categorized the similar responses and compared these categories with Watson's statistical literacy hierarchy. As a result, many preservice teachers turned out to be lie in the low level of statistical literacy as they ignore contexts and critical thinking, expecially about sampling variability rather than sample representativeness. Moreover, the experience of taking statistics courses in university did not seem to make a contribution to development of their statistical literacy. These findings should be considered when design preservice teacher education program to promote statistics education.

• Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.207-219
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• 2004

There have been studies reporting the increase in student confidence in mathematics when using technology. However, past studies indicating a positive correlation between technology and confidence in mathematics do not explain why they see this positive outcome. With increased availability and easy access to the Internet in schools and the development of free online virtual manipulatives, this research was interested in how the use of virtual manipulatives in mathematics can affect students confidence in their mathematical abilities. Our hypothesis was that the classes using virtual manipulatives which allows students to connecting dynamic visual image with abstract symbols will help students gain a deeper conceptual understanding of math concept thus increasing their confidence and ability in mathematics. The participants in this study were 46 fifth-grade students in three ability groups: one high, one middle and one low. During a two-week unit on fractions, students in three groups interacted with several virtual manipulative applets in a computer lab. Data sources in the project included a pre and posttest of students mathematics content knowledge, Confidence in Learning Mathematics Scale, field notes and student interviews, and classroom videotapes. Our aim was to find evidence for increased level of confidence in mathematics as students strengthened their understanding of fraction concepts. Results from the achievement score indicated an overall main effect showing significant improvement for all ability groups following the treatment and an increase in the confidence level from the preassessment of the Confidence in Learning Mathematics Scale in the middle and high ability groups. An interesting finding was that the confidence level for the low ability group students who had the highest confidence level in the beginning did not change much in the final confidence scale assessment. In the middle and high ability groups, the confidence level did increase according to the improvement of the contest posttest. Through interviews, students expressed how the virtual manipulatives assisted their understanding by verifying their answers as they worked and facilitated their ability to figure out math concept in their mind and visually.

• Communications of Mathematical Education
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.1-14
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• 2021

Mathematics anxiety is a term for emotional and physical resistance to mathematics. Understanding students' mathematics anxiety is important not only in terms of improving mathematics academic achievement, but also in nurturing mathematics manpower necessary for the future society. In particular, mathematics anxiety is most likely to occur in elementary school, and it has a negative effect on subsequent learning. Therefore, it is important to understand the aspects of students' mathematics anxiety in elementary school. In this study, I presented the patterns of changes in students' mathematics anxiety over time and statistically verified them. As a result of a follow-up survey of 249 elementary school students' mathematics anxiety for 3 years from 4th to 6th grade, it was found that, rather than having a special pattern related to the formation of math anxiety, it may increase and decrease and vary depending on individual confirmed. Later, in this study, five patterns of Mathematics anxiety patterns were identified through statistical analysis. In addition, I confirmed that the students' interest about teachers' mathematics lessons was consistently influencing the change in mathematics anxiety. The results of this study will increase students' understanding of the formation of mathematics anxiety and can be used as basic data for the development of teaching and learning materials related to mathematics anxiety in the future and subsequent research.