Thesis advisor: Marina Vasilyeva / The ability to persist when encountering challenges is critical to math learning. However, little research has investigated cross-cultural differences in behavioral persistence during math problem-solving. Furthermore, factors and mechanisms that can help explain these potential differences are poorly investigated. The present research documented the existence of cross-cultural variability in persistence and investigated the role of two sets of motivational factors –academic mindsets and social goals - in explaining persistence. Participants were college students from top universities in Massachusetts, U.S. (N=157) and Beijing, China (N=101). The study included two sessions. In the first session, participants completed questionnaires on academic mindsets (including beliefs about the malleability of general intelligence, math ability, and effort), self-construal, endorsement and internalization of social goals. In the second session, participants completed two math tasks, during which their persistence was assessed with two measures: Task Preference (level of preference for continuing on a challenging math task), and Persistence Time (amount of time spent on a challenging math problem). Results showed that Chinese participants were more persistent, as measured by Persistence Time but not Task Preference. Further, participants’ academic math-specific mindsets predicted their persistence in math problem solving. Students from both countries showed similar effect of beliefs about math ability: participants who were more growth-minded (i.e., viewed this ability as more malleable) were more likely to persist than other students after receiving negative feedback on prior performance. However, effort beliefs predicted persistence in a culturally-specific way: among Chinese participants, those who were less growth-minded were more persistent. In addition to mindsets, self-construal predicted math persistence. For students from both countries, interdependent self-construal predicted higher persistence. Moreover, endorsement and internalization of some social goals (affiliation and responsibility) interacted in predicting persistence for Chinese participants. Overall, the results of the present study suggest that academic mindsets and social goals play important roles in math problem-solving persistence, but these roles vary by culture. These findings help deepen our understanding of behavioral persistence as well as cross-cultural differences in math problem-solving. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2018. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Counseling, Developmental and Educational Psychology.

Dewey provides a rich context in which to develop an understanding of education as growth. By developing an understanding of education as growth, educational research can be incorporated into that context so that a more comprehensive model of education may be considered. Education as growth suggests that education is about progress rather than end states. The knowledge and skills of inquiry must be understood as part of an interconnected whole that includes the physical, social, and intellectual growth of the individual and the community. The role of inquiry in the development of concepts and habits that foster the intellectual and cultural growth of the individual and community are discussed. The work of researchers on math learning disabilities is presented and examined in light of Dewey’s concepts of growth and inquiry so that the educational needs of students with math learning disabilities might be included in a model of education. The quality of the educational experiences of students with math learning disabilities has significant implications for the growth and development of all students, parents, teachers, researchers, and the community. / Thesis (Master, Education) -- Queen's University, 2009-04-16 19:58:52.504

Educational games intend to make learning more enjoyable, but at the potential cost of compromising learning efficiency. Therefore, instead of creating educational games, we create learning environment with game-like elements: the elements of games that are engaging. Our approach is to assess each game-like element in terms of benefits such as enhancing engagement as well as its costs such as sensory or working memory overload, with a goal of maximizing both engagement and learning. We developed different four versions of a math tutor with different degree of being game-like such as adding narrative and visual feedback. Based on a study with 297 students, we found that students reported more satisfaction with more 'game-like' tutor but we were not able to detect any conclusive difference in learning among the different tutors. We collected student data of various types such as their attitude and enjoyment via surveys, performance within tutor via logging, and learning as measured by a pre/post-test. We created a causal model using software TETRAD and contrast the causal modeling approach to the results we achieve with traditional approaches such as correlation matrix and multiple regression. Relative to traditional approaches, we found that causal modeling did a better job at detecting and representing spurious association, and direct and indirect effects within variables. Causal model, augmented with domain knowledge about likely causal relationships, resulted in much more plausible and interpretable model. We propose a framework for blending exploratory results from causal modeling with randomized controlled studies to validate hypotheses.

Allt fler barn upplever skolmatematiken som ett svårt ämne, något som väcker tankar och reflektioner. Jag utgår från att det är viktigt att redan i förskolan förbereda ett arbetssätt så att barnens förståelse för matematik utvidgas. Syftet med min studie är att lyfta fram förskollärarens roll i arbetet med matematiken i förskolan. Jag har all anledning till att utgå från begreppen språk, material och miljö för att få vetskap om förskollärarens roll. Jag anser att dessa begrepp är så sammanhängande med varandra och tillsammans utgör grunden för allt lärande. Studien är kvalitativ och består huvudsakligen av observationer som metod.  Resultatet i undersökningen visar att förskollärarna i vardagen sätter ord på matematiska begrepp.  Genom material såsom dataspel, manuella spel, böcker, byggklossar, pärlplatta och även olika Montessorimaterial förbereder förskollärarna en stimulerande pedagogisk miljö för barnens matematikinlärning. Med hjälp av observationer följer förskollärarna barnen för att därmed utifrån barnens intresse och nyfikenhet arbeta vidare med barnens matematiska förståelse. / More and more children experience school mathematics as a difficult subject which arouses thoughts and reflections. I think it is important to pre-school to prepare an approach so that children's understanding of mathematics can extend.  The purpose of my study is to highlight the pre-school teacher's role in the process of mathematics in pre-school. I have every reason to be based on the concepts of language, materials and environment to have the knowledge of pre-school teacher's role. I believe that these concepts are so connected with each other and together form the basis for all learning. The study is qualitative and consists mainly of observations as method. The results of the study show that pre-school teachers usually in everyday life put words on mathematical concepts. Through materials such as computer games, manual games, books, building blocks, pearl-plates and also various Montessori materials pre-school teachers prepare a stimulating educational environment for children's mathematical learning. By using the observations of the children pre-school teachers, thus based on the children's interest and curiosity, help children to make progress in mathematical understanding. Läs fonetiskt   Ordbok

This meta-analysis looks at the results of five studies on the use of technology for the treatment of dyscalculia in primary school age children. Results show significant positive improvement using specialized software treatment technologies for students in Grades 1-5 in various countries using four different software games. However, little is known overall about the effectiveness of technology treatments for dyscalculics, and even less is known about standardized assessments and treatment of this learning disorder in the United States. The literature researched for this dissertation did not put forth any known policies that drive assessment and treatment of dyscalculia. Future studies are needed about dyscalculia, that provide more detailed information to allow other researchers to verify their work.

The purpose of this study was to compare Student Teams Achievement Division (STAD) with Traditional Pedagogy for the effects on third-grade students with respect to math achievement, problem solving ability, math learning motivation, learning satisfaction, and interest in math learning. The quasi-experimental design was utilized for this study. The study data were collected through questionnaire survey and interviews. The subjects of the study were 61 third-grade students from two classes of an elementary school in the Kaohsiung City. One class was chosen as the experimental group in which STAD was employed in the experimental instruction and the other was chosen as the control group in which traditional pedagogy was adopted. Data were collected during the period of experimental instruction and were analyzed afterwards. The main results are presented as follows: 1. The math achievement of students who received STAD method was significantly higher after the experimental instruction than before. As for the improvement at posttest from pretest in math achievement, students in STAD group performed better than students in traditional pedagogy group did, but the difference did not reach the significant level. 2. The problem solving ability of students who received STAD method were significantly higher after the experimental instruction than before. As for the improvement at posttest from pretest in problem solving ability, students in STAD group performed significantly better than students in traditional pedagogy group did, which meant the STAD group made much more improvement than the traditional pedagogy group did after the experimental instruction. 3. After the experimental instruction, students who received STAD method performed better in math problem solving interview than those who received traditional pedagogy did. Students who received STAD method were more capable of understanding the questions without interviewer¡¦s explanations. Compared with the control group, the STAD group gave correct solutions more frequently, and was able to provide more reasonable explanations to their solutions. Besides, the STAD group was willing to try various ways to solve the same problem. 4. After the experimental instruction, students who received STAD method had significantly higher math learning motivation than did before; as for the improvement at posttest from pretest in math learning motivation, students in STAD group also performed better than students in traditional pedagogy group. 5. After the experimental instruction, students who received STAD method had significantly higher math learning interests than did before; as for the improvement at posttest from pretest in math learning interests, students in STAD group also performed better than students in traditional pedagogy group. Finally, the researcher proposed several suggestions for the ducational application in classroom teaching and future studies.

Thesis advisor: Eric Dearing / Research has shown that parents’ number talk predicts preschoolers’ concurrent and prospective math skills; yet, there is considerable heterogeneity in parents’ use of number talk (e.g., Ramani et al., 2015). Given this, researchers are developing resources and interventions designed to encourage family numeracy (e.g., Hanner et al., 2019). Interventions, however, are based on a limited understanding of how families engage in numeracy conversations, particularly when parents are working to teach their children. Developmental researchers tend to operationalize parent talk as discrete, decontextualized instances of environmental input. In contrast, scholars using Conversation Analysis (CA) argue that understanding interactional phenomenon requires attention to how it is collaboratively and incrementally constructed through turn-taking sequences and how it allows interlocutors to accomplish social actions across stretches of interaction (e.g., Schegloff, 2007). The current study used CA to examine parent-preschooler conversations about numeracy during a home-based math intervention for which parents and children cooked together. The 30 parents—primarily middle-class, college educated parents of color— and their 3- to 5-year-old children received a cookbook with domain-general learning tips and 15 recipes. Families in the treatment condition received additional numeracy tips, some specific to the recipes provided and some broadly applicable to any recipe. Families were asked to audio record themselves cooking twice a month for three months. Results indicated that exchanges in which numeracy pedagogy was irrelevant (i.e., low-relevance pedagogy) for completing the recipe were qualitatively different from exchanges in which numeracy pedagogy facilitated children’s participation in cooking tasks (i.e., high-relevance pedagogy). While low-relevance pedagogy engaged children in rehearsing their numeracy skills, high-relevance pedagogy invited children to use their numeracy knowledge to plan and implement recipe tasks. Counting occurred primarily within low-relevance pedagogy, meaning parents’ prompts to count were disconnected from cooking. The recipes, ingredients, and cooking tools families selected shaped the affordances for numeracy pedagogy. This dissertation has implications for improving early learning interventions. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2021. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Counseling, Developmental and Educational Psychology.

No description available.

Made available in DSpace on 2017-07-21T20:56:29Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Luciane Aparecida Freitas.pdf: 3391719 bytes, checksum: 3fc558aaf7da03629abf6abb769309ed (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-02-25 / The games are part of human life since ancient times. The interest in studying them has contributed fundamentally to the development of probability theory. Starting from the premise that teaching and learning mathematics should not be something tiresome and uninteresting, this work aims to propose and present a didactic proposal that combines the activities proposed in the material prepared by the São Paulo State Education and adopted by the state schools this state the use of educational games that can contribute to the teaching and learning of probability process. To this end, we tried to carry out a literature search on the topics probability and use of games in classrooms and study and describe the activities presented in the Student Notebook and Teacher's Notebook, both used in state schools of the state of Paulo. The didactic proposal to join games to the activities already planned in this material was applied in a classroom of the 2nd year of high school, trying to integrate the Student Notebook activities to use games to address the issue likely. It also describes the characteristics of the school where the proposal was applied, the details of the activities, the materials used, the evaluation of the content that has been applied to students and a questionnaire in which they were able to respond and assess the practical use. / Os jogos fazem parte da vida do homem desde a antiguidade. O interesse em estudá-los contribuiu fundamentalmente para o desenvolvimento da Teoria da Probabilidade. Partindo da premissa de que ensinar e aprender matemática não deve ser algo cansativo e desinteressante, este trabalho tem por objetivo propor e apresentar uma proposta didática que alia as atividades propostas no material elaborado pela Secretaria da Educação do Estado de São Paulo e adotado pelas escolas estaduais deste estado à utilização de jogos didáticos que podem contribuir para o processo de ensino-aprendizagem de probabilidade. Para tal, procurou-se realizar uma pesquisa bibliográfica acerca dos temas probabilidade e uso dos jogos nas salas de aula, bem como estudar e descrever as atividades apresentadas no Caderno do Aluno e no Caderno do Professor, ambos utilizados nas escolas estaduais do estado de São Paulo. A proposta didática que visa a junção de jogos às atividades já previstas nesse material, foi aplicada numa sala de aula do 2º ano do Ensino Médio, procurando integrar as atividades do Caderno do Aluno à utilização de jogos para tratar o tema probabilidade. Descreve ainda, as características da escola onde foi aplicada a proposta, o detalhamento das atividades desenvolvidas, os materiais empregados, a avaliação do conteúdo que foi aplicada aos alunos e um questionário em que eles puderam responder e avaliar a prática utilizada.

Children who struggle to learn math are often identified by their poor performance on common math learning activities, such as number line estimations. While such behavioral assessments are useful in the classroom, naturalistic neuroimaging of children engaged in real-world math learning activities has the potential to identify concurrent behavioral and neurological correlates to poor math performance. Such correlates may help pinpoint effective teaching strategies for atypical learners, and may highlight instructional methods that elicit typical neurological response patterns to such activities. For example, multisensory stimulation that contains information about number enhances infants' and preschool children's behavioral performance on many numerical tasks and has been shown to elicit neural activation in areas related to number processing and decision-making. Thus, when applied to math teaching tools, multisensory stimulation may provide a platform through which both behavioral and neural math-related processes may be enhanced. Common approaches to neuroimaging of math processing lack ecological validity and are often not analogous to real-world learning activities. However, because of its liberal tolerance of movement, near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) provides an ideal platform for such studies. Here, NIRS is used to provide the first concurrent examination of neurological and behavioral data from number line estimation performance within children and adults. Moreover, in an effort to observe the behavioral and neurological benefits to number line estimations that may arise from multisensory stimulation, differential feedback (i.e., visual, auditory, or audiovisual) about estimation performance is provided throughout a portion of the task. Results suggest behavioral and neural performance is enhanced by feedback. Moreover, significant effects of age suggest young children show greater neurological response to feedback, and increase in task difficulty resulted in decreased behavioral performance and increased neurological activation associated with mathematical processing. Thus, typical math learners effectively recruit areas of the brain known to process number when math activities become increasingly difficult. Data inform understanding typical behavioral and neural responses to real-world math learning tasks, and may prove useful in triangulating signatures of atypical math learning. Moreover, results demonstrate the utility of NIRS as a platform to provide simultaneous neurological and behavioral data during naturalistic math learning activities.