This comparative study analyzed the similarities and differences in the mathematical communication used by teachers and primary school students in Japanese, Lao, and Thai mathematics classrooms. It adopted a qualitative research design, and the targets were teachers and students in Grades 1-6 at a selected school in each of the three countries.…

This article contains the results of a chi-squared analysis on the data set of a survey instrument completed by a class of Japanese elementary school students (n = 29) before and after a series of Skype® exchanges. The parametric results were reported previously (Ockert, 2015a). The instrument instructions requested students to rank six statements…

Although the term "radiation" has a fixed place in everyday life as well as in the media, there is very little empirical research on students' conceptions about this topic. In our study we wanted to find out what students associate with this term. In 2009, we asked 509 students (between grade 4 and grade 6) from seven different schools…

Lesson Study can be viewed as a continuous development programme because it offers teachers support in an environment unlike other traditional continuous development programmes. In this study, 28 primary mathematics teachers were surveyed and 4 out of the 28 were interviewed to examine how they perceived Lesson Study as professional development.…

This study analyzes the learning expectations related to grades 1-8 algebra across several U.S. states and high performing TIMSS Asian countries and regions, including Singapore, Taiwan and Japan. In order to narrow and focus the investigation, only one topic within the strand is carefully reported. Based on the official curriculum documents,…