This paper analyses the strategies used by pre-service primary school teachers for solving simple addition problems involving negative numbers. The findings reveal six different strategies that depend on the difficulty of the problem and, in particular, on the unknown quantity. We note that students use negative numbers in those problems they find…

The use of short assessment tasks can provide valuable information about undergraduates' knowledge and understanding. However, it is known that there are gender-related differences in performance on certain types of objective tests, both among school pupils and university undergraduates. This article focuses on undergraduate learning, using a…

The dual purpose of this paper is to put forward the problem of goal orientation in mathematics education in general and to consider a specific goal that is not seen as central in traditional teaching practice. The goal orientation approach in education aims to construct the teaching process considering the goals of the students, i.e. the expected…