While contemporary mathematics education literature argues that curricular resources, such as textbooks, play a significant role guiding mathematics teachers in what and how they teach, it also shows that these resources often do not do what they say they will do, nor adhere to the standards they claim to further. When it comes to the most…

Errors in mathematics are common hurdles for teachers and students; therefore, it is important to learn what errors students make and how students treat them. This study initially identified the types of errors students made while working with algebraic expressions and documented and analyzed the process of students completing an error analysis…

Technology integration is a critical and longstanding issue in mathematics education. As access to various technology resources increases, so too has the expectation for teachers to use technology to enhance student engagement and understanding. Despite the potential benefits to integrating technology into teachers' instructional practices,…

The purpose of this study was to examine how selected linguistic components (including consistency of relational terms and extraneous information) impact performance at each stage of mathematical word problem solving (comprehension, equation construction, and computation accuracy) among students with different levels of computation achievement. …

Previous research supports the positive educational effects for students when briefer, easier problems are interspersed into independent mathematics worksheets (Skinner, 2002). A concern with the previous research is whether the positive effects would generalize when implemented with large classroom groups over a prolonged period of time. The…

Professional development (PD) is key to improving mathematics teaching and learning in the middle grades. Many PD projects and initiatives have been undertaken across the United States. Yet, we know very little about what teachers learn in and through such PD, nor about what those who conduct the PD might be learning as well. This knowledge gap…

Design research methodology is used in this study to develop an empirically-substantiated instruction theory about students' development of functional thinking in the context of geometric growing patterns. The two research questions are: (1) How does students' functional thinking develop in the context of geometric growing patterns? (2) What are…

Students may avoid working on difficult tasks because it takes them longer to complete those tasks, which results in a delay to reinforcement. Research studies show that reinforcer and response dimensions can be manipulated within a concurrent operants framework to bias choice allocation toward more difficult tasks. The current study extends…

Two choice-making interventions (task sequence and where) were implemented by a classroom teacher to determine the effects on the percentage of task completion, accuracy, and classroom disruption for ten sixth through eighth grade students with E/BD in a residential math classroom using a reversal design. An FBA was conducted to determine the…

The purpose of this study was to describe students' attempts to solve nonroutine math problems and to explore possible correlates of their performance. The focus of this study was on inattended (i.e., intentionally avoided) dimensions that have been underrepresented in the literature, including attitudes, interests, values, aesthetics,…