In this paper, we explore the role that examples play as mathematicians formulate conjectures, and we describe and exemplify one particular example-related activity that we observed in interviews with thirteen mathematicians. During our interviews, mathematicians productively used examples as they formulated conjectures, particularly by creating…

The aim of this study is to characterize ways of reasoning and arguing that first year university mathematics students exhibit in problem-solving activities from a course that emphasizes the importance of formulating conjectures and the search for different ways to support or validate them. The use of a Dynamic Geometry System in the…

This exploratory study examined how pre-service teachers (PSTs) pose mathematical problems for free and structured mathematical problem-posing conditions. It was hypothesized that PSTs would pose more complex mathematical problems under structured posing conditions, with increasing levels of complexity, than PSTs would pose under free posing…

We examined the use of balance and inverse methods in equation solving. The main difference between the balance and inverse methods lies in the operational line (e.g. +2 on both sides vs -2 becomes +2). Differential element interactivity favours the inverse method because the interaction between elements occurs on both sides of the equation for…

This research study investigates the ability of students to tackle the solving of unique mathematical problems in the domain of numerical series, verbal and formal, and its influence on the motivation of junior high students with learning disabilities in the Arab sector. Two instruments were used to collect the data: mathematical series were…

This study investigated the effects of applying mathematical modeling on revising students' preconception of the process of optimizing area enclosed by a string of a fixed length. A group of 28 high school pre-calculus students were immersed in modeling activity that included direct measurements, data collecting, and formulating algebraic…

Understanding an arithmetic operation implies, at minimum, knowing the direction of effects that the operation produces. However, many children and adults, even those who execute arithmetic procedures correctly, may lack this knowledge on some operations and types of numbers. To test this hypothesis, we presented preservice teachers (Study 1),…

Democracy is a most accepted form of government system and has a great importance for citizens by allowing them equal and active participation in common life. As its development and characteristics are important for all citizens of a country, each democratic country puts much emphasis on democracy education in its educational curricula. In recent…

A Graphing Calculator (GC) is one of the most portable and affordable technology in mathematics education. It quickens the mechanical procedure in solving mathematical problems and creates a highly interactive learning environment, which makes learning a seemingly difficult subject, easy. Since research on the use of GCs for the teaching and…

This study investigated the role of broad cognitive processes in the development of mathematics skills among children and adolescents. Four hundred and forty-seven students (age mean [M] = 10.23 years, 73% boys and 27% girls) from an elementary school district in the US southwest participated. Structural equation modelling tests indicated that…

In this article, the authors focus on hypothesis testing--that peculiarly statistical way of deciding things. Statistical methods for testing hypotheses were developed in the 1920s and 1930s by some of the most famous statisticians, in particular Ronald Fisher, Jerzy Neyman and Egon Pearson, who laid the foundations of almost all modern methods of…

The current study investigated the discreet task completion hypothesis presented by C. H. Skinner (2002) by investigating how the rate of interspersing affects performance on and preferences for academic assignments. Specifically, 70 sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-grade students were presented with four assignment pairs of multiplication problems.…

Activity sheets posing problems in which students must examine and test various possibilities are presented. (SD)

College students were exposed to two pairs of mathematics assignments. Assignment Pair A included a high-effort assignment containing 18 long three-digit ? two-digit (3?2) multiplication problems with all numerals in each problem being equal to or greater than four and a moderate-effort assignment that contained nine long problems and nine…

The 7th International Conference on Education Data Mining held on July 4th-7th, 2014, at the Institute of Education, London, UK is the leading international forum for high-quality research that mines large data sets in order to answer educational research questions that shed light on the learning process. These data sets may come from the traces…