Wicked sustainability problems (WSPs) are an important and particularly challenging type of problem. Science and engineering education can play an important role in preparing students to deal with such problems, but current educational practice may not adequately prepare students to do so. We address this gap by providing insights related to…

This study extends past research on students' understanding of slope by analyzing college students' mistakes on routine tasks involving slope. We conduct quantitative and qualitative analysis of students' mistakes to extract information regarding slope conceptualizations described in prior research. Results delineate procedural proficiencies and…

Highly capable mathematics students are not usually considered strugglers. This paper reports on a case study of a Year 6 student, Debbie, her response to a lesson, and her learning involving a challenging mathematical task. Debbie, usually a highly capable student, struggled to complete a challenging mathematical task by herself, but as the…

The Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSSM) highlight the importance of students' conceptual understanding, mathematical reasoning, and problem solving in order to prepare students for college and careers. However, the success of this reform effort largely depends on how teachers actually design and implement instruction based on the…

Halmos (1980) once described problems and their solutions as "the heart of mathematics". Following this line of thinking, one might naturally ask: "What, then, is the heart of problems?" In this work, I attempt to answer this question using techniques from statistics, information visualization, and machine learning. I begin the…

Little is known about students' emotions in the field of Mathematics Education that go beyond students' emotions in problem solving. To start filling this gap this qualitative research has the aim to identify emotional experiences of undergraduate mathematics students in Linear Algebra courses. In order to obtain data, retrospective focus group…

This paper describes the results of a qualitative study using ground theory to investigate the different approaches used by chemists when answering open-ended problems. The study involved undergraduate, industrialist and academic participants who individually answered three open-ended problems using a think aloud protocol. Open-ended problems are…

As part of a 3-year longitudinal study, 136 sixth-grade students completed an engineering-based problem on earthquakes involving integrated STEM learning. Students employed engineering design processes and STEM disciplinary knowledge to plan, sketch, then construct a building designed to withstand earthquake damage, taking into account a number of…

The aim of this study is to examine preservice science teachers' skills of formulating hypotheses and identifying variables. The research has a phenomenological research design. The data was gathered qualitatively. In this study, preservice science teachers were first given two scenarios (Scenario-1 & Scenario-2) containing two different…

We conducted a qualitative research of case studies based on think-aloud protocols. The aim was to carry out in-depth analyse secondary students' cognitive difficulties appearing in early stages of transfer processes in problem-solving. The task was to relate several source problems to a target problem, in order to solve it effectively. Source and…

Technology is becoming increasingly popular in higher education in the way students are asked to communicate and collaborate. The student teaching experience is an integral part of developing critical thinking skills in pre-service teachers. During this experience, it is important that student teachers practice the theory they have been taught in…

Language may ordinarily account for difficulties in solving word problems and this is particularly true if mathematical word problems are taught in a language other than one's native language. Research into cognitive load may offer a clear theoretical framework when investigating word problems because memory, specifically working memory, plays a…

The aim of this study was to determine the salient beliefs of pre-service primary school teachers (PPSTs) about why they like or dislike physics and to explore whether these beliefs predict their teaching beliefs about physics. A total of 267 PPSTs (Male = 137, Female = 130) participated in the study. Qualitative data analyses were used and the…

Contemporary office work is becoming increasingly challenging as many routine tasks are automated or outsourced. The remaining problem solving activities may also offer potential for lifelong learning in the workplace. In this study, we analyzed problem solving in an office work setting using an Internet-based, semi-standardized diary to collect…

This paper reports a qualitative research that identifies Mexican high school students' social representations of mathematics. For this purpose, the social representations of "mathematics", "learning mathematics" and "teaching mathematics" were identified in a group of 50 students. Focus group interviews were carried…