This article addresses why instructors choose to not use inquiry-oriented instructional practices (IO-IPs) even if they believe the practices are beneficial. A national sample of undergraduate mathematics instructors (N = 269) responded to questionnaires on their use of IO-IPs, beliefs on student learning, and recognition of professional…

Course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) have been shown to help students gain research skills. Few studies, however, have evaluated the impact of CUREs on long-term educational and employment outcomes. This article examines postgraduation outcomes for students enrolling in introductory statistics delivered as a CURE compared with…

This article investigates the implementation of inquiry-oriented instruction in 20 undergraduate mathematics classrooms. In contrast to conventional wisdom that active learning is good for all students, we found gendered performance differences between women and men in the inquiry classes that were not present in a noninquiry comparison sample.…

Our field has generally reached a consensus that active-learning approaches improve student success; however, there is a need to explore the ways that particular instructional approaches affect various student groups. We examined the relationship between gender and student learning outcomes in one context: inquiry-oriented abstract algebra. Using…

This article documents differences between novice and experienced undergraduate students' processes of reading mathematical proofs as revealed by moment-by-moment, think-aloud protocols. We found three key reading behaviors that describe how novices' reading differed from that of their experienced peers: alternative task models, accrual of…

The purpose of this study was to shed light on the mathematics-learning experiences of students who were enrolled in non-credit-bearing remedial mathematics courses at a 4-year university. Non-credit-bearing remedial mathematics courses have a long curricular history in both 2-year and 4-year higher education institutions, but students'…

Slow faculty uptake of research-based, student-centered teaching and learning approaches limits the advancement of U.S. undergraduate mathematics education. A study of inquiry-based learning (IBL) as implemented in over 100 course sections at 4 universities provides an example of such multicourse, multi-institution uptake. Despite variation in how…

The author responds to the recent work of Kaminski, Sloutsky, and Heckler (2008) and advances two major concerns about their research and its applicability to learning mathematics: a confounding variable that arises from the mathematical differences between the generic examples and concrete examples poses a threat to the construct validity of the…

College students are assessed for their abilities at horizontal and vertical spatial tasks. Differences between males and females and between vertical and horizontal tests are covered in this study. (MP)

Subjects were enrolled in a required science course for elementary education majors at Georgia College during spring quarter 1980. Each student was presented questions during two one-hour interview sessions. Van Hiele's assertions appear to be supported by the investigation, but further examination and development of assessment procedures are…

A study of (n=26) prospective elementary teachers' understanding of the area of a rectangular region as a multiplicative relationship between the lengths of the sides resulted in the development of a description of the quantitative reasoning involved. (23 references) (MKR)

We describe a four-level spectrum of pedagogical awareness (SPA) that emerged from the analysis of six undergraduate mathematics tutors' (1) conceptualizations of their first-year students' difficulties; (2) descriptive accounts of their strategies for facilitating the overcoming of these difficulties; and (3) self-reflective accounts regarding…