• Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.207-219
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• 2004

There have been studies reporting the increase in student confidence in mathematics when using technology. However, past studies indicating a positive correlation between technology and confidence in mathematics do not explain why they see this positive outcome. With increased availability and easy access to the Internet in schools and the development of free online virtual manipulatives, this research was interested in how the use of virtual manipulatives in mathematics can affect students confidence in their mathematical abilities. Our hypothesis was that the classes using virtual manipulatives which allows students to connecting dynamic visual image with abstract symbols will help students gain a deeper conceptual understanding of math concept thus increasing their confidence and ability in mathematics. The participants in this study were 46 fifth-grade students in three ability groups: one high, one middle and one low. During a two-week unit on fractions, students in three groups interacted with several virtual manipulative applets in a computer lab. Data sources in the project included a pre and posttest of students mathematics content knowledge, Confidence in Learning Mathematics Scale, field notes and student interviews, and classroom videotapes. Our aim was to find evidence for increased level of confidence in mathematics as students strengthened their understanding of fraction concepts. Results from the achievement score indicated an overall main effect showing significant improvement for all ability groups following the treatment and an increase in the confidence level from the preassessment of the Confidence in Learning Mathematics Scale in the middle and high ability groups. An interesting finding was that the confidence level for the low ability group students who had the highest confidence level in the beginning did not change much in the final confidence scale assessment. In the middle and high ability groups, the confidence level did increase according to the improvement of the contest posttest. Through interviews, students expressed how the virtual manipulatives assisted their understanding by verifying their answers as they worked and facilitated their ability to figure out math concept in their mind and visually.

• Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.145-164
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• 2014

The aim of this study is exploring the confidence in Mathematics. First, we investigated the relationships among self-concept, self-efficacy, and confidence. In addition we analyzed confidence with Mathematics of Korean students based on the TIMSS 2003, 2007, 2011 data. This study was to clarify the relationship between the three concepts by using preceding studies and TIMSS/PISA questionnaire. Self concept and self-efficacy as compared with confidence is a little more subject oriented belif about personal learning ability. Compared to elementary school students, secondary school students' confidence is lower. And, this study also found that, there are six factors that effect the Korean students' confidence with mathematics. In particular, the individual study process of evaluation is more effective than classes evaluated.

• The Mathematical Education
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• v.54 no.2
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• pp.195-206
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• 2015

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of teacher on fourth-grade students' attitudes toward mathematics using data from TIMSS 2011. Students' attitudes toward mathematics included interest in learning mathematics, interest in mathematics lessons, and confidence in their mathematics ability. Teacher factors included mathematics professional development, confidence in teaching mathematics, teacher-centered mathematics instruction, and enhancing student mathematical thinking. The two level Hierarchical Linear Model was employed to analyze the relationship between teacher factors and student attitudes. Results showed that teacher-centered mathematics instruction significantly and positively predicted students' confidence about their mathematics ability. The findings suggest that school systems and mathematics educators need to provide teachers with the curriculum, assessment, and research-based practices and knowledge to overcome the obstacles to change their mathematics classroom.

• Journal of applied mathematics & informatics
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• v.42 no.2
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• pp.257-281
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• 2024

In real life, a decision-maker can assign multiple values for pairwise comparison with a certain confidence level. Studies incorporating multi-choice parameters in multi-criteria decision-making methods are lacking in the literature. So, In this work, an extension of the Best-Worst Method (BWM) with multi-choice pairwise comparisons and multi-choice confidence parameters has been proposed. This work incorporates an extension to the original BWM with multi-choice uncertainty and confidence level. The BWM presumes the Decision-Maker to be fully confident about preference criteria vectors best to others & others to worst. In the proposed work, we consider uncertainty by giving decision-makers freedom to have multiple choices for preference comparison and having a corresponding confidence degree for each choice. This adds one more parameter corresponding to the degree of confidence of each choice to the already existing MCDM, i.e. multi-choice BWM and yields acceptable results similar to other studies. Also, the consistency ratio remained low within the acceptable range. Two real-life case studies are presented to validate our study on proposed models.

• Journal of applied mathematics & informatics
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• v.23 no.1_2
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• pp.479-488
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• 2007

A sequential procedure is proposed in order to construct one-sided confidence intervals for a normal mean with guaranteed coverage probability and ${\beta}-protection$ when the normal mean and variance are identical. First-order asymptotic properties on the sequential sample size are found. The derived results hold with uniformity in the total parameter space or its subsets.

• Journal of the Korean School Mathematics Society
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.83-102
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• 2016

In this study we explored the effect of reading in mathematics classroom on five mathematical affective characteristics of middle school students. 100 2nd male middle schoolers' were participated in this study and five affective characteristics - interests, self-confidence, recognition of mathematics value, self-regulation, and mathematics anxiety- were investigated. According to the results, reading in mathematics class had an overall positive effect. Especially the characteristics interests and self-confidence of students' were improved. And for the low level students all characteristics were improved. And based on the result of pre and post test, and interview with 6 students, we suggest that desirable reading in mathematics classroom.

• Communications for Statistical Applications and Methods
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.311-315
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• 1997

In this note we consider confidence interval based on Kolmogorov-Smirnov statistic. In order to obtain confidence interval we need percentage points of the statistics. Bootstrap method is examined whether it is useful to determine the points. It is concluded that the method is useful for observations with many ties, whereas it gives less conserbative points for continuous distributions.

• The Mathematical Education
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• v.56 no.2
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• pp.147-160
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• 2017

The purpose of this study was to examine (1) if sociocultural factors that are known to influence gender gap in mathematics achievement are gender equitable for Singaporean eighth grade students, (2) if there is a higher level of gender equitability in students' attitudes towards mathematics and (3) how sociocultural factors influence mathematics achievement for Singaporean eighth grade students. This study is based on 5,923 Singaporean eighth grade students who participated in TIMSS 2011 assessment. The study found that there were no statistically significant gender differences in 'parental involvement in education' and 'teacher efficacy.' There were no statistically significant gender differences in students' attitudes of 'like learning mathematics,' and 'value learning mathematics'. A significant gender difference was identified for the attitude of 'confident with mathematics.' The boys displayed a higher level of confidence in mathematics than the girls consistent with other study findings for Asian students. The degree of effect from 'parental involvement in education,' 'teacher efficacy,' and 'confident with mathematics' on mathematics achievement are found to be stronger for girls than boys. The finding implies that girls' mathematics achievement can benefit from having more positive encouragement and involvement of parents and teachers and strengthening confidence in mathematics.

• Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.755-768
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• 2016

According to TIMSS, secondary math teachers in Korea has lower confidence compare to other countries, despite the fact that teachers' confidence of teaching is an important variable. This not only influences the student's improvement but, also the quality improvement of teachers' career. Therefore, this study explores the effect of secondary math teachers' confidence according to the context variables such as teaching years, teaching preparation, collaboration with other teachers, and teaching limitation. Additionally, these context variables' $R^2$ toward the change of teaching confidence is also included. Results indicate that teaching preparation, collaboration with other teachers, and teaching limitation contribute in the confidence of teaching. $R^2$ of the change of teaching confidence shows large contribution to teaching preparation which does not accomplish with other variables.

• Communications for Statistical Applications and Methods
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.29-36
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• 1996

In regression model with nested error structure interval estimations about variability on different stages are proposed. This article derives an approximate confidence interval on the variance in the first stage and an exact confidence interval on the variance in the second stage in two stage regression model. The approximate confidence interval is vased on Ting et al. (1990) method. Computer simulation is procided to show that the approximate confidence interval maintains the stated confidence coeffient.