• School Mathematics
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.201-219
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• 2013

The purpose of this study was to analyse the belief about mathematics teaching of elementary preservice teachers and mathematics teachers. This study involved 100 respondents from the preservice teachers and 114 respondents from the mathematics teachers. The instruments used in this study consist 15 items of mathematical knowledges and 19 items of mathematical activities. The finding showed that preservice teachers emphasized the conceptual knowledge, whereas mathematics teachers emphasized the procedural knowledge in the mathematical knowledges. And preservice teachers emphasized the knowledge representation, knowledge generation, knowledge deliberation, knowledge communication, whereas mathematics teachers emphasized the use of knowledge(syntax) in the mathematical activities. Finally, even though two groups showed the significant difference in some items, preservice teachers and mathematics teachers emphasized the various mathematical knowledges and mathematical activities.

• Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.599-615
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• 2015

Teachers' philosophies have not been emphasized enough in the current teacher education curriculum even though teacher's philosophy palys a critical role in schools and classrooms. The examination on pre-service teachers' teaching philosophies is necessary to improve teacher education curriculum so that teaching philosophies are often discussed in the courses of 'pedagogical content knowledge' as well as 'general education.' Therefore, the current study investigated 44 pre-service teachers' teaching philosophies, their sub domains, and relationships among the sub domains. The previous studies regarding mathematics teacher's teaching philosophy were more about 'teacher's belief' and employed deductive inference approach using surveys or questionnaires. These studies commonly pointed out that there were three major domains of 'belief on mathematics itself,' 'belief on teaching mathematics,' and 'belief on learning mathematics.' As these three domains of teacher's philosophy has been strengthened, there were very few studies examining the other potential domains of teacher's teaching philosophy. According to the findings of the present study, which employed inductive inference approach and pre-service teachers' free essay writing assignment, 'belief on teacher's role in mathematics classroom,' 'belief on the purpose of mathematics education,' and 'motivation to be a mathematics teacher' were additionally illuminated as sub domains of teacher's teaching philosophy. Moreover, the interrelationship among the sub-areas of teacher's teaching philosophy was disclosed. Specifically, 'belief on the purpose of mathematics education' and 'motivation to be a mathematics teacher' influenced the other sub domains. This implies that the relationships among the sub domains of teacher's teaching philosophy were more likely to be causal and vertical relationships rather than independent and parallel relationships. Finally, the findings from the current study provide implications indicating how pre-service teachers' teaching philosophies might be established in mathematics education courses for future research and education.

• The Mathematical Education
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.109-119
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• 1992

The primary purpose of the present study is to provide the sources to improve the mathematical problem solving performance by analyzing the effects of the belief systems and the misconceptions of the middle school students in solving the problems. To attain the purpose of this study, the reserch is designed to find out the belief systems of the middle school students in solving the mathematical problems, to analyze the effects of the belief systems and the attitude on the process of the problem solving, and to identify the misconceptions which are observed in the problem solving. The sample of 295 students (boys 145, girls 150) was drawn out of 9th grade students from three middle schools selected in the Kangdong district of Seoul. Three kinds of tests were administered in the present study: the tests to investigate (1) the belief systems, (2) the mathematical problem solving performance, and (3) the attitude in solving mathematical problems. The frequencies of each of the test items on belief systems and attitude, and the scores on the problem solving performance test were collected for statistical analyses. The protocals written by all subjects on the paper sheets to investigate the misconceptions were analyzed. The statistical analysis has been tabulated on the scale of 100. On the analysis of written protocals, misconception patterns has been identified. The conclusions drawn from the results obtained in the present study are as follows; First, the belief systems in solving problems is splited almost equally, 52.95% students with the belief vs 47.05% students with lack of the belief in their efforts to tackle the problems. Almost half of them lose their belief in solving the problems as soon as they given. Therefore, it is suggested that they should be motivated with the mathematical problems derived from the daily life which drew their interests, and the individual difference should be taken into account in teaching mathematical problem solving. Second. the students who readily approach the problems are full of confidence. About 56% students of all subjects told that they enjoyed them and studied hard, while about 26% students answered that they studied bard because of the importance of the mathematics. In total, 81.5% students built their confidence by studying hard. Meanwhile, the students who are poor in mathematics are lack of belief. Among are the students accounting for 59.4% who didn't remember how to solve the problems and 21.4% lost their interest in mathematics because of lack of belief. Consequently, the internal factor accounts for 80.8%. Thus, this suggests both of the cognitive and the affective objectives should be emphasized to help them build the belief on mathematical problem solving. Third, the effects of the belief systems in problem solving ability show that the students with high belief demonstrate higher ability despite the lack of the memory of the problem solving than the students who depend upon their memory. This suggests that we develop the mathematical problems which require the diverse problem solving strategies rather than depend upon the simple memory. Fourth, the analysis of the misconceptions shows that the students tend to depend upon the formula or technical computation rather than to approach the problems with efforts to fully understand them This tendency was generally observed in the processes of the problem solving. In conclusion, the students should be taught to clearly understand the mathematical concepts and the problems requiring the diverse strategies should be developed to improve the mathematical abilities.

• Education of Primary School Mathematics
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.105-110
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• 2000

This paper is discussing about the culture of mathematics classroom for problem solving. The mathematics classroom which we have to aim at is where every students make proper belief and attitude about mathematics, and also can express their own idea and make question freely. In that classroom, the students can meet with various problem solving methods and communicate with other students, and then elaborate their own method.

• Research in Mathematical Education
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.257-272
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• 2014

This paper examines and presents descriptions of 12 prospective primary teachers' views on the nature of mathematics in USA. All the participants were elementary teacher candidates enrolled in the same mathematics method courses. Interview data show that the prospective primary teachers possess two kinds of views on the nature of mathematics: primarily traditional and even mix of traditional and nontraditional beliefs in terms of Raymond's (1997) belief criteria. Implications for teacher education were discussed at the end of the paper.

• Research in Mathematical Education
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.153-167
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• 2013

Mathematics has been stereotyped as a male-dominated subject, and there is considerable evidence to support this belief. There has been much research in the past three decades on gender-related differences in elementrny and secondrny school mathematics. The research found that teachers possess different beliefs about male and female students that influence their teaching behaviour, which then directly or indirectly impact their students' behaviours, beliefs, and achievements in mathematics. Based on data collected from teacher questionnaire surveys in the Chinese Mainland and Hong Kong, this study examines teachers' beliefs about the achievements of boys and girls in mathematics. The study also compares the findings in the two regions surveyed. Results showed that teachers gave more attention to boys than girls, regardless of the teacher's gender. Not only are teachers more likely to recall more boys than girls, but also more boys than girls with average academic standards.

• Korean Journal of Child Studies
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• v.30 no.5
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• pp.73-85
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• 2009

The purpose of this research was to compare mathematically gifted students with non-gifted students in perception of learning environments, learning ability beliefs, and preference for problem-solving and task. Thirty-seven mathematically gifted students and 75 general students in middle school completed questionnaires about perceptions about mathematics. Data were analyzed by ${\chi}^2$ test and t-test. Compared with general students, mathematically gifted students estimated their talents for mathematics higher, studied mathematics more, expended more time and effort to solving difficult problems, put learning mathematics itself as their primary purpose for studying mathematics and regarded inappropriate environments as the major obstacle to mathematics study. Mathematically gifted students perceived their parents' support higher, solved problem creatively, and had higher preference for challenging tasks.

• Korean Journal of Child Studies
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.147-163
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• 2006

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether there are any differences among kindergarten teachers', primary school teachers', and children's mothers's perceptions-belief, knowledge, practice-about the educational articulation between kindergarten and primary school. The results of this study were as follows; First, there were differences among kindergarten teachers, primary school teachers, and mothers about the belief of articulation content. Second, in the knowledge of educational articulation, kindergarten teachers's understandings of the counterpart's curriculum were higher than that of primary school teachers's. Third, in the practice of educational articulation, kindergarten teachers and mothers were focused language and mathematics learning for educational articulation. But primary school teachers were focused school adjustment.

• Education of Primary School Mathematics
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.51-61
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• 2000

Mathematical Problem solving has been the focus of a considerable amount of research over past 30 years. But nowadays problem solving is being beginning to be of less interest to mathematics education researchers. Moreover, mathematics teachers have an urgent need to be provided with well-documented informations about "teaching of(expecially, via) problem solving" though following research issues ：ⅰ) the role of the teacher in a problem-centered classroom, ⅱ) what actually takes place in problem-centered classrooms, and iii) groups and whole classes' problem solving rather than individuals. This paper intends to give some informations about practice of teaching mathematical problem solving in elementary school.ry school.

• Research in Mathematical Education
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.19-41
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• 2015

Previous studies indicated that students tended to hold less satisfactory beliefs about the discipline of mathematics, beliefs about themselves as learners of mathematics, and beliefs about mathematics teaching and learning. However, only a few studies had developed curricular interventions to change students' beliefs. This study aimed to examine the effect of a problem-solving curriculum (i.e., Mathematical Problem Solving for Everyone, MProSE) on Singaporean Grade 7 students' beliefs about mathematical problem solving (MPS). Four classes (n =142) were engaged in ten lessons with each comprising four stages: understand the problem, devise a plan, carry out the plan, and look back. Heuristics and metacognitive control were emphasized during students' problem solving activities. Results indicated that the MProSE curriculum enabled some students to develop more satisfactory beliefs about MPS. Further path analysis showed that students' attitudes towards the MProSE curriculum are important predictors for their beliefs.