E-learning in secondary–tertiary transition in mathematics: for what purpose?

Mathematics is a challenging subject for many science freshmen, and failing mathematics exams is a major factor in university dropout rates. Many factors, including metacognitive, affective and linguistic ones, play a role in students’ difficulties in mathematics. Starting from this perspective, we conducted a theoretical exploration of the potential of online environments in helping students counteract the mathematical difficulties they face in the transition from secondary school to university. Although this secondary–tertiary transition and the use of technology are both widely researched issues in mathematics education, the potential of technology in helping students in the “rite of passage” to tertiary education has not yet been researched. This paper reports on the developed theoretical framework and on the preliminary findings from the implementation of an e-learning course that we designed with the aim of supporting students in the critical phase of transition from secondary school to university

Pupils’ view of problems: the evolution from kindergarten to the end of primary school

Educators and several national standards highlight the role that problem solving should play in students’ mathematics education: problem solving is recognized as one of the most significant activities of doing mathematics. From the research point of view, nowadays, it is well established that cognitive and affective factors come into play in problem solving activities, but some affective issues remain unexplored. In particular, we want to study pupils’ attitudes towards (mathematical) problems, analyzing their evolution from kindergarten (where the word ‘mathematics’ is rarely explicitly mentioned) to primary school. In a well-defined affective theoretical framework, where attitude is a three-dimensional construct including beliefs and emotions, we carried out a qualitative and narrative study involving 284 students of seven different Italian schools: 121 from kindergarten and grade 1 and 163 from grade 3 to 5. Analyzing the qualitative data collected, we described primary students’ attitudes towards problems and we compared these with those developed in kindergarten, where the word ‘mathematics’ is not explicitly mentioned