Predictors of students’ enjoyment in learning Mathematics

Despite the role that emotions play in students’ learning, little research has been carried out to study the predictors of the individual emotion that students experience throughout and as a result of their learning. The present research attempts to do that for the enjoyment emotion, where it considers four variables related to different aspects of students’ learning (value of mathematics, self-concept of learning mathematics, teacher’s support and effort in learning mathematics) as predictors of this emotion. Seven hundred and twenty students, from grade eight, nine and ten, participated in the research. Stepwise regression analysis was used to analyze the data. The research results indicated that self-concept was the variable that explained the variation in students’ enjoyment more than the other variables (49.2% of the variance). Value of mathematics came next (10.6% of the variance), then teacher’s support (2.6% of the variance) and then student’s effort (1% of the variance). The research results indicate that special stress needs to be put on promoting student’s self-concept in order to cultivate students’ emotions

STUDENTS' POSITIONING AND EMOTIONS IN LEARNING GEOMETRIC DEFINITION

The purpose of the present paper is to study the positions and emotions of grade 7 students who work with technology to learn geometry. This consideration of students’ emotions is socially based, which makes it necessary to use a socially-based theoretical framework in order to study them. One such theory is the discursive analysis framework suggested by Evans, Morgan, and Tsatsarony, which is utilized in the present paper to analyze the positioning and emotions of fifteen groups of grade seven students who utilized technology to investigate the circle topic. The findings show that the group leaders took their positions through knowledge, action, initiation, persistence and meta-processes, while the followers of directions took their positions by accepting the group leader's requests. What most distinguished the collaborator was the communication with the other members of the group. Furthermore, the insiders used pronouns that indicated their inclusion. The results show that technology nurtured students' positive emotions as a result of nurturing their positioning throughout the investigation of the circle topic

Pre-service teachers’ design of STEAM learning units: STEAM capabilities’ analysis

The understanding of what constitutes effective practice in STEM education and how to support it is still developing, as it is a brand-new field. The present research describes the design capabilities of pre-service elementary school teachers, when they design collaboratively STEM activities. These designing experiences occurred in a context of a PD program called “Introduction to STEM education”. During the STEM PD program, the pre-service teachers worked in six groups. Each group included three pre-service teachers who worked together throughout the PD program. Three written STEM units of three groups were chosen to be analyzed. In analyzing the STEM units, we referred to the STEM capabilities which consists of three components: STEM knowledge, skills and ways of thinking. The findings show different possibilities that STEM education can afford for task design. In terms of the integration of disciplines, the three analyzed units included activities in which, mostly, at least two disciplines were dominant. In terms of STEM skills, the designed units targeted mainly the individual learning skill instead of collaborative skills, which emphasize the need to pay special emphasis to this issue. Finally, in terms of STEM ways of thinking, analytical and evidence-based ways of thinking prevailed in the three units. The previous findings point at the importance of supporting pre-service teachers in designing STEM activities for implementation in their classroomsPeer Reviewe

Students’ Recognition of Function Transformations’ Themes Associated with the Algebraic Representation

The topic of function transformations is a difficult mathematical topic for school and college students. On the other hand, GeoGebra is a new technological tool for mathematics teaching and learning, so we wanted to experiment with this new tool in teaching non-basic function transformations to middle school students. Specifically, we wanted to examine how students conceive function transformations after working with GeoGebra, when this conceiving relates to the algebraic representation. The research participants were 19 ninth grade high achieving students who learned, with the help of GeoGebra translations, reflection and stretch. During their learning, the participants worked with transformations on the absolute function, the cubic function, and the quartic function. After they finished the transformation unit, the participants solved mathematics problems by means of function transformations. This research is interested in the participants’ solution of problems that included two non-basic functions: the absolute value of the quadratic function and the rationale function. The research findings show that the participants were generally able to solve successfully mathematical problems, by means of transformations on new and non-basic functions. Furthermore, the participants encountered difficulties in working with translations. These difficulties were due to the special algebraic form of the functions. We recommend that mathematics teachers expose middle school students to transformations on different types of non-basic function during learning this mathematical topic. Future researches could examine the impact of activities that include such functions and that are GeoGebra based on students’ conceptions and behavior when performing translations is involved

Affective Engagement of Higher Education Students in an Online Course

The present research studies the factors that have impacted the affective engagement of university students in an educational online course. It examines how the type of interaction (learner-learner, learner-instructor, and learner-content) and the type of engagement (behavioural, cognitive and affective) have influenced the affective engagement of the students in the online course. Nineteen university students majoring in teaching mathematics, who were enrolled in the course Mathematics Teaching Methods, participated in the present research. Two data collection tools were used: semi-structured interviews and reflections. To analyse the texts resulting from the interviews and reflections, inductive and deductive qualitative content analysis was used. The research results indicated that university students have experienced more positive than negative affective engagement in the three communicational channels used in this course to facilitate online learning, which were: synchronous lectures, forums and assignments. The results also indicated that these three types of interaction have positively influenced students’ affective engagement in the three channels, with that influence being different from one channel to the other based on the interaction type taking place. We suggest that specific types of engagement need to be attended to for positive affect to occur. Doi: 10.28991/esj-2021-01296 Full Text: PD

Technology-Based Collaborative Learning for Developing the Dynamic Concept of the Angle

This research intends to investigate the effect of collaborative computerized learning using GeoGebra on the development of the concept images of angle among seventh graders who were engaged in computerized collaborative activities that encouraged the development of five types of angle concept images: verbal, authentic-life, graphical, numeric, and dynamic. The research sample consisted of eight seventh grade students who worked collaboratively in groups of two. Two tests (a pre-test and a post-test) were administered to examine the development of students’ conceptual images of the angle. In addition, interviews were held with the participants to study this development. The Constant Comparison Method was used to analyze the data. The results showed positive effects of the visual and dynamic use of GeoGebra, as well as of the collaborative learning, on the development of participants' concept images of the angle, especially the dynamic one. The research results point to the importance of integrating dynamic tools into the teaching and learning of mathematics. Doi: 10.28991/ESJ-2022-06-01-09 Full Text: PD

Emotions and Self-efficacy as Mediators of Pre-Service Teachers' Adoption of Digital Tools

The present research examines whether the pre-service teachers’ preparation in using digital tools in their teaching develops their acceptance of these tools for teachings. The research also examines the mediation of self-efficacy, anxiety of using digital tools for teaching mathematics and science and enjoyment of this use between the constructs of acceptance of digital tools for teaching. We used the TAM questionnaire in addition to scales that measure enjoyment, self-efficacy and anxiety. Forty-eight mathematics and science pre-service teachers participated in the study. We analyzed the collected data using SPSS 21. The research results indicate that the pre-service teachers’ preparation resulted in significant differences in their scores of affective and usage constructs associated with their acceptance of digital tools for mathematics and science teaching, except in the scores of anxiety. Self-efficacy proved to be a partial mediator between attitude and intention-to-use. Enjoyment proved to be a partial mediator between ease-of-use and attitude, but not between usefulness and attitude. Moreover, enjoyment proved to be a partial mediator between attitude and intention-to-use. These findings contribute to the understanding of mediators that affect the acceptance of digital tools for teaching. Doi: 10.28991/esj-2021-01301 Full Text: PD

Using Digital Video Recordings in Class Activities for Enhancing Mathematics Pre-Service Teachers’ Reflective Thinking

Digital video recordings (DVRs) have become an effective tool in sustainable teacher education. In the current study, our aim was to investigate the impact of utilizing mobile applications for DVRs in classroom activities, designed to address misconceptions of mathematical concepts, on pre-service teachers’ capacity of reflective thinking. Two groups of approximately 10 PSTs participated in an education program. The participants learned as third-year students in the Department of Mathematics Education. Interviews and digital video-recorded observations were used as data collection tools. Deductive and inductive content analysis would be used as data analysis tools. The study showed that the DVR environment constituted a sustainable educational environment that supported PSTs’ development in writing reflections on their mathematics teaching. These results underscore the significance of using digital platforms for PSTs’ education, particularly for promoting metacognitive thinking practices such as reflective thinking

Elementary Teachers’ Development in Using Technological Tools to Engage Students in Online Learning

Technological tools are means by which online teaching could encourage the engagement of students, especially elementary students. The present research studies how elementary teachers develop their use of technological tools in their asynchronous and synchronous online teaching, specifically when this online teaching occurs during emergency education. The research was conducted in the academic year 2019/2020. We interviewed two elementary teachers, where one of them taught asynchronous lessons more than synchronous, while the second taught synchronous lessons more than asynchronous. We analyzed the data using two frameworks: one for interaction type and one for engagement type. The research results indicated that different interaction types influenced teachers’ decisions to use technological tools. In addition, what concerned the teachers’ use of tools at the beginning was the cognitive engagement, but they advanced towards focusing on behavioral and the affective engagement