Journal of Research in Mathematics Education

Citizenship Skills in the Mathematical Context: Children's Participation in Inclusive Design of Playgrounds

2025-02-06T16:59:56+01:00

The article presents the results of an experimental didactic situation that sought to strengthen learning for citizen decision-making on inclusive public spaces. For this purpose, an interdisciplinary intervention was developed around notions of statistics and citizenship, integrating contributions from the didactics of social sciences, civic statistics and the pedagogy of questioning. The proposal was implemented in a group of 7th grade students in Chile. The content analysis was applied to interpret the meanings emerging from students using field notes, surveys, group interviews and student productions. The results showed a strengthening of citizenship skills by applying statistical tools in a context of civic action, especially when students participated in making decisions that impact their community. By integrating mathematics and social sciences, learning about citizenship was strengthened, which allowed not only to build meaningful learning, but also to strengthen the value of inclusion and active participation in community decisions.

The Underlife of a Mathematics Classroom: Latinx Bilinguals Navigating the Official and Unofficial Spaces

2025-04-19T18:56:06+02:00

This paper examines the meaning-making practices of Latinx bilingual students with a challenging mathematics task involving exponential growth. Our aim is to draw a better understanding of how learning takes place among a group of Latinx bilingual students who participate in official and unofficial social spaces in the classroom. Studying the collaborative efforts of Latinx bilinguals, our results suggest these students formed a unique unofficial space, or “underlife”, within the classroom where students dialogically leveraged their communicative resources, practices, and dynamic bilingualism, or counterscript to solve an exponential growth problem. Unfortunately, disruptions to their translanguaging practice in the official space of the classroom did not result in a transformative opportunity for mathematics learning.

Data Analysis Skills through a Research Cycle in Undergraduate Students

2025-04-19T19:09:22+02:00

This study, oriented in a statistical research cycle, assesses the data analysis and problem-solving skills acquired by 450 engineering students. Performance level descriptors on descriptive statistics were applied in 168 contextualised scientific initiation works of future engineers. The results show progress in collaborative work and the formulation of conclusions, although areas for improvement are identified, especially in the formulation of hypotheses, data cleaning and interpretation of graphical and statistical measures. The active methodology applied and the feedback from a group of teachers promoted greater motivation, autonomy and competence in the students, although it is necessary to reinforce fundamental aspects of statistics. It is suggested to promote research activities in students, creating problems in coherence with the formulation of questions, the development of hypotheses and data analysis.

Contextualizing Mathematics in Tugu Yogyakarta: A Case Study on Students' Numerical and Visual Estimation Skills

2025-04-22T17:46:13+02:00

This research explores the impact of ethno-RME on students' thinking processes in solving decimal number operations in Tugu Yogyakarta, Indonesia. The study involved 32 grade 4 students and used three data collection techniques: task provision, cognitive interviews, and documentation. The qualitative data was analyzed using cross-sectional data and focus group discussions (FGD). The study results show that students' thinking process for completing ethno-RME-based mathematics tasks can be divided into two strategies. The first strategy is numerical estimation, where students who use this strategy focus on the numerical information available in each problem. The second strategy is visual estimation, where students who use this strategy focus on constructing a flat shape as closely as possible to the actual shape of the Tugu Yogyakarta. There is a rich context of sociocultural values that can be used to build students' character and ethics when utilizing science, especially mathematics.