The invention of problems is a fundamental competence that enhances the didactic-mathematical knowledge of mathematics teachers and therefore should be an objective in teacher training plans. In this paper, we revise different proposals for categorizing problem-creation activities and propose a theoretical model for problem posing that, based on…

Combinatorial proofs of binomial identities involve establishing an identity by arguing that each side enumerates a certain set of outcomes. In this paper, we share results from interviews with experienced provers (mathematicians and upper-division undergraduate mathematics students) and examine one particular aspect of combinatorial proof, namely…

The multiplication principle (MP) is foundational for combinatorial problem-solving. From a units-coordination perspective, applying the MP with justification entails establishing unit relationships between the number of options at each independent stage of a counting process and the total number of combinatorial outcomes. Existing research…

Reasoning with mathematics plays an important role in university students' learning throughout their courses in the scientific disciplines, such as physics. In addition to understanding mathematical concepts and procedures, physics students often must mathematize physical constructs in terms of their associated mathematical structures and…

One expected outcome of physics instruction is that students develop quantitative reasoning skills, including strategies for evaluating solutions to problems. Examples of well-known "canonical" evaluation strategies include special case analysis, unit analysis, and checking for reasonable numbers. We report on responses from three tasks…

This study examines the impact of working memory capacity and mathematics anxiety on the creative reasoning of prospective mathematics teachers, highlighting how these cognitive factors shape problem-solving processes. This research used a mixed-method sequence explanatory method with a sample size of 60 people for quantitative research, and four…

Many studies highlighted the importance of mathematical justification in problem-solving. This paper describes students' mathematical justifications for solving derivative problems collaboratively, especially before and after the use of technology was allowed. We asked two undergraduate students who were preservice mathematics teachers in a paired…

The literature on proof by contradiction (PBC) is nearly unanimous in claiming that this proof technique is "more difficult" for students than direct proof, and offers multiple hypotheses as to why this might be the case. To examine this claim and to evaluate some of the hypotheses, we analyzed student work on proof construction problems…

Abstraction is essential to learning mathematics because the mathematical concepts obtained through abstraction will be more meaningful than directly receiving these concepts. This study aims to describe the pre-service teachers' abstraction in constructing relationships among quadrilaterals. This research method was explorative qualitative…

This study aimed at investigating how preservice teachers' understandings of division and reasoning about ratios support and constrain their formation of proportional relationships in terms of quantities. Six preservice teachers from a middle-grade preparation program in the USA were selected purposefully based on their mathematics performance in…

This study explores the effects of a computer algebra system on students' mathematical thinking. Mathematical thinking is identified with mathematical thinking powers and structures. We define mathematical thinking as students' capacity to specialize and generalize their previous knowledge to solve new mathematical problems. The study was…

A 12-episode constructivist teaching experiment with two pairs of elementary preservice teachers was conducted to examine how they reason distributively and proportionally. Specifically, I studied how prospective teachers reason with ratios as multiplicative comparisons. Prospective teachers solved different problems in one specific context (Step…

This work is the result of a master's investigation in Brazil, which discusses the teaching of the parabola in the initial training of mathematics teachers. Our theoretical framework addresses the relationship between intuition and the dialectics of the theory of didactic situations, which supports the analysis of the results of this study Its…

Visual representations, such as diagrams, are known to be valuable tools in problem solving and proof construction. However, previous studies have shown that simply having access to a diagram is not sufficient to improve students' performance on mathematical tasks. Rather, students must actively extract information about the problem scenario from…

This study used task-based interviews to examine students' reasoning about multivariable optimization problems in a volume maximization context. There are four major findings from this study. First, formulating the objective function (i.e. the function whose maximum or minimum value(s) is to be found) in each task came easily for 15 students who…