This paper aims to understand how primary students use gestures to solve partition tasks and to what extent these gestures may promote fraction understanding. Analysis of six selected students' answers to partitioning tasks, classroom observation, and post-lesson interviews indicates that co-thought representational gestures play a critical role.…

The role of scientific reasoning in promoting scientific literacy during the early years of schooling is well acknowledged. Using the analytical framework for scientific reasoning skills by A. Opitz et al. (2017, "Educational Research and Evaluation," 23(3-4), 78-101), this multi-age observational study investigated the extent of…

Although educational robotics competitions have become a popular research field in STEAM education, there is a lack of studies concerning the design process that student teams follow to build their solutions. This study aims to propose and evaluate We!Design!ForSTEAM, an approach for supporting design thinking in the context of STEAM and robotics…

Solving word problems is challenging for many children, but particularly for those with language difficulties. The objective was to examine the nature of the challenges experienced by children with language difficulties as they solved word problems in the context of a developmental-trajectory instructional sequence. We recruited 45 third graders…

Over the past few years, the author and her colleagues have been engaged in a teaching and research project that explores what it means to "connect math to the real world" and how to effectively design and implement mathematics lessons that integrate real-world, sociopolitical issues with mathematics in elementary classrooms.…

The practice of statistics has the power to motivate and support learning across the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) disciplines. When connected with meaningful science contexts, statistical problem solving through the collection of data and subsequent data analysis, supported by contemporary graphing technology, presents…

Compare problems are the most difficult type of word problems among primary school students, especially inconsistent problems, when the relational term is not consistent with the arithmetic operation required for the solution. The present study examines whether different methods help students successfully solve them and how these approaches…

Research on collaborative learning of computer science has been conducted primarily in programming. This paper extends this area by including short tasks (such as those used in contests like the Bebras Challenge) that cover many other computer science topics. The aim of this research is to explore how problem-solving in pairs differs from…

The aim of this systematic review and meta-analysis was to identify and evaluate the effects of individual characteristics associated with mathematical word problem-solving skills among elementary school-aged children and to unpack the quality of studies investigating these associations. The systematic review was reported according to the…

This study investigates the characteristics of Japanese primary school mathematics lessons that adopt a problem-solving approach. We argue that these characteristics are reflected in three key aspects: collective teaching and learning, the lesson as a "drama" (i.e., its structured flow), and the focus on mathematical knowledge. In this…

Technologies curriculum is synonymous with practical learning opportunities that provide students with vocational pathways, apprenticeships, and/or traineeships, in addition to tertiary education. As with any curriculum learning area, a base set of terms that reflect the key knowledge and skills are crucial for students to communicate effectively…

This study examined the types of representations that primary school children create in solving different types of problems, the relationship between these types of representations, and the accuracy rates in solving the problems. The study was conducted with 80 students attending primary school's 2nd and 3rd grades. An achievement test prepared by…

The decomposition of numbers when solving subtraction tasks is regarded as more powerful than counting-based strategies. Still, many students fail to solve subtraction tasks despite using decomposition. To shed light upon this issue, we take a variation theoretical perspective (Marton, 2015) seeing learning as a function of discerning critical…

The present study aims to describe and characterize the insights of elementary school students during the collaborative solving of mathematics problems. A total of 10 elementary school 60-min math classes were analyzed, with each session documented by videotaping the interaction of groups of 3 to 6 children. The study included 41 students in total…

The basic notions of combinatorics, including systematic listing and permutations, are important topics of mathematics that are recommended to be learned eventually from elementary schools. However, there is little research in mathematics education regarding elementary students' combinatorial strategies. The purpose of this research is to…