Despite the clear restrictive guidelines about the use of modern handheld devices among children younger than 2 years, parents are seen to extensively use these devices with their infants. However, parents' perceptions in this regard remain unclear and underexplored especially, in the context of South Asian cultures such as Pakistan. This…

Critical thinking is a fundamental competence in 21st-century education, particularly in mathematics, where students frequently encounter contradictory information that requires logical reasoning and reflective judgment. This study explores the stages of critical thinking among junior high school students when solving contradictory mathematical…

Background/purpose: This study investigates the effectiveness of Problem-Based Learning (PBL) integrated with scaffolding in enhancing problem-solving skills among students with varying levels of prior knowledge. The main objective is to determine how scaffolding, when combined with PBL, can support students in developing stronger problem-solving…

The learning of mathematics generally undergoes a less effective and less appealing learning process, resulting in students' perceived lack of mastery of the material. Consequently, students' insufficient understanding of the concepts leads to a lack of folding back. In the process of understanding, it influences individual characteristics, where…

Many empirical studies about STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) curriculum present problems for students to solve. This paper draws upon the data collected from the enactment of an integrated STEM curriculum to discuss problems as constitutive of problem spaces where four Grade 5 Singapore students engage with the…

Background & Aims: Cognitive load theory assumes that the higher the learner's prior knowledge (i.e., the more expert the learner), the lower the intrinsic cognitive load (complexity) experienced for a given problem. While this is the case in many scenarios, there can be cases in which the converse is also true, resulting in more expert…

Mathematics proficiency in the Philippines is a persistent concern, seen by many as a sign of an educational crisis. Teachers are responsible for improving learning outcomes in any discipline, including math. Thus, the study intended to conduct an error analysis of verbal problems among pre-service mathematics teachers. The researcher employed…

Recognising the importance of developing creativity in education, the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) included an assessment of creative thinking for the first time in its 2022 cycle -- with the results summarised in the PISA 2022 Results (Volume III) report. While that report focused on comparing countries' performance on…

Background/purpose: This study investigates the probabilistic thinking process in solving probability problems by prospective mathematics teachers with a field-independent cognitive style. The objective is to explore how individuals with this cognitive style approach problem-solving based on the three stages of Polya's framework: understanding the…

Background: The ability to translate concrete manipulatives into abstract mathematical formulas can aid in the solving of mathematical word problems among students, and metacognitive prompts play a significant role in enhancing this process. Aims: Based on the concept of semantic congruence, we explored the effects of metacognitive prompts and…

Reversibility thinking carried out mentally in mathematical operations has an important role in the process of understanding concepts as it involves developing a thinking process from beginning to end and from end to beginning. This qualitative research aims to describe students' reversible thinking processes in solving algebra problems,…

Pre-service teachers' metacognitive and problem-solving skills are highly important in the process of becoming effective teachers for providing their students with guided learning support. Determination of these two higher-order thinking processes and skills and investigation of the relationship between them is very important for enabling…

Linear functions are an essential part of school and university education. Nevertheless, this topic is challenging for many students--especially in STEM topics. In this article, we contribute to the understanding of learning difficulties in the context of mathematical and physical problems. Here, we present the results of an eye-tracking study on…

The purpose of this study is to investigate the metacognitive strategies that middle school students used in the process of solving problems individually. The study group consisted of 37 middle school students in the eighth grade. The students were asked one non-routine word problem, and their written answers were collected. After solving the…

Children with mathematical difficulties need to spend more time than typically achieving children on solving even simple equations. Since these tasks already require a larger share of their cognitive resources, additional demands imposed by the need to switch between tasks may lead to a greater decline of performance in children with mathematical…