Word problems are frequently taught in shallow contexts, where students primarily use procedural knowledge to solve problems and struggle to transfer their learning to real-life situations. This study examines how extra-mathematical knowledge and motivation may enhance the learning process. The study involved 345 fifth-grade students (51.2% male)…

The transition from school to tertiary mathematics courses, which involve advanced mathematics, is a challenge for many students. Prior research has established the central role of prior mathematical knowledge for successfully dealing with challenges in learning processes during the study entrance phase. However, beyond knowing that more prior…

The importance of students' prior knowledge to their current learning outcomes cannot be overemphasised. Students with adequate prior knowledge are better prepared for the current learning materials than those without the knowledge. However, assessment of engineering students' prior mathematics knowledge has been beset with a lack of uniformity in…

The purpose of this study is to explore how to raise awareness of, validate, and value the diverse knowledge bases that mother-prospective teachers have based in their prior experiences from within their families and backgrounds. Using a funds of knowledge (FoK) for teaching mathematics (Aguirre et al. 2012; Civil, 2007; Foote, 2009; Gonzalez, et…

College readiness of students and the effectiveness of remedial mathematics courses have been under consideration for the last two decades. There is a considerable misalignment between the expectations of students regarding secondary education and those regarding higher education. Information about current expectations and perspectives of college…

This research aims to investigate, compare, and describe the achievement and enhancement of students' mathematical communication skills (MCS). It based on the prior mathematical knowledge (PMK) category (high, medium and low) by using Treffinger models (TM) and conventional learning (CL). This research is an experimental study with the population…

We report on the survey responses of 51 students attending mathematics bridging courses at a major Australian university, investigating what mathematics, if any, these students had studied in the senior years of schooling and what factors affected their decisions about the level of mathematics chosen. Quantitative findings are augmented by…

The gap between young Indigenous and non-Indigenous children's capability within mathematics is widely acknowledged. This gap is conjectured to exist at all levels of schooling, including pre-school, and widens as children mature. Most of these findings are based on research relating to children's understanding of number and space. Little is known…

Investigated the effect of prior knowledge and strategy training on monitoring accuracy among college students, comparing debilitative, no-impact, and facilitative hypotheses. Overall, knowledge acquired through brief strategy training improved performance, confidence, and monitoring accuracy independent of general ability and general mathematics…

This study investigates how different types of prior knowledge influence student achievement and how different assessment measures influence the observed effect of prior knowledge. We introduce a model of prior knowledge that distinguishes between different types of prior knowledge and uses different assessment measures to assess different types…

As part of the Victorian Early Numeracy Research Project, over 1400 Victorian children in the first (Preparatory) year of school were assessed in mathematics by their classroom teachers. Using a task-based, one-to-one interview, administered during the first and last month of the school year, a picture emerged of the mathematical knowledge and…

Various researchers have associated meaningful problem solving with methods guided directly by a conceptual knowledge base. By contast, a meaningless solving course, or sequence of operations, is essentially independent of the solver's conceptual understanding of the problem under consideration. This paper is the first to document a meaningless,…

The 7th International Conference on Education Data Mining held on July 4th-7th, 2014, at the Institute of Education, London, UK is the leading international forum for high-quality research that mines large data sets in order to answer educational research questions that shed light on the learning process. These data sets may come from the traces…

This document presents the proceedings of the 31st Annual Conference of the Mathematics Education Research Group of Australasia (MERGA). The theme of this conference is "Navigating Currents and Charting Directions." The theme reminds us that, although we are constantly pushed to account for the quality and impact of our research, we…

This is a record of the proceedings of the 30th annual conference of the Mathematics Education Research Group of Australasia (MERGA). The theme of the conference is "Mathematics: Essential research, essential practice." The theme draws attention to the importance of developing and maintaining links between research and practice and…