Existing research has revealed key factors influencing mathematical flexibility, defined as the capacity to understand, generate, and apply a variety of strategies in solving mathematical problems. However, there is currently a lack of an integrated theoretical framework to systematically consolidate various sources of individual differences in…

In this study, we explored elementary school teachers' experiences working on open-ended mathematics tasks during a 10-day professional development (PD) workshop. Teachers engaged with the tasks daily in a session call Morning Math (MM). Thirty-two elementary teachers from three school districts in the USA participated in a 2-year professional…

This study explores students' use of mathematical objects in each problem-solving phase based on an onto-semiotic perspective. The subjects of this research are students who solve problems in different ways but all with the correct result. The first student uses organizational data by applying the concept of permutations. In contrast, the second…

This study concerns the cognitive process of mathematical problem posing, conceptualized in three stages: understanding the task, constructing the problem, and expressing the problem. We used the eye tracker and think-aloud methods to deeply explore students' behavior in these three stages of problem posing, especially focusing on investigating…

A teacher of mathematics knows mathematics as a teacher and as a mathematician. Whilst the existing research on teacher knowledge contributes to our understanding of the ways of knowing mathematics as a teacher, little is known about ways of knowing mathematics as a mathematician. Guided by the conceptual framework of mathematical practices (MPs)…

Algebraic thinking is the ability to generalize about numbers and calculations, find concepts from patterns and functions and form ideas using symbols. It is important to know the student's algebraic thinking process, by knowing the student's thinking process one can find out the location of student difficulties and the causes of these…

This paper presents results of a study aimed at describing and discussing evidence/features of advanced algebraic thinking processes. To achieve these objectives, we analysed the written production of students enrolled in engineering courses working on mathematical modelling tasks related to differential equations. Our guiding question was as…

The design principles of cognitive load theory and learning by analogy has independently contributed to our understanding why an instruction will or will not work. In an experimental study involving 97 Year 9 Australian students conducted in regular classrooms, we evaluated the effect of the unguided problem-solving approach, worked examples…

In mathematics education, representations are used in place of mathematical structures, ideas, or relationships to concretize, transform, and represent them. When students interact with these representations, they engage in various cognitive activities such as thinking, reasoning, understanding, remembering, problem-solving, attention, and…

Complementary to existing "normative" models, in this paper we suggest a descriptive phase model of problem solving. Real, not ideal, problem-solving processes contain errors, detours, and cycles, and they do not follow a predetermined sequence, as is presumed in normative models. To represent and emphasize the non-linearity of empirical…

This exploratory and descriptive study aims to theoretically promote the schema of pseudo-thinking processes in mathematical problem-solving by students. The participants in this study were 36 eighth graders and one math teacher. The researchers collected the data using tests and interviews. The results showed that the structure of pseudo-thinking…

The purpose of this study is to investigate students' thinking of direct, inverse and nonproportional problems. Thirty two seventh grade students from three different government schools participated in this study. To collect the data, the participants were asked to solve 9 open-ended problems, including 3 direct, 3 inverse and 3 non-proportional…

Although previous research has demonstrated that the acquisition of mathematical skills requires support from multiple cognitive abilities, the associations between cognitive precursors in different domains and mathematics at different hierarchical levels among primary school children are not well understood. This study explores the cognitive…

One of the well-known approaches to creativity differentiates between creative person, process, product, and press. In the study presented in this paper we focus on creative process and product associated with Problem Posing through Investigation (PPI) by experts in mathematical problem solving. We link the creative process to creativity of PPI…

The paper examined the relations among problem solving, automaticity, and working memory load (WML) by changing the difficulty level of task characteristics through two applications. In Study 1, involving 68 engineering students, a 2 (automaticity) x 2 (WML) design was utilized for arithmetic problems. In Study 2, involving 76 engineering…