Describes a study whose purpose was to develop and validate a set of belief scales for measuring secondary school and college students' beliefs about mathematics as a subject, how mathematics is learned, and mathematical problem solving. Provides an example of the "Indiana Mathematics Belief Scales." (MDH)

Describes a classroom experience in which the teacher experiments with integrating mathematics history into a calculus class by presenting a historical problem taken from L'Hopital to be solved by the students. Extracts the role that history can play in teaching mathematics from the experience. (MDH)

Assessment of 121 nondisabled elementary boys and 107 boys with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), ages 7 through 14 years, found significantly lower problem-solving scores in specific math concepts and slower computational performance for the boys with ADHD when reading and problem structure were held constant. Instructional…

Presents an introductory activity in statistics in which a mathematics class is divided into groups to "draft" teams of major league baseball players. Describes the drafting procedure, charting the team, scoring, roster changes, and gathering and evaluating data. Includes draft list, daily box scores, and cumulative box scores. (MKR)

Ritzville Pyramids are cone-shaped piles of wheat found near the community of Ritzville, Washington. Presents the practical problem of determining the volume and surface area of a Ritzville pyramid to help farmers solve cost-effectiveness questions related to selling the wheat. (MDH)

Discusses the use of children's literature to integrate language arts and mathematical problem solving in the middle school classroom. Considers selecting a book and writing the language arts and problem solving lessons; describes the process of creating and solving a mathematical problem based on a story. (JPB)

Investigates the relative contribution of two main components often used in the instruction of arithmetic and word-problem solving to first-grade children and children with learning problems: external representation with manipulatives and formal mathematical representation with number sequences. Four computer-aided treatments were developed along…

This paper focuses on the role of evaluation in mathematics in 749 elementary school children. The macroevaluative skills and calibration scores of high versus low mathematical problem solvers were contrasted as measures of metacognition. No relevant calibration differences were found for gender. In addition, the performances of children with…

This exploratory study investigates the level of mathematics anxiety among 116 high ability Secondary Two students. These students were from the top 10% of the Secondary Two students in Singapore. Mathematics Anxiety was measured using the Fennema-Sherman Mathematics Anxiety Scale (MAS) (Fennema & Sherman, 1978) which consisted of twelve items…

Three key features of a proposed capstone mathematics course for the preparation of teachers at the secondary level are: 1) teacher candidates examine concepts from the curriculum at a deeper level in the context of rich problems; 2) they investigate common themes in the math curriculum, such as shape and change, then collaborate on and present…

A project is described that provides explicit instruction on the skills necessary for solving word problems. An informal inventory of such skills is being developed, intended for diagnostic use. It contains six sections, each keyed to the problem-solving skills of understanding the problem, representing the unknown, writing the equation, and…

In this paper the mathematical structures of Bourbaki, the Piagetian developmental structures, and Polya's heuristic structures are compared. (SD)