Background: National and international assessments show South Africa's underperformance in mathematics. As many learners already fall behind in the early grades, where foundational number sense should be established, addressing the challenges of number sense in the Foundation Phase (FP) is important. Research recognises the need to better develop…

Background: There is a concern in South Africa that pre-service teachers do not have the required knowledge to teach mathematics in primary school and to develop learners' number sense. In this study, pre-service teachers taught the mental strategy of bridging through ten through a structured teaching sequence from the Mental Starters Assessment…

Although there is a lot of interest in the development of computational thinking (CT) and the benefits it could have for every student, integrating it into science classrooms may be more difficult than traditional teaching. This can be very challenging for South African science teachers. Thus, there is an increasing need to prepare teachers and…

The unit factor method, a generic strategy for solving any proportion-related problem, is known to be effective at reducing cognitive load through unit-cancellation providing step-by-step guidance. However, concerns have been raised that it can be applied mindlessly. This primarily quantitative prepost study investigates the efficacy of…

A concern in engineering education is students adopting a 'recognise and reproduce' approach to problem solving. In this study, an assignment was conceived and analysed through Legitimation Code Theory -- which allows for visualisation of students' thinking, and to illuminate how students construct knowledge in open-ended problem solving. The…

This article reflects critically on the guidance offered to South African teachers in two canonical texts: the Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statements (CAPS) and Mathematics teaching and learning framework for South Africa: Teaching mathematics for understanding (TMU). I make explicit my philosophical orientation, and how 'teaching mathematics…

This paper is centred around a framework for studying teaching--Mediating Primary Mathematics (MPM)--developed in the context of the teaching of Whole Number Arithmetic (WNA) in South Africa. Findings from the analysis of four WNA lessons are used to illustrate how the application of the MPM framework can measure nuanced differences in the…

In this paper we analyze the outcomes of a design experiment that sought to improve the multiplicative reasoning of 12-13 year-old learners across two schools in a South African context of low performance. Using a hybrid theoretical base in Realistic Mathematics Education, variation theory and analogical reasoning, a short-term intervention…

This study is part of ongoing research in undergraduate mathematics education. The study was guided by the belief that understanding the mental constructions the pre-service teachers make when learning matrix algebra concepts leads to improved instructional methods. In this preliminary study the data was collected from 85 pre-service teachers…

This study focuses on teachers' engagement with tasks based on the income tax tables issued by the South African tax authorities. The participants in the study are a group of 37 teachers who were enrolled in an in-service programme for Mathematical Literacy teachers. The purpose of the study is to explore the teachers' interpretation and use of…

Background: This article reports on an analysis of errors that were displayed by students who studied mathematics in Chemical Engineering in derivatives of mostly trigonometric functions. The poor performance of these students triggered this study. The researcher (lecturer) works in a mathematics support programme to enhance students'…

This paper contributes to the theory and evidence that mathematical cognition is embodied. Drawing on the practices of primary teachers in South Africa engaged in a longitudinal research and development project -- Wits Maths Connect--Primary -- we report on aspects of lessons aimed at developing number sense through whole-class teacher-learner…

Children's learning of early number bonds is a significant issue in South African schools because evidence shows that flexible and efficient (fluent and reasoned) knowledge of number bonds to 20 correlates with success at the end of primary schooling, yet the evidence is that many South African students are over-reliant on inefficient counting…

Incorporating new methods and approaches in learning environments is imperative to the development of education systems. By enhancing learning processes, education becomes more attainable at all levels. "The Handbook of Research on Instructional Systems and Educational Technology" is an essential reference source for the latest scholarly…

The study aims to identify areas of difficulty in learning about volumes of solids of revolution (VSOR) at a Further Education and Training college in South Africa. Students' competency is evaluated along five skill factors which refer to knowledge skills required to succeed in performing tasks relating to applications of the definite integral, in…