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Eric.ed.gov – Ethnic Differences in Early Math Learning: A Comparison of Chinese-American and Caucasian-American Families.

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: This study compared Chinese-American and Caucasian-American children and families in order to better understand which cultural and family characteristics, parent beliefs, and parent practices operate at the early childhood level to produce the more uniform high level of math achievement among Asian-American children. Forty second-generation Chinese-American and 40 Caucasian-American preschoolers and kindergartners from well-educated, 2-parent families were given math, name writing, visual discrimination, spatial relation, and vocabulary measures. Parents completed questionnaires, interviews, and a social behaviors checklist. The study found that Chinese-American children outperformed Caucasian-American children on measures of mathematics, spatial relations, visual discrimination, numeral formation, and name writing. Caucasian-American children had higher scores on receptive English vocabulary. Chinese-American parents indicated a stronger belief in the role of hard work and early skill development in academic achievement,… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Cross Cultural Comparison of Rural Education Practice in China, Taiwan, and the United States

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: The purpose of this research is to compare the rural education practices of China, Taiwan, Canada and the United States. International comparisons of mathematics achievement find that students in Asian countries outperform those from the USA. Excluded from these studies, however, are students from rural areas in China. This study compares the math abilities of 272 selectively chosen 5th grade students from rural, central China, 361 students from rural, northern Taiwan and 95 students from rural, central Pennsylvania. The test instrument was the same as used in previous China vs. USA comparisons and focused on four subtopics: computation, number concepts, geometry and problem solving. The results showed that rural Chinese and Taiwanese students outperformed similar American students in the area of mathematics achievement. The rural Chinese and… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Commentary on the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment 2012

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Every three years the focus of the international education community shifts to the release of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) study conducted by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). No other international study of education commands as much attention as PISA. In an age of intense global competition among information-based economies where education is increasingly viewed as an important (if not the most important) national “competitive advantage”, in less than two decades, PISA has become the widely used if inadequate proxy for the performance of education systems around the world. The OECD’s interest in education in the service of human capital development and economic growth is of course not surprising given the organization’s focus. The expansion of PISA to include the assessment of… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – A Cross-Cultural Study of Teachers’ Instructional Practices in Singapore and the United States

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: This cross-cultural study, utilizing a structured instructional behavior rating form, examined distinguishing and comparable teaching practices in secondary gifted classrooms in Singapore and the United States. Teachers from Singapore (n = 67) and teachers from the United States (n = 33) in 5 subject domains including math, science, English, social studies, and second language were observed. The study showed that Singapore teachers demonstrated a higher level of effectiveness than American teachers in both general teacher behaviors and differentiation strategies. The level of instructional effectiveness appeared to be positively related to the number of years of teaching experience and training in differentiation practices for the gifted. (Contains 1 figure, 5 tables and 2 end notes.) Link til kilde

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Eric.ed.gov – MIXED: Educational Perspectives from Families of Mixed East and West Educational Background

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Will my children’s creativity be hindered if I place them within the rigidity of an East Asian school? Conversely, could my children’s math and science skills benefit from the high expectations of an East Asian curriculum and teacher? The purpose of this study is two-fold. Firstly, it aims to demonstrate that comparison between Eastern and Western educational traditions can be framed in terms of a dialectic concerning students’ development, autonomy, learning environment, and curricula. Secondly, it is to analyze the substance and effects of this dialectic in the context of 15 families of mixed educational background situated between Eastern and Western educational traditions. These families in Hong Kong have access to educational opportunities for their children in adherence to educational styles associated with either Eastern or Western… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Gender Differences in Mathematics Anxiety across Cultures: A Univariate Analysis of Variance among Samples from Twelve Countries

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Mathematics anxiety (MA) has a debilitating impact on learning, achievement, mental health, and the future career life of students. Though MA is a popular research theme, there is little agreement among researchers regarding the cross-cultural effect of gender. The purpose of this paper was to explore the perceived MA differences among males and females across cultures using the Anxiety Towards Math Scale (ATMS; Muñoz and Mato, 2007). Data were collected between October 2019 and September 2020) from students (N = 4,340) in 12 countries. Using univariate analysis of variance, the results indicate that gender has a significant main effect on MA with females recording higher mean scores than males, [71.816 > 68.118]. Examining the interaction effect of gender and location, significant differences in MA scores exist between… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Investigation of Turkish and Italian Students’ Perceptions of the Concept of “Mathematics Teacher” through Metaphor Analysis

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: The main purpose of the present research is examining the Turkish and Italian students’ perceptions of the concept of “mathematics teacher” through metaphors. The study group of the research consists of 167 Turkish and 112 Italian students, the total of 279 students in the same age group. Students were asked to use another concept defining what “mathematics teacher” meant for them and to explain why. For this purpose, the data of the research were collected by each student’s completing the statement “A mathematics teacher is like …, because ….” Content analysis technique was used to analyze and interpret the obtained data. According to the findings of the research, the students developed a total of 255 valid metaphors. These metaphors are divided into 9 different conceptual categories according… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – An Investigation of How Teachers Score Constructed-Response Mathematics Assessment Tasks

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: This study identified some factors associated with teachers’ knowledge and beliefs that are related to scoring mathematics constructed-response (CR) assessment tasks. Five groups of teachers (n = 274) who either had different teaching experiences or had different cultural beliefs about teaching and learning mathematics were selected to score 28 students’ responses to seven CR math tasks. Among the 274 teachers, the first four groups (n=222) were selected from China. Group 1 was composed of pre-service elementary school teachers; group 2, pre-service secondary teachers; group 3, elementary in-service teachers; and group 4, secondary in-service teachers. The fifth group (n = 52) was composed of in-service middle school teachers from the United States. A number of analyses of variance (ANOVA) on teachers’ scores of the 28 responses and subsets… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Development of Metacognitive and Discursive Activities in Indonesian Maths Teaching: A Theory Based Design and Test of a Learning Environment

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: We report on a German-Indonesian design research project, which aims to significantly increase the mathematical skills of secondary school students. Since results of international comparative studies have shown that there exists a relationship between metacognition and learning success, a learning environment for the beginning with secondary school mathematics in class seven has been developed, in order to significantly enhance metacognitive and discursive activities of students and teachers. The effectiveness of the approach has been tested in a secondary school several times. In this paper the theoretical background for the design of the learning environment is described, some sample exercises are presented and student productions from the project lessons analysed. Link til kilde

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Eric.ed.gov – What Goes on inside Latin American Math and Science Classrooms: A Video Study of Teaching Practices

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Beyond common associated factors, such as teacher characteristics and socioeconomic background of students, little is known about how student achievement relates to differences in the pedagogical approaches used in Latin American classrooms. This paper highlights the main findings from a qualitative study on cross-country differences in teaching practices in three Latin American countries. Of the three countries selected for the study, Paraguay and the Dominican Republic perform at the bottom of the regional comparative test, “Second Regional Comparative and Explanatory Study” (SERCE), and the Mexican state of Nuevo Leon is one of the top performers. Our findings, based on a large sample of video recordings from sixth-grade classrooms in the three countries, indicate that certain classroom practices appear to be associated with higher levels of learning. Teachers… Continue Reading