This paper reports a survey of research in mathematics teacher education from 1999 to 2003 done by an international team of five mathematics educators and researchers. The survey included published research in international mathematics education journals, international handbooks of mathematics education and international mathematics education conference proceedings. Some regional sources from various parts of the world were also included. We investigated who was writing, from and in what settings, with what theoretical frameworks, and with what sorts of study designs for what core questions. We also examined the range of findings and conclusions produced in these studies. Our analysis presented here focuses on four themes that stood out from our initial investigation of almost 300 published papers, and systematically elaborated through a focused study of a 160 papers across key journals and conference proceedings in the field. From this vantage point, the paper offers a reflection on the current state of the field of mathematics teacher education research. Our aim is to stimulate discussion that can support the development of the field, not make final pronouncements about its nature.
A model of reading comprehension of geometric proofs (RCGP) has recently been proposed by the authors. This article further investigates students_ development of such comprehension based on this model, looking at the relationship between students_ reading comprehension and their prior knowledge and logical reasoning. The results show that (1) students_ development of RCGP may follow two different learning trajectories; (2) the effect of logical reasoning on RCGP in ninth grade is larger and more complex than in tenth grade; (3) knowledge about geometric figures is not the main factor contributing to RCGP, and geometric knowledge that includes knowledge of figures and of verbal description and translation between the two distinguishes only the level of surface comprehension from the other levels of RCGP; and (4) regression analysis yields a two-variable model that includes logical reasoning and relevant geometric knowledge, and that accounts for 54% and 22% of the variance on RCGP data from the ninth and tenth graders, respectively.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.