A Synthesis of Research Trends on Mathematics Writing in Mathematics Education

Abstract

In the future, mathematical thinking will occur in an extremely digitalized environment, and mathematics writing (MW), a basic competency that students must acquire through brain activity, will still be important. In this study, 26 papers in Korea were classified into evaluation, intervention program, and survey, focusing on the registered or candidate journals of the Korea Research Foundations. Regarding the results, first, most studies that measured the evaluation used descriptive, essay, or process-oriented MW types, and the majority of them evaluated core competences, such as problem-solving ability, communication ability, or affective ability, rather than students' MW ability itself. Second, the studies using the intervention program revealed that most students' cognitive or affective domains improved through journal writing. Third, in the surveys, it was difficult to grasp the perception of teachers and students regarding MW itself, as most of the said surveys pertained to narrative and essay-type assessments.