PISA, TIMSS and Finnish mathematics teaching: an enigma in search of an explanation

Understanding the Cultural Construction of School Mathematics

“…The first, based on Kilpatrick et al's (2001) five strands of mathematical proficiency, found no evidence of Finnish teachers encouraging students to acquire the higher order skills conducive to problem solving; the primary objective seemed to be procedural competence located on limited conceptual knowledge (Andrews 2013). The second, exploiting PISA's own assessment framework, found no evidence of students being encouraged to acquire the higher level competences they demonstrated in repeated PISA assessments (Andrews et al 2014). The third, based on a constant comparison analysis in which data were not subjected to predetermined frameworks, found a didactical tradition in which teachers posed many closed questions but never evaluated or sort clarification relating to a student's response.…”

Editorial Introduction

“…The first, based on Kilpatrick et al's (2001) five strands of mathematical proficiency, found no evidence of Finnish teachers encouraging students to acquire the higher order skills conducive to problem solving; the primary objective seemed to be procedural competence located on limited conceptual knowledge (Andrews 2013). The second, exploiting PISA's own assessment framework, found no evidence of students being encouraged to acquire the higher level competences they demonstrated in repeated PISA assessments (Andrews et al 2014). The third, based on a constant comparison analysis in which data were not subjected to predetermined frameworks, found a didactical tradition in which teachers posed many closed questions but never evaluated or sought clarification relating to a student's response.…”

Analysing the relationship between the problem-solving-related beliefs, competence and teaching of three Cypriot primary teachers

“…For some, such a reality, particularly for novice teachers, may compromise the enactment of beliefs relating to the role and primacy of problem solving in mathematics classrooms (Andrews, Ryve, Hemmi & Sayers 2014;Cooney 1985;Drake 2002). For others, attempts to enact newly acquire beliefs about problems and problem solving may fail due to mismatches between the new and prior belief sets (Cohen 1990;Raymond 1997), while, for others, teachers beliefs about problems and problem solving may force them to abandon as inadequate existing classroom practices in favour of more open pedagogies (Chapman 1997).…”