1,720,968 research outputs found
Mother tongue policies and mathematical terminology in the teaching of mathematics
Get PDFThe Department of Education in South Africa advocates collaborative and constructivist learning; however, observations indicate that little discussion occurs in most multilingual mathematics classes. In this paper we draw on a pilot study set in the Eastern Cape where teachers were introduced to the theory and practice of exploratory talk, and then tasked to perform an action research project on introducing discussion in their own multilingual mathematics classrooms. The results of the study suggest some successes in terms of teachers initiating exploratory talk and highlight the fact that these successes were only achieved where code switching between English and isiXhosa formed an integral part of the process
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Mathematical knowledge for teaching: Adding to the description through a study of probability in practice
Get PDFIn their description of the mathematical work of teaching, Ball, Bass & Hill (2004) describe the mathematical problem solving that teachers do as they go about their work. In this paper we add to this description through our study of teaching of probability in a grade 8 multilingual classroom in South Africa. We use instances of teaching to highlight the mathematical problem solving that teachers might face as they work with learners’ ideas, both expected and unexpected. We discuss the restructuring of tasks as an inevitable feature of teachers’ work, and argue that in addition to scaling up or scaling down of the task as Ball et al. (2004) describe, restructuring can also entail shifting the mathematical outcomes from those intended. We also point out how well known issues in mathematics education, for example working with learners’ everyday knowledge, and the languages they bring to class, are highlighted by the context of probability, enabling additional insights into the mathematical work of teaching
Would female student teachers at primary teacher education colleges study mathematics were it optional?
No full textIn this this article we discuss findings from an investigation of whether female student teachers would choose to study mathematics if it were optional for primary teacher education in Malawi. A mixed methods research methodology was used to collect data through survey and focus group discussions (FGDs). Five hundred and twenty three female students from 6 public teacher education colleges completed a questionnaire, and 160 of them participated in FGDs. A descriptive statistical analysis was conducted on the quantitative data while a thematic analysis was conducted on the qualitative data. The findings show that 68% of female students would choose to study mathematics while 32% would not. This correlated with the students’ mathematics scores at the end of their secondary school national examination. Those students with high score passes opted for mathematics and those with low score passes did not, suggesting that performance at secondary school influenced their confidence in studying mathematics. Female student teachers’ reasons for choosing or not choosing mathematics were it optional are classified into 5 categories: the perceived usefulness of mathematics, inner motivation to study mathematics, the nature of the college mathematics content, how mathematics courses are taught at colleges, and gender stereotype in mathematics lessons. We discuss these in relation to the Malawian government’s agenda of increasing participation of females in mathematics, science, technology, and engineering
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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