Teacher quality in primary schools in South Africa is a serious concern, and how best to prepare teachers in initial teacher education--with regard to mathematics--remains an open and vexing question. There is a confluence of challenges facing the mathematics education community in South Africa: poor conceptual understanding of mathematics amongst…

This paper explores Grade R teacher expressions of themselves as teachers of numeracy, and as teachers working in the transition phase of schooling, after their participation in a research-informed numeracy-focused professional development (PD) intervention. The Early Number Fun (ENF) programme had 33 teachers from 17 Eastern Cape schools…

This paper examines the conceptions of 'number sense' as promoted in pre-service primary mathematics education courses at 11 South African Higher Education Institutions through the texts used by academics or prescribed for students. While all the participating institutions agree that the development of primary school learners' 'number sense' is…

The majority of children in mainstream (no fee, poorly resourced, African language dominant) public schools in South Africa fall significantly behind curricular norms in mathematics by Grade 3; the early learning gap grows across time. The provision of "quality" instructional materials is a well-recognised component of effective…

The purpose of this study, conducted with 44 participants, was to explore their experiences of learning linear algebra using the online content and materials during COVID-19. The conceptual framework was guided by the notion of social presence and connectivisim in the context of remote learning. The study used a questionnaire comprising closed and…

This article revisits and expands upon a previous phenomenographic study characterising the qualitatively different ways in which South African undergraduate physics students may experience the use of +/- signs in one-dimensional kinematics (1DK). We find the original categorisation as applicable for interpreting Swedish university-level students'…

This paper reports on a case study of South African Grade 12 learners' views about scientific inquiry. The study focuses on a non-fee-paying government school that receives curricular support and resources to specifically develop Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) teaching in a low socioeconomic setting. Data were collected…

Information and communication technology (ICT) competences are among the most important requirements to effectively teach mathematics and science in today's classrooms. Teacher educators in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region have prioritised ICT competences for pre-service teachers (PSTs) to effectively select suitable…

Although there is a lot of interest in the development of computational thinking (CT) and the benefits it could have for every student, integrating it into science classrooms may be more difficult than traditional teaching. This can be very challenging for South African science teachers. Thus, there is an increasing need to prepare teachers and…

Sub-Saharan Africa secondary school science curricula recognise language as the most important communication tool for learners' biology learning outcomes. Despite this prominent goal, learners' scientific literacy at secondary school appears to be insufficient to cope with classroom teaching and learning of biology. This paper presents a review of…

The literature describes different stances concerning the focus on how mathematics should be taught, with some preferring a conceptual knowledge approach and others a procedural knowledge approach. The current study investigated the relationship between students' conceptual and procedural knowledge in a calculus context. To better understand the…

Mathematics is a gateway to science-related careers and all stakeholders want to improve the achievement levels in mathematics. In this study we use data from the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study 2015 to investigate the association between the learner situational factors of gender, grade level age appropriateness, school…

This qualitative case study explored how exposure to Process-Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning (POGIL) improves 11th grade physical sciences learners' competency in solving stoichiometry problems. Two township schools of low socioeconomic status in Pretoria, South Africa, were conveniently and purposively sampled. Two classes (N = 48) composed of…

Extant literature has demonstrated the importance of individual and school-related factors in improving mathematics achievement. Despite this, there is still a gap in research to understand the mediating role of educational aspiration in mathematics achievement. The aim of the present study is to test the relationship between self-efficacy, school…

This study investigated the effect of in-service training in the use of the ripple tank equipment on science teachers' pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) about the topic of waves. Three Grade 10 Physical Sciences teachers participated in this qualitative case study. The Refined Consensus Model informed the conceptual framework of this study,…