This paper considers the term 'mastery' as used in mathematics education across different times and locations. A case study from England is offered to show how these pedagogical approaches morph as they move from one territory to another, in the context of each territory's history. The paper first examines English policy documents, research and…

The paper presents a study about pre-service science teachers' perceptions of the Nature of Science (NOS). Although there is a substantial amount of research on NOS in science teacher education, international comparative accounts particularly of in-depth qualitative data emerging from group discussions are fairly minimal. The primary aim of the…

This study is aimed at comparing the content in mathematics textbooks from Japan and England, focusing on symmetry and transformations at the lower secondary level. We adopted the concept of praxeology, a main construct of the Anthropological Theory of the Didactic (ATD). Using the ATD framework, our approach regarded textbooks as an empirical…

The mathematical preparedness of science undergraduates has been a subject of debate for some time. This paper investigates the relationship between school mathematics attainment and degree outcomes in biology and chemistry across England, a much larger scale of analysis than has hitherto been reported in the literature. A unique dataset which…

This study describes a comparison of how worked examples in selected textbooks from England and Shanghai presented possible learning trajectories towards understanding linear function. Six selected English textbooks and one Shanghai compulsory textbook were analysed with regards to the understanding required for pure mathematics knowledge in…

Dealing with multiple representations and their connections plays a key role for learners to build up conceptual knowledge in the mathematics classroom. Hence, professional knowledge and views of mathematics teachers regarding the use of multiple representations certainly merit attention. In particular, investigating such views of preservice…