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Studying the role of human agency in school mathematics

Morgan, CR; (2016) Studying the role of human agency in school mathematics. Research in Mathematics Education , 18 (2) pp. 92-119. 10.1080/14794802.2016.1176595. Green open access

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Abstract

Mathematical discourse is often described as abstract and devoid of human presence, yet many school curricula espouse an aim to develop active, creative mathematical problem posers and solvers. The project The Evolution of the Discourse of School Mathematics developed an analytic scheme to investigate the nature of school mathematics discourse through the lens of high-stakes examinations in England. Following an overview of the scheme, this article “zooms in” on the development of the sub-component addressing the question of how the origin of mathematical knowledge is construed, allowing investigation of the potential for students to see a role for themselves as active, creative agents in mathematical practices. Analytical tools operationalising this component are presented and their application illustrated. Results of analysis of examinations over a period of three decades suggest some increase in human agency, though some other aspects characteristic of higher-level mathematics may have reduced.

Type: Article
Title: Studying the role of human agency in school mathematics
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1080/14794802.2016.1176595
Publisher version: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14794802.2016.1176595
Language: English
Additional information: © 2016 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Permission is granted subject to the terms of the License under which the work was published. Please check the License conditions for the work which you wish to reuse. Full and appropriate attribution must be given. This permission does not cover any third party copyrighted material which may appear in the work requested.
Keywords: Mathematics education, examinations, discourse, agency
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education > IOE - Curriculum, Pedagogy and Assessment
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1482249
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