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In this paper we study the levels of anxiety towards mathematics teaching in a group of Spanish students for primary education teaching through the MATAS survey. The data collected in the survey is analyzed to determine if there are significant differences between the levels of anxiety when the sample is differentiated according to three criteria: if they have taken any previous mathematics subject, if they have any previous degree in education and if they have teaching experience in mathematics. As a result, it is obtained that most of the group of students present medium or high levels of anxiety towards the teaching of mathematics and that those who have no teaching experience or no previous degree present significantly higher mean levels of anxiety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the relationship between students' perceptions of the type of teaching they experience in mathematics [more or less student centred] and their reported emotions, self-concept and disposition. It also addresses the question of whether there are differences in this relationship for girls and boys. It uses survey data from almost 300 year 7 Chilean students, clustered in 8 different classrooms. A correlational analysis suggests that there is a positive significant association between how student centred the teaching is perceived to be and students' more positive attitudes. Nevertheless, this effect was independent of sex, suggesting that more student-centred teching do not necessarily offer an advantage for girls, but are positive for both, boys and girls. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The definite integral is a central concept in the applications of calculus to experimental sciences and engineering, and consequently, a relevant didactic research topic. This paper analyses the different meanings of the definite integral by applying theoretical tools of the ontosemiotic approach to mathematical knowledge and instruction, particularly, the interpretation of meaning in terms of systems of operational and discursive practices related to the resolution of types of problems and the algebraization levels model of mathematical activity. Types of problem-situations and configurations of practices, objects, and processes are identified that allow us to characterize and articulate the various partial meanings of the definite integral (geometric-intuitive, as a limit of Riemann sums and cumulative function) as well as its extensions to the case of the double integral (as a particular case of the multiple) and the line, from the most intuitive to the most formal. The analysis allows us to identify the generality degrees of the objects of integral calculus and the role of algebra in the characterization of the meanings of the definite integral, which must be considered in the planning and management of the processes of teaching and learning of integral calculus in engineering degrees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the results of a research study aimed to explore the main beliefs and conceptions that have teachers who teach mathematics at the secondary level in Honduras (students 13 to 18 years), in relation to the teaching /learning and assessment of mathematics. The results show, among other elements, that for Honduran teachers the learning of mathematics is achieved by the active participation of the students. This belief is highlighted by teachers with a bachelor in Mathematics; and that the evaluation is a process that improves teaching and learning, providing useful results but, they must be taken with special scrutiny due to mistakes and inaccuracies that always exist. As conclusions highlight the need to improve initial training and continuous training of teachers so that use resources that promotes active student participation and improve the evaluation processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we present a qualitative research, in which we explore what readings or interpretations are done by the students of elementary school on the graphs that are shared socially; it is to say, those used by the means of information and that are directed wide social sectors. The graphs put in the scene of the reading are referred to population, financial subject matters and one to the mathematical context. This work, which involved to students of elementary school, allowed us to detect interpretations in which the most of the students identify what changes (the variables), they do reading of data by data or point by point (according to it corresponds), favoring to the maximums and minimums, they make qualitative descriptions of how it changes something, adducing that rises or low. Nevertheless, they do not establish covariationals relations; they do not calculate how much they change to the variables nor note that use the change reasons. The evidences indicate, in addition, a little knowledge on the meaning of the social concepts represented in the graphs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article "On denoting" by B. Russell, published in 1905, is a milestone in philosophical reflection on language. In the present paper, we examine pupils' reactions both to a sentence inspired by a celebrated example introduced by Russell and to a statement expressed in mathematical language. We move away from an interpretation of experimental data confined to the classical concepts of truth and rationality and propose instead some reflections that shift "the standard of epistemic objectivity from the private certainty of an experiencing subject to the public practice of justification within a communicative community" (J. Habermas). We conclude that language is a very important moment in which the meaning of an expression is fixed, but we keep in mind that "language, like any other semiotic system, functions inside a cultural network of significations" (L. Radford). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I want to illustrate a phenomenon related to the treatment and conversion of semiotic representations whose sense derives from a shared practice. On the one hand, the passage from one representation of a mathematical object to another, through transformations, maintains the meaning of the object itself, but on the other hand, sometimes can change its sense. This is shown in detail through an example, inserted within a wide theoretical framework that takes into account mathematical objects, their meanings and their representations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper some theoretical tools are utilized that contributes the ontosemiotic approach of the mathematical cognition (Godino, 2002), in order to study how is put into play a network of objects and semiotic functions in the fragment of a textbook of the second course of High School --representative of the introduction to the defined integral-- in students of the Autonomous Comunity of Andalucia (Spain). The analysis has as purpose to characterize the ontosemiotic complexity of the text and the potential semiotic conflicts that can be produced in the students that use it. Previously, a synthesis of the theoretical framework is presented, that includes the theory of the institutional and personal meanings of the mathematical objects and the theory of the semiotic functions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a longitudinal study of four undergraduate mathematics courses. The analysis of problems and exercises given in the outlines of the courses, allows us to describe a particular mathematical organization of the notion of completeness of the set of real numbers. It allows us also to make a hypothesis about the acquisition of knowledge of this topic, which is considered as an example of the passing from Calculus to Mathematical Analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]