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PurposeThis study explored how teachers change, what teachers learn and how they learn during the implementation of project-based learning through lesson study.Design/methodology/approachIn this study, three university researchers, one doctoral student and six mathematics school teachers formed a lesson study team. Using a qualitative research method, this study employed a locally integrating networking strategy to combine the modified Interconnected Model of Teacher Professional Growth (IMTPG) and Bannister's framework to describe the teachers' knowledge change when participating in a lesson study on project-based learning.FindingsThe research revealed that the school teachers' knowledge about authenticity and assessment in the context of project-based learning was changed after the lesson study and how the changes were triggered.Originality/valueThe study demonstrates how the networking of two different theories—modified IMTPG and Bannister's framework—contributes to a better understanding of the process of teachers' collective practice, as well as the knowledge change in PjBL. This networking was done by combining the two theories, which were superimposed at the domain of practice.

UNLABELLED: In the research reported in this paper we investigated teachers' changes when adopting and adapting to emergency online teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic, from the perspective of the Interconnected Model of Professional Growth (IMPG). By adapting complementary accounts methodology to research into teachers' changes when addressing the unexpected migration to online teaching, an integrated data set, including online teaching videos, teacher daily reflections, and teacher interviews from two purposefully selected teachers over two weeks of online teaching, was collected and analyzed qualitatively. Both teachers encountered different difficulties and thus had different knowledge changes displayed in different change routes. For the experienced teacher, students' mistakes in homework and her online teaching practice triggered her knowledge changes. For the young teacher, the online video lessons, relevant resources on the Internet and students' performance were her primary sources that triggered the changes of her knowledge for teaching. These differences between the experienced teacher and young teacher provide evidence of the complexity of teacher's professional growth, which is related to a variety of external and internal factors. This study demonstrates how the IMPG model helps uncover teachers' changes in such an unprecedented virtual-teaching environment. Finally, the implications of this study for teacher professional development in general are discussed. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11858-022-01378-y.

PurposeThis paper presented the learning process of a group of primary mathematics teachers who participated in two iterations of lesson design, enactment and reflection in a Chinese Lesson Study.Design/methodology/approachAn expansive learning theory was employed to examine the teachers’ learning process in lesson study (LS) on representing fractions on a number line. The evolution of a germ cell was utilized to feature the transformation of the object of activity from abstract to concrete through resolving contradictions among LS members. The videos of lesson planning, research lessons (RLs) and debriefing meetings were collected and analyzed to reveal the expansive learning process.FindingsThe analysis showed that the teachers expanded their learning through transforming the object from diffuse to concrete and expanded through consciously articulating the germ cell. The outcomes of object-oriented activity include improving the enacted lesson which promoted students’ conceptual understanding.Originality/valueThis study made a unique contribution to understanding the learning process of teachers in Chinese LS from the perspective of expansive learning.

PurposeThis study aimed to explore how a group of Chinese primary mathematics teachers learned through conducting an online cross-cultural lesson study between China and Australia.Design/methodology/approachAn expansive learning theory was adopted to examine teachers' learning through collective activities across different activity systems. Multiple data sets including videos of research lessons, debriefings and audios of interviews were collected. From the expansive learning perspective, based on a fine-grained qualitative data analysis, various contradictions (as driving forces of learning) were identified and the ways of resolving the contradictions (as enactment of learning) were located to feature teacher learning throughout the online lesson study process.FindingsTeachers' expansive learning includes enhancing teachers' MKT and Mathematics TPACK, developing instructional design skills and capabilities in addressing challenges occurring in the virtual environment were identified.Research limitations/implicationsTheoretically, the study illustrated how expansive learning theory could be utilized to examine teacher collaborative learning in the online cross-cultural lesson study. Practically, this study showed that reiterative cycles and experts' facilitation are crucial to expansive learning for linking research to classroom practice. However, this study did not focus on student learning in the virtual environment. Australian teachers' reciprocal learning through the online lesson study also requires further exploration.Originality/valueBoth online lesson study and cross-cultural collaboration are innovative. The expansive learning lens are creatively used to examine the complexity of teacher learning in such a novel environment.

This study examines the predictive power of cognitive and affective food image components on potential tourists’ behavioral intention. Using Chinese tourists’ perception of Australia as the context, the study adopted a multi-method approach incorporating desktop research, surveys of food tourism stakeholders, and quantitative testing of a model using survey data. Results confirmed that (1) cognitive food image is a formative construct, (2) cognitive food image is a stronger predictor of intention than affective image, and (3) the moderating effect of food neophobia highlights the need for a destination image-building strategy to be sensitive to tourists’ food-related personality traits. Study findings validate a structural model that integrates theories regarding food image and food neophobia to explain destination food image formation. Results also offer a comprehensive formative measurement model of cognitive food image for future research.

This paper reports findings from a study into food images and the relationship with the overall perceptions of a destination. In doing so it also examines the degree to which congruence exists between the promotional images created by Tourism Australia and those images held by 18 major industry stakeholders. The measures are based on 40 attributes of food imagery clustered into 6 dimensions. Data derived from informants were also supported by an analysis of videos used by Tourism Australia. It was concluded a lack of consensus exists with the consequence of fragmented marketing strategies result.

In response to the growing solo travel market, this study developed a research instrument and collected empirical data to uncover the motivations and constraints affecting solo travel. Using a conceptual model based on the theory of planned behaviour and the findings of qualitative interviews, the main drivers of solo travel intention and the importance between the drivers were tested through a national survey conducted in Australia. Results revealed that (1) self-actualisation emerged as the most significant motivation for solo travel, (2) attitude was negatively associated with intrapersonal and interpersonal constraints, and (3) interpersonal constraints, followed by perceived behavioural control and overall attitude, were prominent in predicting behavioural intention. The findings offer a validated solo travel model for future research and have implications for tourism marketing strategies and products targeting existing and latent solo travellers.

This study addresses the conceptualization of food image and examines the role food and cuisine play in the formation of destination brand image. By tracing the destination branding literature with a specific focus on image and three components that influence food image formation, the authors map the current state of food image research in tourism. They then provide a dual-perspective review of food image—one that is projected and/or perceived by destination marketers and their food producers and suppliers, and the other a mental representation as perceived by tourists. The evaluation aligns the various dimensions, underlying variables, and indicators of food destination attractiveness as reflected in host–tourist perspectives. The paper offers a comprehensive conceptual framework of food tourism branding and suggests a pathway for future empirical research on destination image and branding.

Existing literature sheds little light on how Chinese consumers in any two societies perceive and consume food. In this study, the food perceptions of Taiwanese and Malaysian Chinese consumers are compared using a projective technique. Using images collected by respondents, both conscious and tacit interpretations of food were obtained. Findings reveal that Taiwanese and Malaysian Chinese share similar, but not identical, food perceptions. In this study, food is interpreted from a triadic framework: utilitarian (health, sustenance); hedonic (freedom, happiness, excitement, enjoyment, knowledge acquisition, love); and symbolic (sharing, warm relationships with others). Based on the emerged findings, the theoretical contributions of the study are highlighted, a number of managerial implications are proposed, and future research opportunities are recommended.

The concept of base-10 numeral system is fundamental to other mathematical concepts such as decimal numbers and exponents, and yet for a variety of reasons, including differences in number naming language, many children in the early years of school find the concept of place value difficult. Renowned mathematics educator Freudenthal (Mathematics as an educational task. Reidel, Dordrecht, Holland, 1973) was critical of the way that mathematical content knowledge is often simplistically identified as the learning of ready-made mathematical objects, leaving the evolution and refinement process of mathematics unattended. It seems, therefore, that children’s experience of the evolution and construction of the base-10 numeral system should gain a position in young children’s mathematical experiences. This chapter outlines a possible learning trajectory for children in the early years of school for this purpose, together with a brief elaboration of its theoretical underpinnings. The ultimate goal is to open up possibility for young children to connect to the evolution of the base-10 number system, and so deepen their understanding of the concept of place value.

This edited book brings together an international collection of work on a consistent and growing focus in mathematics education: the need to forge connections in early mathematics learning. Each chapter examines diverse ways that connections can be made, philosophically, theoretically, and pedagogically, illustrating different perspectives and providing provocations for researchers and educators. This chapter introduces themes of connection found in mathematics education and interdisciplinary literature and considers the purpose and value of connection in mathematics learning, specifically for children from birth to eight years. An overview of each of the book chapters and their connections mathematics is also provided.

The aim of this study was to investigate Hong Kong Grade 4 students’ understanding of the decimal notation system including their knowledge of decimal quantities. This is a unique study because most previous studies were conducted in Western cultural settings; therefore we were interested to see whether Chinese students have the same kinds of misconceptions as Western students given the Chinese number naming system is relatively transparent and explicit. Three hundred and forty-one students participated in a written test on decimal numbers. Thirty-two students were interviewed to further explore their mathematical reasoning. In summary, the results indicated that many students had mastered reasonable knowledge of decimal notation and quantities, which may be attributed to the Chinese linguistic clarity of decimal numbers. More importantly, the results showed that some students’ construction of decimal concepts have been adversely affected by persistent misconceptions arising from whole number bias. Two kinds of whole number misconceptions, namely “-ths suffix error” and “reversed place value progression error”, were revealed in this study. This paper suggests that a framework theory approach to conceptual change may be an alternative approach to addressing students’ learning difficulties in decimals.

Educators and government administrators are keen to find interventions to change the rapidly declining enrollments in senior high school mathematics. In 2012, PISA introduced measures to examine the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB), a prominent theory from social psychology for encouraging changes in behavior (and perhaps mathematics enrollments). This paper sought to examine the applicability of the TPB for predicting the relationship between students’ intentions, their mathematics attitudes, subject norms, perceived controllability and self-efficacy as well as their mathematics behaviour, using items created by PISA 2012 question designers to assess these TPB constructs. Australian PISA 2012 data from 14,481 students found that the hypothesized TPB antecedents for studying mathematics were very poor predictors of mathematical intentions and indirectly, weak predictors of mathematical behaviour. The Attitudes factor i.e. an interest in mathematics, was found to be the strongest predictor of mathematical intentions. The poor predictive capacity of the TPB was proposed to have been due to ill-defined indicator items in the PISA 2012 measuring instruments, which did not comply with the TPB’s principles of compatibility and aggregation. Future studies testing the TPB in the context of studying mathematics would benefit from undertaking Elicitation studies to identify appropriate TPB antecedents and indicators of the mathematics behaviour being targeted.

© 2014, National Science Council, Taiwan. Most studies of students’ understanding of decimals have been conducted within Western cultural settings. The broad aim of the present research was to gain insight into Chinese Hong Kong grade 6 students’ general performance on a variety of decimals tasks. More specifically, the study aimed to explore students’ mathematical reasoning for their use of ‘rules’ and algorithms and to determine whether connections exist between students’ conceptual and procedural knowledge when completing decimals tasks. Results indicated that conceptual understanding for rules and procedures were built into the students’ knowledge system for most of the items concerned with place value in decimals—ordering decimals, translating fractions into decimals, the representation of place value in decimals, the concept of place value in decimals on number line and the concept of continuous quantity in decimals. However, the students were not able to provide such clear explanations for the use of algorithms for the multiplication and division items. The findings are discussed in the light of Chinese perspectives on procedural and conceptual understanding.

The purpose of this study is to explore the perception of Malaysian Chinese towards food and eating by using a qualitative marketing research tool, known as the Zaltman Metaphor Elicitation Technique. Twelve Malaysian Chinese were asked to collect photographs that represented their thoughts and feelings about food and eating. The results surfaced six broad meaning themes Malaysian Chinese have about food and eating: (a) health, (b) trying new food, (c) people, (d) home cooked food, (e) enjoyment, and (f) happiness. The findings were supported by rich description and meaningful images that capture both the spoken and tacit thoughts and feelings of the respondents. The findings reflected the health concerns and food neophilia tendency of Malaysian Chinese. The findings also revealed the positive emotional value of food and eating linked to enjoyment and pleasure. These findings suggest numerous important implications for scholars and practitioners in the industry.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to report a case study of how learning study was incorporated in teacher education programs in Hong Kong. It aims to share the success of the program and to disseminate how pre‐service teachers enhanced their mathematical content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge by practising learning study. Building on the work, this paper suggests incorporating the framework of learning study, a theory‐guided pedagogical principle, as an integrated subject of mathematics pedagogy and teaching practice in teacher education programs.Design/methodology/approachIn total 32 pre‐service teachers’ learning journals of their reflections of learning processes were analyzed. The analysis of data and reporting of findings are linked tightly to how pre‐service teachers enhanced their mathematical content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge by practising learning study.FindingsThe 32 pre‐service teachers noted that the learning study subject fostered their understanding of relationship between theory and practice and their understanding of transforming knowledge into action. In particular, they came to understand that knowledge of pupils and content involves a particular mathematical idea or procedure and familiarity with students’ prior knowledge and misconceptions. They also reported that they understood better what mathematics pedagogy content knowledge means and what components it includes.Originality/valueThe suggestions of incorporating the framework of learning study in teacher education programs is supported and manifested by the positive feedback and comments of the 32 pre‐service teachers who underwent the entire learning process of learning study in Hong Kong. The findings demonstrate how pre‐service teachers’ mathematical content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge were enhanced by practising learning study.

This paper reports an investigation of Chinese-speaking and English-speaking children's general visual perceptual abilities. The Developmental Test of Visual Perception was administered to 41 native Chinese-speaking children of mean age 5 yr. 4 mo. in Hong Kong and 35 English-speaking children of mean age 5 yr. 2 mo. in Melbourne. Of interest were the two interrelated components of visual perceptual abilities, namely, motor-reduced visual perceptual and visual-motor integration perceptual abilities, which require either verbal or motoric responses in completing visual tasks. Chinese-speaking children significantly outperformed the English-speaking children on general visual perceptual abilities. When comparing the results of each of the two different components, the Chinese-speaking students' performance on visual-motor integration was far better than that of their counterparts ( ES = 2.70), while the two groups of students performed similarly on motor-reduced visual perceptual abilities. Cultural factors such as written language format may be contributing to the enhanced performance of Chinese-speaking children's visual-motor integration abilities, but there may be validity questions in the Chinese version.