I have a BSc, MSc and PhD in Mathematics. My research interest is in Mathematics Education. Some of my current research interests are the following: developing algorithmic thinking of preschool and primary school students, using eye-tracking in math education, math anxiety.
Computer Assisted Learning (CAL) is a core subject in pre-service teacher training. This course n... more Computer Assisted Learning (CAL) is a core subject in pre-service teacher training. This course not only teaches students how to choose adequate educational software and how to use it in the classroom, but also teach them how to design and develop simple educational software. As these teachers will teach in Hungarian schools, and in some school subjects there are only few educational sotfs in Hungarian, it is important that they know has to develop their own electronic lessons if they want to use CAL in their classroom. This research was carried out during CAL classes for students with Psychology, Special Pedagogy and Primary and Preschool Pedagogy specialization. During these classes students were asked to develop a short educational software using Microsoft Power Point. As they don't know any programming, I considered that Power Point can be used for this purpose even if the technological solutions are limited in this program. Interactivity can be assured using animations and links, but for this the developer has to be creative. Because the use of the developing software is simple, students didn't spend time with learning the program they have to use, they could more focus on the content and didactical approaches. The main purpose of this research is to analyze educational softwares made by pre-service teachers with Psychology, Special Pedagogy and Primary and Preschool Pedagogy specialization during CAL classes. These softwares are analyzed using a criteria system in which the main criteria (broken down in sub-criteria) are related with content, didactical processing of the content, fulfilment of the pedagogical principles for e-learning, attractiveness, design, usability. Based on the research results we have formulated some conclusions which could help in redesigning the CAL course in order to get higher quality outputs from students.
Good communication, correct use of scientific language, clarity of explanations and instructions ... more Good communication, correct use of scientific language, clarity of explanations and instructions are all important in an effective teaching/learning process. During frontal or group activity pupils have the opportunity to clarify with the teacher or with their peers the questions arisen from lack of clarity in communication. But as educational software is usually studied individually by each pupil, in this case it is more important that all the texts in these programs are clear and correct, as pupils many times don't have the opportunity to ask questions in case they don't understand something. The main goal of this research is to study the correctness of the language, the use of the scientific language and clarity of explanations and instructions in electronic lessons made by pre-service teachers. The research was carried out during Computer Assisted Learning (CAL) classes for students with Special Pedagogy and Psychology specialization. These students studied Pedagogy before this course and they have already planned and carried out lessons during their pedagogical practice. In CAL course students have been asked to choose a school discipline and a topic from this discipline's curriculum, and then develop a short electronic lesson for the chosen topic. The electronic lessons made by them were then analyzed based on a criteria system developed by the researchers. These criteria are focusing on the correctness of the language, the systematic use of the scientific language, the clearness of the explanations and task formulation, the comprehension processes which are evaluated with the questions. The results show that students make spelling and grammatical mistakes, but they are more careful with the scientific language; half of the questions evaluating only how pupils retrieve explicitly stated information; and there is a correlation between students correct language use and which process of comprehension they evaluate with the questions.
Computer Assisted Learning (CAL) is a core subject in pre-service teacher training. This course n... more Computer Assisted Learning (CAL) is a core subject in pre-service teacher training. This course not only teaches students how to choose adequate educational software and how to use it in the classroom, but also teach them how to design and develop simple educational software. As these teachers will teach in Hungarian schools, and in some school subjects there are only few educational sotfs in Hungarian, it is important that they know has to develop their own electronic lessons if they want to use CAL in their classroom. This research was carried out during CAL classes for students with Psychology, Special Pedagogy and Primary and Preschool Pedagogy specialization. During these classes students were asked to develop a short educational software using Microsoft Power Point. As they don't know any programming, I considered that Power Point can be used for this purpose even if the technological solutions are limited in this program. Interactivity can be assured using animations and ...
Good communication, correct use of scientific language, clarity of explanations and instructions ... more Good communication, correct use of scientific language, clarity of explanations and instructions are all important in an effective teaching/learning process. During frontal or group activity pupils have the opportunity to clarify with the teacher or with their peers the questions arisen from lack of clarity in communication. But as educational software is usually studied individually by each pupil, in this case it is more important that all the texts in these programs are clear and correct, as pupils many times don't have the opportunity to ask questions in case they don't understand something. The main goal of this research is to study the correctness of the language, the use of the scientific language and clarity of explanations and instructions in electronic lessons made by pre-service teachers. The research was carried out during Computer Assisted Learning (CAL) classes for students with Special Pedagogy and Psychology specialization. These students studied Pedagogy befo...
Developing problem solving is one of the main goals of school education. A self-regulated learner... more Developing problem solving is one of the main goals of school education. A self-regulated learner have more success in problem solving, as developing self-regulated learning skills should be an important goal of school education. A teacher, in order to be able to develop their pupils' self-regulated learning skills, should master these skills. Thus developing these skills should be an essential goal of teacher education. In this paper two important skills of a self-regulated learner are studied: control and help-seeking behavior during problem solving. The article presents a research on the influence of the cooperative problem solving strategies on students' self-control and self-monitoring during problem solving, and their help seeking strategies in case of unsuccessful problem solving. The results show that students' control decrease when using cooperative problem solving; cooperative problem solving helped students to realize the importance of asking for help when sol...
Developing problem solving competency is one of the most important goal of Mathematics teaching. ... more Developing problem solving competency is one of the most important goal of Mathematics teaching. This competency has to be developed starting from early school years. Thus, it is important that primary school teachers have a good problem-solving competency. The aim of this paper is to study pre-service primary school teachers' problem solving skills and their attitude towards mathematics. The results show that one third of the respondents like Mathematics although three quarters of them consider it useful for their future. Less than half of the students like to explain Mathematics and only one tenth of them like to compose mathematical problems. There is a quite strong positive correlation between students' attitude towards Mathematics and their problem solving skills. Students, who like Mathematics, who like to explain their solution to other and who don't like to solve more problems of the same type, have higher problems solving skills. The results show the necessity o...
Geometrical notions and properties occur in real-world problems, thus Geometry has an important p... more Geometrical notions and properties occur in real-world problems, thus Geometry has an important place in school Mathematics curricula. Primary school curricula lays the foundation of Geometry knowledge, pupils learn Geometry notions and properties by exploring their environment. Thus it is very important that primary school teachers have a good base in elementary Geometry. The aim of this paper is to present a research on how pre-service primary school teachers master elementary Geometry notions and properties related with some basic shapes and solids. The research shows that there are students, who can't recognize basic geometrical shapes or solids. Two third of the students can't define correctly basic geometrical shapes: they don't know the correct properties of the shapes; they know the properties of the shapes, but they repeat some properties in the definition or they miss some properties from the definition. As regarding geometrical solids, more than one third of t...
Self-regulated learning (SRL) skills are very important in problem solving. It is important to st... more Self-regulated learning (SRL) skills are very important in problem solving. It is important to strat to develop these skills from the first years of school. Thus, it is essential that primary school teachers master self-regulated learning skills and they know how to develop these skills in their pupils. In this article, we present the results of a research made among 31 primary school teachers regarding their self-regulated learning skills. The tool is a questionnaire developed specially for this purpose. This questionnaire has 19 questions, 16 items are related with the topic of the research and they are affirmations, which have to be evaluated by the respondents on a 5- point Likert scale: from 1- not at all typical for me to 5 - totally describes me. We have formulated the affirmations based on the theory of SRL. The results show that the respondents' problem analyzing and help-seeking skills are low, but their self-monitoring skills are good. When analyzing the problem, only...
Mental computation skills are important not only in everyday life, but also for the development o... more Mental computation skills are important not only in everyday life, but also for the development of different cognitive competencies. The most important period for the foundation of these skills are the early school years, thus primary school teachers have a decisive influence on this. Appropriate teaching methods for practicing mental computation have to be found and taught for future primary school teachers. One of these methods could be the use of board-games. The aim of this paper is to present a study about pre-service primary school teachers’ opinions on developing mental computation skills and the use of board-games for this purpose. Second year “Primary and preschool pedagogy” specialization students filled in a questionnaire developed by the researchers. Participants are from two different groups: Group 1 has experienced board-games for mental computation development during a mathematics course at the university, Group 2 hasn’t used any board-games due to online teaching as ...
th grade primary school textbooks from Romania. These textbooks are analyzed using two classifica... more th grade primary school textbooks from Romania. These textbooks are analyzed using two classifications. The first classification is based on how much creativity and problem solving skills pupils need to solve a given task. In this classification problems are gouped in three categories: routine problems, grayarea problems and puzzle-like (non-routine) problems. The results show that most of the problems from textbooks are routine-problems. Only about 15% of the problems are more difficult, which can be solved in few steps, but even these problems are not challenging. The second classification divide problems based on how the operation chain they have to solve is given: by numbers, by text or in a word problem. The results show that there are big differences in the percentage of problems from these three categories in different textbooks. In one of the studied textbook half of the problems are word problems, in the other one only one quarter.
Logical reasoning skills are important for a successful mathematical learning and in students’ fu... more Logical reasoning skills are important for a successful mathematical learning and in students’ future career. These skills are essential for a primary school teacher, because they need to explain solving methods and solutions to their pupils. In this research we studied pre-service primary school teachers’ logical reasoning skills. The results show that only one third of the students gave an argumentation for their answer: a very small percentage gave a complete, correct argumentation for the solution of the problem; one fifth of the students had an incomplete argumentation, missing important steps of the logical reasoning; and one tenth of the students made mistakes in their reasoning. These results highlight the importance of developing future primary school teachers’ logical reasoning skills.
Review of Science, Mathematics and ICT Education, 2014
Developing problem solving competence is one of the main goals of Mathematics Education. Self-reg... more Developing problem solving competence is one of the main goals of Mathematics Education. Self-regulated learning skills are important for success in problem solving. The aim of this paper is to present the results of a research about 10-11 years old pupils’ self-regulated learning and problem solving skills and the relation between these two skills. The results show that more than three quarters of 10-11 years old pupils like Mathematics, but only the half of them likes to solve non-routine problems. The positive attitude towards Mathematics is influenced by pupils’ positive experiences on solving problems and their beliefs in the utility of Mathematics in their future. Most of the pupils don’t give up if they can’t solve the problem, they go over the text again, they try to find similar worked examples, they ask for help. There is a mild correlation between pupils’ self-control and problem solving skills, a weak correlation between pupils’ attitude towards Mathematics and their pro...
Developing problem solving competency is one of the most important goal of Mathematics teaching. ... more Developing problem solving competency is one of the most important goal of Mathematics teaching. The aim of this paper is to study primary school pupils’ problem solving and reasoning skills. Pupils had to solve two logical problems (formulated as multiple-choice items) and they had to write down their argumentation. A quantitative (calculating the percentage of pupils selecting each choice) and a qualitative (analyzing pupils argumentations) analysis was done. The results show that pupils can’t write an acceptable argumentation, their logical reasoning is based mainly on guessing. The research underline the dangers of using multiple-choice items for evaluating problem solving skills: pupils could select the correct answer without solving correctly the problem.
Self-regulated learning skills are important in mathematical problem solving. The aim of the pape... more Self-regulated learning skills are important in mathematical problem solving. The aim of the paper is to present a research on how mathematics teachers guide their pupils' mathematical problem-solving activities in order to increase self-regulation. 62 teachers have filled in a questionnaire developed for this research. The results are show that more than two third of the teachers promote the methods of understanding the problem; develop pupils' self-efficacy and self-control. But only one third of the teachers ask pupils to use different strategies for solving a problem; ask students to explain the solution to their colleagues. In case of unsuccessful problem solving only one third of the respondents ask pupils to present previous knowledge about the problem or/and recall and try different methods.
Computer Assisted Learning (CAL) is a core subject in pre-service teacher training. This course n... more Computer Assisted Learning (CAL) is a core subject in pre-service teacher training. This course not only teaches students how to choose adequate educational software and how to use it in the classroom, but also teach them how to design and develop simple educational software. As these teachers will teach in Hungarian schools, and in some school subjects there are only few educational sotfs in Hungarian, it is important that they know has to develop their own electronic lessons if they want to use CAL in their classroom. This research was carried out during CAL classes for students with Psychology, Special Pedagogy and Primary and Preschool Pedagogy specialization. During these classes students were asked to develop a short educational software using Microsoft Power Point. As they don't know any programming, I considered that Power Point can be used for this purpose even if the technological solutions are limited in this program. Interactivity can be assured using animations and links, but for this the developer has to be creative. Because the use of the developing software is simple, students didn't spend time with learning the program they have to use, they could more focus on the content and didactical approaches. The main purpose of this research is to analyze educational softwares made by pre-service teachers with Psychology, Special Pedagogy and Primary and Preschool Pedagogy specialization during CAL classes. These softwares are analyzed using a criteria system in which the main criteria (broken down in sub-criteria) are related with content, didactical processing of the content, fulfilment of the pedagogical principles for e-learning, attractiveness, design, usability. Based on the research results we have formulated some conclusions which could help in redesigning the CAL course in order to get higher quality outputs from students.
Good communication, correct use of scientific language, clarity of explanations and instructions ... more Good communication, correct use of scientific language, clarity of explanations and instructions are all important in an effective teaching/learning process. During frontal or group activity pupils have the opportunity to clarify with the teacher or with their peers the questions arisen from lack of clarity in communication. But as educational software is usually studied individually by each pupil, in this case it is more important that all the texts in these programs are clear and correct, as pupils many times don't have the opportunity to ask questions in case they don't understand something. The main goal of this research is to study the correctness of the language, the use of the scientific language and clarity of explanations and instructions in electronic lessons made by pre-service teachers. The research was carried out during Computer Assisted Learning (CAL) classes for students with Special Pedagogy and Psychology specialization. These students studied Pedagogy before this course and they have already planned and carried out lessons during their pedagogical practice. In CAL course students have been asked to choose a school discipline and a topic from this discipline's curriculum, and then develop a short electronic lesson for the chosen topic. The electronic lessons made by them were then analyzed based on a criteria system developed by the researchers. These criteria are focusing on the correctness of the language, the systematic use of the scientific language, the clearness of the explanations and task formulation, the comprehension processes which are evaluated with the questions. The results show that students make spelling and grammatical mistakes, but they are more careful with the scientific language; half of the questions evaluating only how pupils retrieve explicitly stated information; and there is a correlation between students correct language use and which process of comprehension they evaluate with the questions.
Computer Assisted Learning (CAL) is a core subject in pre-service teacher training. This course n... more Computer Assisted Learning (CAL) is a core subject in pre-service teacher training. This course not only teaches students how to choose adequate educational software and how to use it in the classroom, but also teach them how to design and develop simple educational software. As these teachers will teach in Hungarian schools, and in some school subjects there are only few educational sotfs in Hungarian, it is important that they know has to develop their own electronic lessons if they want to use CAL in their classroom. This research was carried out during CAL classes for students with Psychology, Special Pedagogy and Primary and Preschool Pedagogy specialization. During these classes students were asked to develop a short educational software using Microsoft Power Point. As they don't know any programming, I considered that Power Point can be used for this purpose even if the technological solutions are limited in this program. Interactivity can be assured using animations and ...
Good communication, correct use of scientific language, clarity of explanations and instructions ... more Good communication, correct use of scientific language, clarity of explanations and instructions are all important in an effective teaching/learning process. During frontal or group activity pupils have the opportunity to clarify with the teacher or with their peers the questions arisen from lack of clarity in communication. But as educational software is usually studied individually by each pupil, in this case it is more important that all the texts in these programs are clear and correct, as pupils many times don't have the opportunity to ask questions in case they don't understand something. The main goal of this research is to study the correctness of the language, the use of the scientific language and clarity of explanations and instructions in electronic lessons made by pre-service teachers. The research was carried out during Computer Assisted Learning (CAL) classes for students with Special Pedagogy and Psychology specialization. These students studied Pedagogy befo...
Developing problem solving is one of the main goals of school education. A self-regulated learner... more Developing problem solving is one of the main goals of school education. A self-regulated learner have more success in problem solving, as developing self-regulated learning skills should be an important goal of school education. A teacher, in order to be able to develop their pupils' self-regulated learning skills, should master these skills. Thus developing these skills should be an essential goal of teacher education. In this paper two important skills of a self-regulated learner are studied: control and help-seeking behavior during problem solving. The article presents a research on the influence of the cooperative problem solving strategies on students' self-control and self-monitoring during problem solving, and their help seeking strategies in case of unsuccessful problem solving. The results show that students' control decrease when using cooperative problem solving; cooperative problem solving helped students to realize the importance of asking for help when sol...
Developing problem solving competency is one of the most important goal of Mathematics teaching. ... more Developing problem solving competency is one of the most important goal of Mathematics teaching. This competency has to be developed starting from early school years. Thus, it is important that primary school teachers have a good problem-solving competency. The aim of this paper is to study pre-service primary school teachers' problem solving skills and their attitude towards mathematics. The results show that one third of the respondents like Mathematics although three quarters of them consider it useful for their future. Less than half of the students like to explain Mathematics and only one tenth of them like to compose mathematical problems. There is a quite strong positive correlation between students' attitude towards Mathematics and their problem solving skills. Students, who like Mathematics, who like to explain their solution to other and who don't like to solve more problems of the same type, have higher problems solving skills. The results show the necessity o...
Geometrical notions and properties occur in real-world problems, thus Geometry has an important p... more Geometrical notions and properties occur in real-world problems, thus Geometry has an important place in school Mathematics curricula. Primary school curricula lays the foundation of Geometry knowledge, pupils learn Geometry notions and properties by exploring their environment. Thus it is very important that primary school teachers have a good base in elementary Geometry. The aim of this paper is to present a research on how pre-service primary school teachers master elementary Geometry notions and properties related with some basic shapes and solids. The research shows that there are students, who can't recognize basic geometrical shapes or solids. Two third of the students can't define correctly basic geometrical shapes: they don't know the correct properties of the shapes; they know the properties of the shapes, but they repeat some properties in the definition or they miss some properties from the definition. As regarding geometrical solids, more than one third of t...
Self-regulated learning (SRL) skills are very important in problem solving. It is important to st... more Self-regulated learning (SRL) skills are very important in problem solving. It is important to strat to develop these skills from the first years of school. Thus, it is essential that primary school teachers master self-regulated learning skills and they know how to develop these skills in their pupils. In this article, we present the results of a research made among 31 primary school teachers regarding their self-regulated learning skills. The tool is a questionnaire developed specially for this purpose. This questionnaire has 19 questions, 16 items are related with the topic of the research and they are affirmations, which have to be evaluated by the respondents on a 5- point Likert scale: from 1- not at all typical for me to 5 - totally describes me. We have formulated the affirmations based on the theory of SRL. The results show that the respondents' problem analyzing and help-seeking skills are low, but their self-monitoring skills are good. When analyzing the problem, only...
Mental computation skills are important not only in everyday life, but also for the development o... more Mental computation skills are important not only in everyday life, but also for the development of different cognitive competencies. The most important period for the foundation of these skills are the early school years, thus primary school teachers have a decisive influence on this. Appropriate teaching methods for practicing mental computation have to be found and taught for future primary school teachers. One of these methods could be the use of board-games. The aim of this paper is to present a study about pre-service primary school teachers’ opinions on developing mental computation skills and the use of board-games for this purpose. Second year “Primary and preschool pedagogy” specialization students filled in a questionnaire developed by the researchers. Participants are from two different groups: Group 1 has experienced board-games for mental computation development during a mathematics course at the university, Group 2 hasn’t used any board-games due to online teaching as ...
th grade primary school textbooks from Romania. These textbooks are analyzed using two classifica... more th grade primary school textbooks from Romania. These textbooks are analyzed using two classifications. The first classification is based on how much creativity and problem solving skills pupils need to solve a given task. In this classification problems are gouped in three categories: routine problems, grayarea problems and puzzle-like (non-routine) problems. The results show that most of the problems from textbooks are routine-problems. Only about 15% of the problems are more difficult, which can be solved in few steps, but even these problems are not challenging. The second classification divide problems based on how the operation chain they have to solve is given: by numbers, by text or in a word problem. The results show that there are big differences in the percentage of problems from these three categories in different textbooks. In one of the studied textbook half of the problems are word problems, in the other one only one quarter.
Logical reasoning skills are important for a successful mathematical learning and in students’ fu... more Logical reasoning skills are important for a successful mathematical learning and in students’ future career. These skills are essential for a primary school teacher, because they need to explain solving methods and solutions to their pupils. In this research we studied pre-service primary school teachers’ logical reasoning skills. The results show that only one third of the students gave an argumentation for their answer: a very small percentage gave a complete, correct argumentation for the solution of the problem; one fifth of the students had an incomplete argumentation, missing important steps of the logical reasoning; and one tenth of the students made mistakes in their reasoning. These results highlight the importance of developing future primary school teachers’ logical reasoning skills.
Review of Science, Mathematics and ICT Education, 2014
Developing problem solving competence is one of the main goals of Mathematics Education. Self-reg... more Developing problem solving competence is one of the main goals of Mathematics Education. Self-regulated learning skills are important for success in problem solving. The aim of this paper is to present the results of a research about 10-11 years old pupils’ self-regulated learning and problem solving skills and the relation between these two skills. The results show that more than three quarters of 10-11 years old pupils like Mathematics, but only the half of them likes to solve non-routine problems. The positive attitude towards Mathematics is influenced by pupils’ positive experiences on solving problems and their beliefs in the utility of Mathematics in their future. Most of the pupils don’t give up if they can’t solve the problem, they go over the text again, they try to find similar worked examples, they ask for help. There is a mild correlation between pupils’ self-control and problem solving skills, a weak correlation between pupils’ attitude towards Mathematics and their pro...
Developing problem solving competency is one of the most important goal of Mathematics teaching. ... more Developing problem solving competency is one of the most important goal of Mathematics teaching. The aim of this paper is to study primary school pupils’ problem solving and reasoning skills. Pupils had to solve two logical problems (formulated as multiple-choice items) and they had to write down their argumentation. A quantitative (calculating the percentage of pupils selecting each choice) and a qualitative (analyzing pupils argumentations) analysis was done. The results show that pupils can’t write an acceptable argumentation, their logical reasoning is based mainly on guessing. The research underline the dangers of using multiple-choice items for evaluating problem solving skills: pupils could select the correct answer without solving correctly the problem.
Self-regulated learning skills are important in mathematical problem solving. The aim of the pape... more Self-regulated learning skills are important in mathematical problem solving. The aim of the paper is to present a research on how mathematics teachers guide their pupils' mathematical problem-solving activities in order to increase self-regulation. 62 teachers have filled in a questionnaire developed for this research. The results are show that more than two third of the teachers promote the methods of understanding the problem; develop pupils' self-efficacy and self-control. But only one third of the teachers ask pupils to use different strategies for solving a problem; ask students to explain the solution to their colleagues. In case of unsuccessful problem solving only one third of the respondents ask pupils to present previous knowledge about the problem or/and recall and try different methods.
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