Resume_Larina (Использование контекста повседневной жизни в обучении математике в основной школе международная перспектива)

NATIONAL RESEARCH UNIVERSITY HIGHER SCHOOL OF ECONOMICLarina GalinaTHE USE OF REAL-LIFE CONTEXT IN MATHEMATICS LESSONS ATSECONDARY SCHOOL LEVEL: AN INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVESummary of the PhD thesisAcademic supervisor:Moscow 2018Yulia A. TyumenevaPhDThe research was conducted in the Institute of Education in National researchUniversity Higher School of Economics.Journal publications:1. Tyumeneva, Y. A., Larina, G., Alexandrova, E., DeWolf, M., Bassok, M., Holyoak,K. Semantic Alignment Across Whole-Number Arithmetic and Rational Numbers:Evidence from a Russian Perspective // Thinking and Reasoning. – 2018. – Vol.

24. –No. 2. – P. 198-220.2. Larina, G. S. Analysis of Real-World Math Problems: Theoretical Model andClassroom Application // Educational Studies. – 2016. – Vol. 3. – P. 151-168.3. Larina, G. S. Real-World Math Problems in USE and BSE // Education and Society.– 2015. – Vol. 93. – No. 4. – P. 30-34.Other publication:1. Larina, G., Markina, V. M. Teachers’ beliefs about student diversity: exclusive andinclusive models // National research university Higher School of economics. SeriesWP BRP "Basic research program".

– 2017. – No. 43.2. Larina, G. S., Kuzmina, J.V. Whether the Russian education has become moreeffective over period of 8 years? (based on PISA) // Yasin, E. G. (Ed.). XIV AprilInternational academic Conference on Economic and Social Development: 4volumes.– Moscow: HSE Publishing House, 2014. – P. 565-574.Presentations at conferences:1. International conference “20 years of Russia’s participating in the internationalassessment on education quality” (Moscow, 24-25 November 2016).

Oralpresentation “Real-world math problems in the classroom”.2. XVII April International academic Conference on Economic and SocialDevelopment (Moscow, 19-22 April 2016). Oral presentations “Math teachers’beliefs and teaching practices towards new curriculum demands”.3. 60th Annual Conference of the Comparative and International Education Society(CIES) (Vancouver, Canada, 6-10 March 2016). Oral presentation “Math teachers'beliefs and practices towards new curriculum demands”.4. XV April International academic Conference on Economic and Social Development(Moscow, 1-4 April 2014). Oral presentation “Which teaching practices and schoolfactors are connected with knowledge transfer?”2Research ProblemThe use of a real-life context in school education could be a source of a wide rangeof opportunities both for deeper mastering of subject and for the developing cognitiveskills.

In a number of studies it has been shown that the use of a real-life context ineducation contributes to problem solving skills, helps students apply gained in classknowledge to real-life everyday life and increases their motivation for learning[Cognition and Technology ..., 1990; Boaler, 1993; Brenner, 1998; Chapman, 2006;Freudenthal, 1973; Gravemeijer, 1994; Pilot, Bulte, 2006].According to the large-scale international studies TIMSS1 and PISA2, Russianstudents demonstrate high results at subject mastery level, but they are much less able tocope with tasks embedded in non-mathematical settings. These results seem to be trueboth for mathematics and science.

To solve PISA tasks formulated in the context ofeveryday life, it is necessary to have the modeling skills - that is, to be able to build amathematical model of the proposed daily situation [PISA 2012 Assessment…, 2013].Thus, relatively lower students’ results in PISA compare to student’s results in TIMSSmay indicate, that students in Russia experience difficulties to apply gained in schoolknowledge in a real-life context.Such the gap in the students’ TIMSS and PISA results in Russia could be explainedwith the fact how math education is organized in Russia [Bolotov et al., 2012; Kasprzhakand others, 2005]. That is, it was shown that math teacher get insufficient methodologicalsupport for the use of real-life context in mathematics at school [Egurova, 2014;Tyumeneva et al., 2015].

Thus, it is important to explore how the work with a real-lifecontext is organized in secondary school in Russia.It is important to note that the problem identified on the TIMSS and PISA data isrelevant for several school disciplines such as chemistry, biology, physics andmathematics. However, this dissertation was focused on studying the use of context inteaching mathematics. Compared to other school disciplines, mathematics is closelyconnected with scientific and technological progress in the country and is considered as auniversal language of all natural sciences. In other words, mathematics is a science ofprincipal and fundamental concepts of the world, and "mathematical literacy is anindispensable element of culture, social, personal and professional competence " for allcitizens of Russia [Concept of development ..., 2013].

In addition, within the frameworkof school education, mathematics is considered to be of a principal importance forsuccessful mastering of other disciplines and is a unique tool of intellectual developmentof students [Kozlov, Kondakov, 2011].Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study – international assessment of students’knowledge at 4th and 8th grades. There are two domains in the focus of the study: mathematics andscience. Contextual data about the students, their parents, their teachers and their principals are collectedvia questionnaires.

https://timssandpirls.bc.edu2Programme for International Student Assessment – international assessment of 15-year-old students’literacy in three fields: reading, mathematics and science. Contextual data about the students and theirprincipals are collected via questionnaires. http://www.oecd.org/pisa/13Federal standard for education in secondary school emphasizes the growth of "avalue of mathematics and computer science in the daily life of a person".

That is, aperson should be able “to model real-life situations in the language of algebra, to studythe constructed models by using the algebra conceptions, to interpret the obtained results"and "to apply the concepts, results, methods for solving practical problems and problemsfrom related disciplines" .

The necessity to develop the abilities of students to use schoolknowledge in everyday life is emphasized in the "Fundamental core of the content ofgeneral education" as well [Kozlov, Kondakov, 2011]. Moreover, since 2013 the mathtest for the 9th grade students includes the module "Real-life mathematics", and arequirement to pass exam at the minimum level is to solve at least two tasks correctly.It should be noted, that this research is focused only on the use of real-life contexton the material of "Algebra" in the secondary school, since according to the results ofPISA 2012, Russian students has lowest achievement in the following three subject areas:Number, Uncertainty and Data.

The content of these areas corresponds to the sections"Algebra", "Functions", "Arithmetic" and "Probability and statistics", presented in thecourse "Algebra" (7th-9th grades in secondary school). Thus, while studying the issues ofusing real-life in education, a particular attention should be paid to the aspects of usingthe context in the course "Algebra".Literature ReviewThe variety of teaching practices towards real-life context, word problems andrelated to them effects for the students’ achievements are widely studied in the literature.The most widely these questions are considered within the framework of the theory ofsituational learning [Lave, 1988; Lave & Wenger, 1991; Greeno, Smith, & Moore, 1992],as well as in the context of the transfer of knowledge [Lehman, Nisbett, 1990; Gick andHolyoak, 1980; Bransford et al., 1999].

As concerns Russian literature, learning incontext is mainly considered within the framework of vocational education and highereducation [Verbitsky, 1991]. Recently, issues of the learning in a context is discussingwithin a competence-based approach to education [Verbitsky, 2016]. A large number ofworks have been devoted specifically to the use of real-life context in math education:V.V. Firsova, I.M. Shapiro, M.V. Egupova, J. Boaler, L. Verchaffel, E.

De Corte, as wellas dissertations, for example, L.E. Haimina, V.P. Kizilova, N.V. Reshetnikova.Following aspects of using a real-life context in education are studied: teachingpractices [Greeno et al., 1997; Lange, 1996; Boaler, 1993; Chapman, 2006] and teachers’beliefs [Meirink et al., 2009; Thompson, 1992; Stipek et al., 2001]. However, a littleattention has been paid to a connection between the way of working with a problems’context and a content of problem. Next, math teachers’ beliefs about the possibility to usea real-life context in education in Russia have not been explored yet.

Finally, the use of areal-life context in math education in Russia has not been considered from aninternational perspective. Thus, the small numbers of empirical studies devoted to thesequestions inspired the decision to explore this topic.4Objectives of the ResearchThe aim of the dissertation was to analyze the use of real-life context in teachingmathematics at secondary school level in Russian and to consider the results from aninternational perspective of using real-life context at school.

The study included thefollowing steps:1. Systematization of the main theoretical and empirical approaches to describepractices and strategies of using real-life context in mathematics lessons;2. Analysis of math teachers’ approaches towards real-world context in Russia;3. Examination of math teachers’ beliefs about role of real-life context in teachingmathematics at secondary school level4.