In the United States (US) and elsewhere across the world, undergraduate mathematics instructors are increasingly aware of the value of inquiry-based instruction. In this research commentary, we describe the intellectual origins and development of two major strands of inquiry in US higher education, offer an explanation for apparent differences in…

Challenging mathematics problems were posed as a substantial part of homework in an elective combinatorics course. The intent was to encourage undergraduate students' exploration as well as develop their technical writing skills. The bulk of students' grades on these problems rested on a three-page reflective write-up using a rubric on…

For several decades, literature on the history and pedagogy of mathematics has described how history of mathematics is beneficial for the teaching and learning of mathematics. We investigated the influence of a history and philosophy of mathematics (HPhM) course on students' progress through the lens of various competencies in mathematics (e.g.,…

Promoting student agency has been seen as the primary function for new generation assessment environments. In this paper, we introduce two models of self-assessment as a way to foster students' sense of agency. A socio-cultural framework was utilised to understand the interaction between student agency and self-assessment. Through a comparative…

The instrumental approach is a useful theoretical lens for understanding students' learning processes with a main focus on the transformation of an artefact (a human design for a goal-directed activity) into a meaningful instrument (i.e. an artefact and schemes developed by the student). In this paper, we articulate the instrumental approach for…

The purpose of the current study was to examine the preferred mobile learning features higher education Emirati students use to make sense of mathematics and to determine if these Emirati students valued a mobile device as an essential tool to learn mathematics. Both students and instructors used the Texas Instruments Nspire: Computer Algebra…

We report on a study focused on identifying how undergraduate students make use of the Internet as a source of help to solve their mathematical queries. In particular, with the help of monitoring software, we observe how a group of engineering students use the Internet to solve a mathematical task related to the concept of definite integral, and…

Improving student success rates in introductory calculus and physics courses is critically important for our students' path in STEM fields. Many of the students who have an intuitive understanding of physics fail calculus and are pushed to delay or drop their majors in technical fields. One way of addressing this issue is by adopting a program…

Using statistical software only or Excel only was not effective to increase the learning achievements of undergraduates. The research aimed to describe the effect of using Minitab and Excel with teaching teams toward the undergraduates' achievements of Advanced Statistics course. The research design was an experimental study. The research was…

The use of online student response systems (OSRSs) is increasing within tertiary education providers, however, research investigating their potential to enhance student engagement is limited. The aim of the current study was to examine the impact of an OSRS using an experimental crossover design. Quantitative data measuring student engagement was…

Due to low success of traditional, postsecondary remediation mathematics, The Maryland Mathematics Reform Initiative First in the World Grant (MMRI-FITW) sought to develop and implement a statistics pathway as an alternative to traditional algebra-based math, to accelerate developmental mathematics students' progress into credit-bearing…

Math anxiety refers to feelings people get when facing computational challenges. The fear of failure often causes people to avoid activities, like taking challenging mathematics courses or choosing majors that require mathematics. Grit describes how people persist or persevere in the wake of failure. This article looks at factors that contribute…

We investigate aspects of reform enacted in 66 class observations from 18 institutions collected as part of the National Study of University Calculus in the US. We examined four aspects related to how problems were solved in class: the extent of student involvement, the representations and technology used, and specific features of the problems…

Many researchers have stressed the embodied nature of mathematical understanding. Here we explore how embodied knowledge may evolve as students learn a basic calculus concept: the rate of change. We examined undergraduate students with different levels of calculus knowledge working in pairs to model the rate of change in an everyday phenomenon.…

The purpose of this study is to examine the characteristics of students' thinking about graphs while evaluating statements from Calculus. We conducted clinical interviews in which undergraduate students evaluated mathematical statements using graphs to explain their reasoning. We report our classification of students' thinking about aspects of…