| 1. |
- Petersson, Jöran, et al.
(författare)
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To halve a fraction : An issue for second language learners
- 2017
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Ingår i: Education Inquiry. - : Informa UK Limited. - 2000-4508. ; 8:3, s. 173-191
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The present study investigated test responses from 259 immigrant and non-immigrant school year 9 students in Sweden with the focus on how they solved two problems on fractions, one of them halving a fraction, in a test. The authors report three observations. Newly arrived second language immigrants seemed less likely to have the word ‘half’ in their Swedish mathematical vocabulary. Moreover, second language learners with longer experience of the new language connected the word ‘half’ with a division by two, but showed mathematical difficulties in correctly applying it to a fraction. A third finding was that the longer the experiences with Swedish school mathematics, the more likely both first and second language learners were to erroneously omit the percentage symbol, when choosing to use percentage representation of the fraction given in the test problem. The authors suggest seeing newly and early arrived second language immigrants as meeting different challenges. The newly arrived second language immigrants may know some mathematical concepts better and Swedish language less. In contrast the opposite seems to hold for second language learners with longer experience of the language of instruction.
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| 2. |
- Petersson, Jöran, 1967-
(författare)
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Mathematics achievement of early and newly immigrated students in different topics of mathematics
- 2017
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis aims to explore the mathematics achievement of second language immigrants in compulsory school as they continue their schooling in Sweden. Specifically, the thesis aims to generate more knowledge about different sub-categories of second language students, namely newly arrived immigrants, early arrived immigrants and other second language students in compulsory school. The data in this thesis consists of students’ responses to test items and thus mainly contains mathematical symbols, essentially numbers in different representations, written by the students.Doing so, this thesis problematizes the concept of second language students in mathematics in two aspects. One aspect is to assess the first and second language students’ achievement in different mathematical content domains, instead of only assessing the total achievement. Another aspect is to see the second language students as different sub-categories of second language students.Papers I and II of this thesis found that the achievement difference between first and second language students is not homogeneous. Instead the achievement difference between first and second language students is larger for concepts that are rare in mathematics textbooks. Moreover, the achievement difference between first and second language students varies with the content domain. Another way to say this is that first and second language students have different achievement profiles.Papers III and IV of this thesis explored how sub-categories of second language students achieved on mathematics test items. Mathematics achievement studies on second language students often classify the second language students into a single category of students. Methodologically this imposes a concept of viewing second language students as homogeneous in proficiency in the language of instruction. This view is challenged in this thesis by dividing the second language students into newly arrived immigrants, early arrived immigrants and other second language students. These three sub-categories have different proficiency in Swedish language due to how long they have lived in Sweden. Papers III and IV found that these student categories both had different test achievement and, related to this, also used mathematical concept representations differently. In particular, the newly and early arrived immigrants seemed to experience on average different challenges during mathematics testing. The newly arrived students seemed more challenged with terminology but less with the mathematical content while the opposite seemed to hold for the early arrived students. An implication for teaching is that particularly early arrived second language children seem to be in urgent need of support in mathematical concept building from first day of schooling in the new country.
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| 3. |
- Norén, Eva, et al.
(författare)
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Algebra tasks in a word problem and non-word problem context – a multilingual project
- 2014
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Ingår i: Development of mathematics teaching: design, scale, effects. - Göteborg : Svensk förening för MatematikDidaktisk Forskning - SMDF. - 9789197393492
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Many students see algebra as a difficult topic. For second language speakers there might also be difficulties comprehending an algebra task linguistically correct. The authors suggest studying how knowledge in algebra and linguistic registers in mathematics interplay for both newly early arrived immigrants compared to first language speakers. We suggest the tools for such a study to be measuring achievement and solution strategy while varying the text intensity and mathematics register in algebra problems for students with different length of experience of Swedish language in school year 9. We want to discuss design of test instrument and methods for background data collection.
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| 4. |
- Norén, Eva, 1957-, et al.
(författare)
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Newly arrived students in mathematics classrooms in Sweden
- 2015
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Ingår i: Proceedings of the Ninth Congress of the European Society for Researchin Mathematics Education. ; , s. 1630-1636
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- In this paper we discuss how newly arrived students experience, and perform in, school mathematics. There is little research on immigrant students' initial time in Swedish school, and it is methodologically underdeveloped. Our own research will be revisited, and we give an account of the methodologies we have developed. We look for analytical tools using both qualitatively as well as quantitatively, to interpret classroom interaction, social practises, individual performance and achievement. Our attention to diversity and equity issues includes avoiding deficit discourses explaining both success and failure in school mathematics, in relation to backgrounds, language and culture.
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