Moving mathematics out of the classroom: Using mobile technology to enhance spontaneous focusing on quantitative relations

Abstract

Spontaneous focusing on quantitative relations (SFOR) has been shown to be a strong predictor of rational number conceptual development in late primary school. The present study outlines an intervention program that examines the possibilities to enhance late primary school students' SFOR tendency. The intervention program harnessed mobile technology in order to allow students to explore and identify quantitative relations in their everyday environment, including situations outside of the classroom. A total of 38 thirteen‐year‐olds from two classrooms participated in the seven‐week long quasi‐experimental study. One classroom spent five lessons over five weeks participating in activities which involved uncovering, defining and describing multiplicative relations in their everyday surroundings. In comparison to a business‐as‐usual control group, results show the intervention to be successful in enhancing SFOR tendency. These results suggest that it is possible to utilize mobile technologies to enhance students' awareness of the possibilities to use quantitative relations as explicit targets of focusing and reasoning in nonexplicitly mathematical situations.

Young Children’s Early Mathematical Competencies: The Role of Mathematical Focusing Tendencies

“…The first steps have been taken in this direction. McMullen, Hannula-Sormunen, Kainulainen, Kiili, and Lehtinen (2017) found that a seven-week long intervention program in which sixth-graders used mobile technology to explore quantitative relations in their everyday life was successful. However, it still needs to be further explored under which conditions educational interventions to enhance SFOR may be profitable (McMullen, 2014, Vamvakoussi et al, 2016.…”

“…As mentioned above, and Mattinen (2006) showed that SFON tendency can be promoted by means of guided focusing activities in preschool and kindergarten settings, but these intervention studies have raised critical questions, both about the spontaneous nature of children's focus on numerosities after an intervention that is explicitly aimed at increasing children's SFON, and about the broader pedagogical question whether education should stimulate young children's tendency to attend primarily at the quantitative and mathematical dimension of their environmental world (Verschaffel et al, 2017). While some first steps in the direction of stimulating other spontaneous tendencies such as SFOR (e.g., see McMullen, Hannula-Sormunen, Kainulainen, et al, 2017)) have been taken, the same questions can arguably be asked for these other mathematical focusing tendencies.…”

An Interactive Pedagogy in Mobile Context for Augmenting Early Childhood Numeric Literacy and Quantifying Skills

“…Mobile learning techniques brought and promoted the potential of scaffolding information in a real-world context that allows learners to interact more actively with their learning content, anywhere and anytime (Bernacki et al., 2020; Devers & Panke, 2017; Domingo & Garganté, 2016; Falloon, 2017). Studies have shown that integrating the learning environment with real-time interaction and navigation-support of the learning content can enhance learners' understanding and motivation (Clarke, 2018; Ford, 2019; Jagušt et al., 2017; McMullen et al., 2019).…”

Mobile Technology Acceptance Scale for Learning Mathematics: Development, Validity, and Reliability Studies

“…Mobile devices' unprecedented capabilities and wide acceptance among young people can expand the boundaries of mathematics teaching and offer new ways to extend mathematical thinking beyond the classroom into the real world (McMullen, Hannula-Sormunen, Kainulainen, Kiili, & Lehtinen, 2017).…”