Helena Roos

The Influence of Assessment on Students’ Experiences of Mathematics

The empirical material and results presented in this paper come from an ongoing ethnography-inspired study of inclusion in mathematics as seen from a student perspective. This study did not initially focus on assessment, but when investigating what influences students’ experiences of school mathematics, assessment came out as a result. The research participants are not ordinary students, but students who need some degree of special education in mathematics, either as gifted or as low-performing students. For these students, traditional assessment in mathematics does not provide any relevant feedback to support them. On the whole, assessment primarily influences either how they write solutions to tasks, but not exactly how they solve them, or else how they feel about themselves as low performers in mathematics.

What is implied when researchers claim to use a theory

ABSTRACT The focus of this article is on the use of theories and on what we imply when we in research claim to use a theory. In this article, diverse uses of one theory will be illustrated with reference to 10 different studies. The aim is not to evaluate or judge how the theory is used in these studies, but to discuss how the diverse uses of one and the same theory may infer very different things in research. Questions are raised about what happens with the hierarchy and the coherence of an argument and what conclusions can be drawn when only some parts of a theory are used.

Session 3: Inclusive Education | If a Sprawling Teacher Education of Special Education Needs (SEN) is the Answer, What is the Question?

Teacher education of SEN looks different over the globe. This paper discusses the notion of SEN in the light of Swedish teacher education of SEN at Linnaeus University. An analysis of institutiona ...