Tina Besley has edited this collection which examines and critiques the ways that different countries, particularly Commonwealth and European states, assess the quality of educational research in publicly funded higher education institutions. Such assessment often ranks universities, departments and even individual academics, and plays an important role in determining the allocation of funding to support university research.

This book records the state of the art in research on mathematics-related affect. It discusses the concepts and theories of mathematics-related affect along the lines of three dimensions. The first dimension identifies three broad categories of affect: motivation, emotions, and beliefs. The book contains one chapter on motivation, including discussions on how emotions and beliefs relate to motivation. There are two chapters that focus on beliefs and a chapter on attitude which cross-cuts through all these categories. The second dimension covers a rapidly fluctuating state to a more stable trait. All chapters in the book focus on trait-type affect and the chapter on motivation discusses both these dimensions. The third dimension regards the three main levels of theorizing: physiological (embodied), psychological (individual) and social. All chapters reflect that mathematics-related affect has mainly been studied using psychological theories.

This book focuses on aspects of mathematical beliefs, from a variety of different perspectives. Current knowledge of the field is synthesized and existing boundaries are extended. The volume is intended for researchers in the field, as well as for mathematics educators teaching the next generation of students.

The Language of Mathematics Education: An Expanded Glossary of Key Terms and Concepts in Mathematics Teaching and Learning offers mathematics teachers, mathematics education professionals and students a valuable resource in which common terms are defined and expounded upon in short essay format. The shared vocabulary and terminology relating to mathematics teaching and learning, and used by mathematics educators is an essential component of work conducted in the field. The authors provide an overview of more than 100 terms commonly used in mathematics teaching and learning. Each term is defined and is followed by a short overview of the concept under discussion that includes several bibliographic references the reader can use for further investigation. In addition to terms specific to the domain of mathematics education, select key terms common across all fields of education (e.g., curriculum, epistemology, metacognition) are included. The goal for this book is to serve as a resource for those entering the field as they navigate the language and terminology of mathematics education and as an asset for more established professionals who wish to gain additional insights into these ideas.

This contributed volume is an exciting product of the 22nd MAVI conference, which presents cutting-edge research on affective issues in teaching and learning math. The teaching and learning of mathematics is highly dependent on students’ and teachers’ values, attitudes, feelings, beliefs and motivations towards mathematics and mathematics education. These peer-reviewed contributions provide critical insights through their theoretically and methodologically diverse analyses of relevant issues related to affective factors in teaching and learning math and offer new tools and strategies by which to evaluate affective factors in students’ and teachers’ mathematical activities in the classroom. Among the topics discussed: The relationship between proxies for learning and mathematically related beliefs. Teaching for entrepreneurial and mathematical competences. Prospective teachers’ conceptions of the concepts mean, median, and mode. Prospective teachers’ approach to reasoning and proof The impact of assessment on students’ experiences of mathematics. Through its thematic connections to teacher education, professional development, assessment, entrepreneurial competences, and reasoning and proof, Students' and Teachers' Values, Attitudes, Feelings and Beliefs in Mathematics Classrooms proves to be a valuable resource for educators, practitioners, and students for applications at primary, secondary, and university levels.

This book connects seminal work in affect research and moves forward to provide a developing perspective on affect as the “decisive variable” of the mathematics classroom. In particular, the book contributes and investigates new conceptual frameworks and new methodological ‘tools’ in affect research and introduces the new field of ‘collectives’ to explore affect systems in diverse settings. Investigated by internationally renowned scholars, the book is build up in three dimensions. The first part of the book provides an overview of selected theoretical frames - theoretical lenses - to study the mosaic of relationships and interactions in the field of affect. In the second part the theory is enriched by empirical research studies and provides relevant findings in terms of developing deeper understandings of individuals’ and collectives’ affective systems in mathematics education. Here pupil and teacher beliefs and affect systems are examined more closely. The final part investigates the methodological tools used and needed in affect research. How can the different methodological designs contribute data which help us to develop better understandings of teachers’ and pupils’ affect systems for teaching and learning mathematics and in which ways are knowledge and affect related?

Critical Issues in Mathematics Education presents the significant contributions of Professor Alan Bishop within the mathematics education research community. Six critical issues, each of which have had paramount importance in the development of mathematics education research, are reviewed and include a discussion of current developments in each area. Teacher decision making, spatial/visualizing geometry, teachers and research, cultural/social aspects of mathematics education, sociopolitical issues, and values serve as the basic issues discussed in this examination of mathematics education over the last fifty years during which Professor Bishop has been active in the field. A comprehensive discussion of each of these topics is realized by offering the reader a classic research contribution of Professor Bishop’s together with commentary and invited chapters from leading experts in the field of mathematics education. Critical Issues in Mathematics Education will make an invaluable contribution to the ongoing reflection of mathematic education researchers worldwide, but also to policy makers and teacher educators who wish to understand some of the key issues with which mathematics education has been and still is concerned, and the context within which Professor Bishop’s key contributions to these research issues were made.

Sponsored by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and written by leading experts in the field of mathematics education, the Handbook is specifically designed to make important, vital scholarship accessible to mathematics education professors, graduate students, educational researchers, staff development directors, curriculum supervisors, and teachers. The Handbook provides a framework for understanding the evolution of the mathematics education research field against the backdrop of well-established conceptual, historical, theoretical, and methodological perspectives. It is an indispensable working tool for everyone interested in pursuing research in mathematics education as the references for each of the Handbook's twenty-nine chapters are complete resources for both current and past work in that particular area.

The book is made up of 21 chapters from 25 presentations at the 23rd MAVI conference in Essen, which featured Alan Schoenfeld as keynote speaker. Of major interest to MAVI participants is the relationship between teachers’ professed beliefs and classroom practice. The first section is dedicated to classroom practices and beliefs regarding those practices, taking a look at prospective or practicing teachers’ views of different practices such as decision-making, the roles of explanations, problem-solving, patterning, and the use of play. The focus of the second section in this book deals with teacher change, which is notoriously difficult, even when the teachers themselves are interested in changing their practice. The third section of this book centers on the undercurrents of teaching and learning mathematics, what rises in various situations, causing tensions and inconsistencies. The last section of this book takes a look at emerging themes in affect-related research. In this section, papers discuss attitudes towards assessment.

Today, as globalisation becomes the norm and the need for development and progress ever more pressing, education and literacy have become crucial, more than ever before. However, even as developed nations continue to seek new alternatives to constantly improve their educational processes and objectives, developing nations have yet to tackle the problem of illiteracy. This book in the literacy and education provide a discourse on the need for literacy for every human being, with particular reference to developing nations. The emphasis is on delineating the interdependent relationship between literacy and education, stress also being laid on the need for literacy to settle in as the base for education. It also makes an effort to delvelop deep into globally changing socio-economic-political changes and ambitions, and the changing perspectives a literacy which has emerged as a result of these changes. The book deals in details about various developments that have taken place and also highlights future plans. The author hope students of social sciences and general studies would find the book of great value to them.