Investigating students’ use of learning resources in mathematics: a comparative study of secondary schools in Shanghai and England

Abstract

This thesis investigates how secondary school students use learning resources in mathematics in Shanghai and England, compares the resource use between the two places, and examines what factors influence the resources use in the two contexts.

In this study, learning resources refer to the things presenting mathematics, which can be utilized by students in their learning of mathematics in school education, including five paper-based resources and three electronic resources. Originated from Vygotsky’s Activity Theory, resource use was constructed as activities incorporating those resources in the learning of mathematics. A conceptual framework was established based on Rezat and Sträßer’s socio-didactical tetrahedron to take into account contextual factors and to embody the relations between those components.
Quantitative approaches dominated the processes of data collection and analysis, which were triangulated and complemented by qualitative methods. Six research instruments, including student questionnaire, teacher questionnaire, parent questionnaire, student focus group interview, teacher one-to-one interview, and classroom observation, were designed and developed to collect data. The participants of this research involved 161 Shanghai seventh and eighth-grade students from three state-funded schools and 206 England year-seven and eight students from three maintained schools along with their mathematics teachers and parents.

The results revealed that Shanghai students relied heavily on paper-based resources and used them in various situations, had a strong sense of self-regulation behind their resource use, and thought highly of the helpfulness of learning resources in their learning of mathematics. While England students usually incorporated both paper-based and e-resources in mathematics learning, used the resources mainly depending on teachers’ instructions, and held a relatively critical view of the helpfulness of the resources. More differences than similarities were found between the two places and there existed some significant associations between the contextual factors and the resource use, which indicated that the constructed factors could explain students’ resource use and even the differences of resource use to a certain extent.

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ORCID for Keith Jones: orcid.org/0000-0003-3677-8802

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