Stanislaw Schukajlow, Pietro Di Martino
Jinfa Cai, Cristina Coppola, Tanya Evans, Irene Ferrando, María del Socorro García González, Chiara Giberti, Lara Gildehaus, Markku S. Hannula, Çiğdem Haser, Janina Krawitz, Roza Leikin, Stefanie Rach, Jeppe Skott, Karin Street, Lovisa Sumpter, Wim Van Dooren, Kai-Lin Yang
Students’ emotions, beliefs, motivations, values, and attitudes—summarized under the term affect—are widely recognized as crucial for learning mathematics, educational choices, and future life trajectories. Over the past decades, affect has become a well-established field of research in mathematics education, developing along multiple directions in terms of constructs, theoretical perspectives, and methodologies. This diversity makes dialogue among experienced researchers particularly timely and necessary.
This Research Forum will present current developments and future directions in research on affect in mathematics education. A first set of contributions will address overarching perspectives, including different approaches to the measurement of affect and dispositional, situational, and sociocultural perspectives. A second set will focus on perspectives embedded in key contexts, such as problem solving and posing, mathematical modelling and applications, and gender.
Given the strong tradition of affect research within the Finnish mathematics education community, Helsinki provides a particularly meaningful setting for this discussion. The forum will include audience discussion and invited commentary to foster exchange and advance research on affect.
Recommended reading
Aquilina, G., Di Martino, P., & Lisarelli, G. (2025). The construct of attitude in mathematics education research: current trends and new research challenges from a systematic literature review. ZDM – Mathematics Education, 57(4), 569–581.
Hannula, M. S. (2012). Exploring new dimensions of mathematics-related affect: embodied and social theories. Research in Mathematics Education, 14(2), 137–161.
Schukajlow, S., Rakoczy, K., & Pekrun, R. (2023). Emotions and motivation in mathematics education: Where we are today and where we need to go. ZDM – Mathematics Education, 55, 249–267.
Sara Bagossi, Myrto Karavakou, Claudine Margolis, Osama Swidan, Eugenia Taranto, Hang Wei
This Research Forum brings together multiple theoretical and design traditions in the study of covariational reasoning and examines how these perspectives can be put into productive dialogue through digital tools. Building on work that frames covariational reasoning through different theoretical lenses, we propose cross-synergy between digital tools as both a design and a cross-perspective unifying construct. We will present three synergistic redesigns (It takes two hands, Sketch to dance, Sketch, Check, and Revise for Integral) that combine digital tools and conceptualizations of covariation from prior research. Participants will engage in hands-on sessions to experience and discuss the three redesigns. The Research Forum will culminate in a discussion of what these redesigns reveal about covariational reasoning and how cross-synergy can guide future design and research on digital tools in mathematics education.
Recommended reading
Mariotti, M.A., & Montone, A. (2020). The Potential Synergy of Digital and Manipulative Artefacts. Digital Experiences in Mathematics Education, 6, 109-122.
Thompson, P. W., & Carlson, M. P. (2017). Variation, covariation, and functions: Foundational ways of thinking mathematically. In J. Cai (Ed.), Compendium for research in mathematics education, 421-456. National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.
Helena Rocha (coordinator), Eleonora Faggiano, Mariam Haspekian, Michal Tabach, Jana Trgalová, Hans-Georg Weigand
The integration of digital technology to promote mathematical learning remains challenging for teachers. The continuous difficulty in fully achieving technology’s potential highlights the need to further examine and develop models addressing teachers’ knowledge in relation to technology. In this Research Forum, we analyse existing technology-related knowledge models, exploring similarities and differences. We also consider how these models have been used in research, highlighting tensions driven by emerging technologies, and resulting extensions of the models. Finally, we discuss possible integrations across frameworks and the potential to include dimensions beyond knowledge. This discussion aims to deepen understanding of current models and suggest directions and a research agenda for future development. The RF also intends to be the starting point for a special issue on the topic.
Recommended reading
[1] a presentation of the KTMT model and its operationalization (access: via hyperlink)
Rocha, H. (2020).
[2] a brief presentation of the main models (TPACK, KTMT, PTK) and discussion of their characteristics as well as similarities across them, including the proposal of a Global Model, intending to integrate the three models (open access soon)
Rocha, H. (2025). Knowledge to teach Mathematics with technology: the Global Model. International Journal of Mathematical Education in Science and Technology, 56(8), 1494–1512.
[3] a systematic literature review on the topic (open access)
Gumiero, B. S., & Pazuch, V. (2024). Digital technologies and mathematics teaching: An analysis of teacher professional knowledge. Pedagogical Research, 9(2), em0200.
Pat Herbst, Susanne Prediger, Dor Abrahamson, Dan Chazan, Andrew Izsák, Felix Lensing, Vilma Mesa, Mitchell J. Nathan, and Gil Schwarts
Besides their role in practical problem solving, research fields aspire to advance human understanding by building knowledge. Mathematics education research often asserts its special contribution to human understanding on the grounds of its focus on mathematics in various education practices. This mathematical sensibility in the mathematics education research gaze can enable unique contributions to the larger field of educational research and the interdisciplinary table of educational policy-making. What exactly are these mathematical specificities in our contributions to knowledge building? The research forum asks: How is mathematics present in the pluralistic work that is done in our field? Clearly, school mathematics is present in the practices we study—as the tasks, topics, or courses of study research participants are occupied with. But some of the details of those particulars are to be forgotten when we make knowledge claims about those practices, while other particulars are likely to be taken as instances of abstractions that participate in the knowledge claims we seek to make. How do our knowledge claims about practice maintain a relationship with mathematics even if they rise above the particular mathematics of the practice being studied? This research forum explores various ways in which mathematics shapes the mathematics education research gaze, contributing to the clarification and development of knowledge building in our field.
Recommended reading
Herbst, P., Chazan, D., Crespo, S., Matthews, P. G., & Lichtenstein, E. K. (2022).
Herbst, P., Prediger, S., Abrahamson, D., Biza, I., Chazan, D., Izsák, A., Kollosche, D., Lensing, F., Lombard, N., Mesa, V., Nathan, M. J., & Schwarts, G. (2026).
Camilla Björklund, Angelika Kullberg, Hamsa Venkat, Brenda Lattimore, Corin Mathews, Helena Eriksson, Elena Polotskaia, Priska Sprenger
The Research Forum provides a comprehensive overview of contemporary research on young children’s learning of number structure in the teaching of foundational arithmetic. Number structure is, in this research, seen as the foundation for conceptually solid knowledge of numbers and operations. This topic has been undergoing substantial research in the last 10 years, represented in the RF by six invited research groups. The focus will be on the research outcomes: What are the theoretical underpinnings guiding the research, how is the research conducted, and what can the respective invited research group’s studies make claims of, to contribute to the field of knowledge?
Kullberg et al. present their research program focusing on implementing Variation Theory in early arithmetic teaching – changing young learners’ ways of experiencing numbers. Venkat et al. present the ongoing study about supporting educators’ focus on early number structure in an Irish pre-school intervention. Mathews elaborates on the role of structuring mathematics in postgraduate studies and research in South Africa. Eriksson et al. present a study of Grade 2 and 3 students’ ways of experiencing numbers – the positional system in a Learning Activity perspective and Polotskaia et al. contribute perspectives to relational quantitative thinking in early grades: Studies from Quebec. Finally, Sprenger et al. present effects of interventions for learning to perceive and use structures in sets from a play-based intervention in kindergarten.
Recommended reading
A key literary work for the research on number structure is Venkat et al.’s (2019) theoretical paper, which chisels out what mathematical structure entails regarding young learners. One example of an attempt to theorize what it means to learn the fundamental meanings of numbers in this way can be found in Björklund et al. (2021).
Björklund, C., Marton, F., & Kullberg, A. (2021). What is to be learnt? Critical aspects of elementary arithmetic skills. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 107(2), 261–284.
Venkat, H., Askew, M., Watson, A., & Mason, J. (2019). Architecture of mathematical structure. For the Learning of Mathematics, 39(1), 13–17.
Heather Lynn Johnson, Angelika Bikner-Ahsbahs (coordinators)
Jill Adler, Denner Dias Barros, Nicola Bretscher, Marianna Bosch, Alf Coles, Ana Carolina Faustino, Kate le Roux, Kevin Moore, Takeshi Miyakawa, Ayush Mukherjee, Armando Solares-Rojas, Thorsten Scheiner, Yusuke Shinno, Nathalie Sinclair, Chongyang Wang
Communicating about theories is an enduring academic practice in Mathematics Education Research (MER). This practice has been enriched by the use of various theories in research, through dialogues between theories or the networking of theories. Our Research Forum extends this ongoing debate by offering the dimensions of Foundation, Form, and Function (3F) as a framework to communicate with, within, and across theories. Variation Theory serves as a meta-theoretical perspective to guide the use of the 3F Framework. Six contemporary theoretical advancements in MER are discussed: (Re)Conceptualising Resources, The Documentational Approach to Didactics Across Cultures, A Dialogic Theory of Learning, Theorising a Role of Time in Covariation, Inclusive Materialism, and Socio-ecological Theorising. The 3F Framework provides guidance to compare and contrast theories, to explore convergence and divergence in theoretical dialogue, and to examine how and for what purposes theories are created. Just as our research decisions are not neutral, the 3F Framework offers a particular lens on theoretical working, which can shape discussions around theories as well as theory development itself. It can also spark theoretical inquiry to answer new kinds of research questions, including modifications to existing methodologies and the development of new methodologies.
Recommended reading
Bikner-Ahsbahs, A., & Johnson, H. L. (2026). Foundation, form, and function: the “3F” framework to dialogue within and across theories in mathematics education research. Frontiers in Education, 11.
Bosch, M., Scheiner, T., Johnson, H. L., Kageyama, K., & Vergel, R. (2025). Working with, within, and across theories in mathematics education. Hiroshima Journal of Mathematics Education, 18, 1–14.
Scheiner, T., & Bosch, M. (2025). Dialogues between theoretical approaches in mathematics education research: A systematic review. ZDM –Mathematics Education, 57(4), 711–725.