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The integration of children's literature, specifically mathematical story picture books, in mathematics education has demonstrated significant benefits. Nevertheless, its actual implementation largely hinges on teachers' beliefs. This exploratory mixed-methods study examines the beliefs of 78 teachers regarding the integration of children's literature into mathematics teaching and learning, with a focus on identifying its barriers and enablers. Data were collected through an open-ended survey and semi-structured interviews and analyzed using thematic analysis framed by the concept of belief indication. The study identifies 15 barriers (across five themes) and 16 enablers (across six themes) that, teachers believe, affect their decisions to integrate children's literature into mathematics teaching and learning. This paper contextualizes the findings within the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), a framework from social psychology, to provide actionable recommendations and compare findings from studies conducted in Asian and Western countries. Ultimately, this research offers a broader understanding of teachers' behaviors and their receptiveness to educational reforms, such as the integration of children's literature, across diverse cultural and international settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study is part of the international survey studies on teachers' beliefs concerning the integration of children's literature in mathematics teaching and learning, and this paper reports the findings of the thematic analysis of open-ended survey responses elicited from 287 primary school teachers and teacher trainees in Taiwan. Using the seminal social psychology theory, the Theory of Planned Behaviour (Ajzen in Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 50, 179–211, 1991) to frame the findings, this study highlights 11 perceived barriers and 11 perceived enablers that are thought to influence the teachers' intention to integrate children's literature in their mathematics teaching. More specifically, we identified time constraint, lack of pedagogical knowledge and confidence, and resource constraint as being the most-cited perceived barriers, while pedagogical benefits, desire to improve teaching, and enabling social norms were identified as the top perceived enablers. Ultimately, this article offers several recommendations to address some of these key perceived barriers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Any effort to integrate problem-posing instruction in school mathematics must attend to teachers' beliefs about the advantages of teaching through problem posing and especially their beliefs about the challenges of teaching in this way. This study investigated teachers who were learning how to teach mathematics through problem posing. The primary foci were the teachers' beliefs about teaching through problem posing and their problem-posing performance. The findings demonstrate that the participating teachers were able to engage successfully in problem-posing tasks and that they held a number of different beliefs about the advantages and challenges of teaching through problem posing. After participating in three workshops, a sample of teachers showed gains in problem-posing performance and in the scope and specificity of their beliefs about teaching through problem posing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports the findings of a study that sought to identify particular centrally held beliefs of secondary mathematics teachers that underpinned the establishment of classroom environments that were consistent with the principles of constructivism. The nine crucial beliefs identified were held by one or other of two teachers and emerged from teacher and student surveys, interviews with the teachers and classroom observations. As is the case with all beliefs, these beliefs were contextually bound but since the contexts in which they applied were broader than particular classrooms it is argued that they may be generalisable to other contexts and even predictive of teachers likely to create similar classroom environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes to knowledge about principled action which makes a difference to learners’ attainment. We report on the Improving Attainment in Mathematics Project,1 a project focusing on low-attaining secondary students. The purpose of the project was to introduce innovations in practice through action research with 10 teachers over 2 years, and evaluate the effect on students’ learning using national test scores, teachers’ reports, non-routine tasks and other performance indicators. However, this is not a study which shows how certain methods lead to better results. While it was found that learning improved, the methods and strategies the teachers used were not always generalisable across the project, indeed some were contradictory. Continued searching led to the identification of common underlying principles of teaching which different teachers manifested in different ways. Overt methods were less important than the collection of beliefs and commitments which underpinned teachers’ choices. There was, however, a convergence of practice around a focus on long-term development, the process of becoming a learner of mathematics, rather than short-term gains. In addition, we had to deal with some of the realities of authentic collaborative research with practitioners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]