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This study combines theories related to collective learning and theories related to mathematical creativity to investigate the notion of collective mathematical creativity in elementary school classrooms. Collective learning takes place when mathematical ideas and actions, initially stemming from an individual, are built upon and reworked, producing a solution which is the product of the collective. Referring to characteristics of individual mathematical creativity, such as fluency, flexibility, and originality, this paper examines the possibility that collective mathematical creativity may be similarly characterized. The paper also explores the role of the teacher in fostering collective mathematical creativity and the possible relationship between individual and collective mathematical creativity. Many studies have investigated ways of characterizing, identifying, and promoting mathematical creativity. Haylock (1997), for example, and more recently, Kwon, Park, and Park (2006) assessed students' mathematical creativity by employing open-ended problems and measuring divergent thinking skills. Leikin (2009) explored the use of multiple solution tasks in evaluating a student's mathematical creativity. These studies focused on an individual's mathematical creativity as it manifests itself in the solving of various problems. Yet students, acting in a classroom community, do not necessarily act on their own. Ideas are interchanged, evaluated, and built-upon, often with the guidance of the teacher. The resultant mathematical creativity of an individual may be a product of collective community practice. The question which then arises is: Who is being mathematically creative, the individual or the community? This study focuses on the collective, not as the aggregation of a few individuals, but as a unit of study. Although some of the studies mentioned above acknowledged the effect of classroom culture on the development of mathematical creativity, and others considered the creative range of a group of students, those studies did not necessarily investigate mathematical creativity as a collective process or as the product of participating in a collective endeavour. This study combines theories related to collective learning and theories related to mathematical creativity to investigate the notion of "collective mathematical creativity". The notion of collective creativity has been used to investigate creativity in several contexts including the work place (Hargadon & Bechky, 2006) and the global community (Family, 2003). In those cases, collective creativity was considered to occur when the social interactions between individuals yielded new interpretations that the individuals involved, thinking alone, could not have generated. Can the notion of collective creativity also be applied to the classroom community?

English is an international language used all over the world. Mathematics is the language of sciences but it is also a language used in everyday life. Although both are perceived as languages, mathematics and English are considered as two completely distinct disciplines. In this paper we first discuss English and mathematics as languages. Then we present interviews conducted with five mathematics and English teachers in order to explore their views regarding issues of language features, ways of teaching and issues of anxiety and collaboration between English and mathematics teachers. The interviews suggest some communalities in the way English and mathematics teachers relate to the two languages. The connection between the two disciplines seems to challenge teachers' thinking about their teaching.

There has been a broad wave of change in tertiary calculus courses in the past decade. However, the much-needed change in tertiary pre-calculus programmes--aimed at bridging the gap between high-school mathematics and tertiary mathematics--is happening at a far slower pace. Following a discussion on the nature of the gap and the objectives of a potential bridging programme, this paper aims at demonstrating that the gap can be bridged, by presenting an ongoing modular bridging programme especially designed for the diverse types of student populations in teachers training colleges. We also present here some innovative teaching and assessment methods that were judged essential for the success of these programmes--focusing mainly on the "Questionnaire Based Instruction Method". Finally we suggest directions of follow up and research.

Many students have difficulties with basic algebraic concepts at high school and at university. In this paper two levels of algebraic structure sense are defined: for high school algebra and for university algebra. We suggest that high school algebra structure sense components are sub-components of some university algebra structure sense components, and that several components of university algebra structure sense are analogies of high school algebra structure sense components. We present a theoretical argument for these hypotheses, with some examples. We recommend emphasizing structure sense in high school algebra in the hope of easing students' paths in university algebra. (Contains 2 footnotes and 1 table.)

In the present paper, we study the shifted hypergeometric function f(z)=z_{2}F_{1}(a,b;c;z) for real parameters with 0

Student motivation has emerged as a major issue in mathematics education in recent years. Utilizing the capabilities of contemporary technology and the accessibility of a STEM environment is crucial for the creation and application of educational materials. Integration of the created resources will increase the interest of students to pursue in-depth studies of science and math. In this paper are presented the results of the conducted study on the effectiveness of using problem-based learning (PBL) modules to learn mathematics. The study was carried out in Israel with the participation of teachers and ninth graders. As part of our research, we created a novel program and conducted an experimental study, evaluated its impacts on the designated target groups, and analyzed how the program affected student subgroups. Pre- and post-program questionnaires measured ability feeling, relevance perception, and motivation. The results of the analysis of the students indicate a considerable rise in the motivating factors associated with self-esteem and the utility of mathematics training. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers studying changes in teachers' perspectives regarding the teaching of mathematically talented students learning in heterogeneous classes. We investigate these changes through a case study of Rona, a teacher who participated in the professional development program "From One End to the Other" held in The David Yellin College of Education, Israel. The analysis focuses on 3 categories of change: awareness, practice, and self-efficacy. The results concerning Rona, 1 of the participants, demonstrate a rise in awareness of talented students, a change in the ways of meeting the needs of these students, and a rise in self-efficacy regarding the teaching of talented students. Moreover, it was found that changes in 1 category are interwoven with changes in the other categories.

To what extent can instructional design be based on principles for instilling a culture of problem solving and conceptual learning? This is the main focus of the study described in this paper, in which third grade students participated in a one-year course designed to foster problem solving and mathematical reasoning. The design relied on five principles: (a) encouragement to produce multiple solutions; (b) creating collaborative situations; (c) socio-cognitive conflicts; (d) providing tools for checking hypotheses; and (e) inviting students to reflect on solutions. We describe how a problem solving task designed according to the above principles, promoted students' understanding of the area concept. We show that the design afforded the surfacing of multiple solutions and justifications in various modalities (including gestures) and initiated peer argumentation, leading to deep learning of the area concept.

This paper discusses the attempts of Israeli education, in a similar fashion to other national educational systems, to shape a territorial identity for the pupils of the new State. The Israeli school used a variety of educational means to shape a person who would be modelled on his new birthplace's landscape, including the use of textbooks, illustrations, and maps, to aid in the process of creating a desired image of the homeland's landscape. The hidden curriculum used textbooks employing mathematics questions to learn details about the geographical expanse. Alongside the use of a written curriculum, Israeli education made use of the extra curriculum by becoming physically familiar with a place and creating a local time based on the seasons of the year. Local nature was studied during "moledet" (homeland) lessons, similar to the Weimar Republic of Germany's Heimatkunde studies, as well as during other subjects, such as nature studies and Bible. These studies integrated national goals and progressive humanistic educational schools of thought which viewed a child's encounter with nature as a vital part of his or her education. The readers, which were built on a timeline of the seasons and the school celebrating nature festivals, created a natural time frame for the pupils in which they acted and studied. The discussion about the ways territorial identity was structured by the Israeli education system is another chapter in the wider debate about national education and illustrates the schools' function as one of the State's national social agents, particularly in its early years. (Contains 1 figure and 79 footnotes.)

The implementation of a new computer science (CS) curriculum in high schools which includes all the basic elements of traditional CS programs, motivated a research to determine how students conceive the very fundamental notion of efficiency. Since this was the first time that algorithm efficiency was integrated into a high school curriculum, our study was crucial for further implementation of the program. This paper describes a study that revealed misconceptions in perceiving the efficiency of algorithms by high school students. We discuss the results, provide some indication of the roots of these misconceptions, suggest ways to prevent them, and recommend further research.

Realizing the importance of teaching efficiency at early stages of the program of study in computer science (CS) on one hand, and the difficulties encountered when introducing this concept on the other, we advocate a different didactic approach in the introductory CS course (CS1). This paper describes the approach as it is used at the Open University of Israel (OUI). The OUI, a distance teaching institution with no prior educational requirements, runs a full-fledged CS program. Because of its open door policy, the dropout rate, especially in introductory courses, as well as the percentage of failures, is very high. Using the new approach has raised the percentage of students who pass the course. The new approach advocates integrating three-part questions which ask not only to identify the algorithmic problem that a given algorithm solves and to analyze its complexity, but also to design a new algorithm that performs the same task, while increasing efficiency by an order of magnitude, not only by a constant factor. The research we conducted to examine the implications of using this approach is described here. (Contains 1 table and 1 figure.)

We provide an elementary proof of a result by V. P. Fonf and C. Zanco on point-finite coverings of separable Hilbert spaces. Indeed, by using a variation of the famous argument introduced by J. Lindenstrauss and R. R. Phelps [Israel J. Math. 6 (1968), pp. 39–48] to prove that the unit ball of a reflexive infinite-dimensional Banach space has uncountably many extreme points, we prove the following result. Let X be an infinite-dimensional Hilbert space satisfying dens(X)< 2ℵ0, then X does not admit point-finite coverings by open or closed balls, each of positive radius. In the second part of the paper, we follow the argument introduced by V. P. Fonf, M. Levin, and C. Zanco in [J. Geom. Anal. 24 (2014), pp. 1891–1897] to prove that the previous result holds also in infinite-dimensional Banach spaces that are both uniformly rotund and uniformly smooth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Facilitators of professional development (PD) for mathematics teachers currently gain increasing attention, as their practices are crucial for the success of spreading mathematics educational ideas and innovations into schools and strengthening the professional expertise of teachers. So far, mainly two components of facilitation have been empirically researched: facilitators' knowledge resources and facilitation moves. In this paper, we propose to develop a more comprehensive conceptual framework in order to explain facilitators' practices and underlying decisions. For this purpose, we lift Schoenfeld's ROG framework for teachers' decision-making (comprising resources, orientations, and goals) to the facilitator level, and add identity as a fourth component to obtain what we call the ROGI framework. We draw on data collected simultaneously in two PD projects for mathematics teachers in Germany and in Israel. Through three cases of facilitation, we illustrate how the adapted ROGI framework helps to understand processes of decision-making made by facilitators during mathematics professional development sessions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Waist inequality is a fundamental inequality in geometry and topology. We apply it to the study of entropy and mean dimension of dynamical systems. We consider equivariant continuous maps \pi : (X, T) \to (Y, S) between dynamical systems and assume that the mean dimension of the domain (X, T) is larger than the mean dimension of the target (Y, S). We exhibit several situations for which the maps \pi necessarily have positive conditional metric mean dimension. This study has interesting consequences to the theory of topological conditional entropy. In particular it sheds new light on a celebrated result of Lindenstrauss and Weiss [Israel J. Math. 115 (2000), pp. 1–24] about minimal dynamical systems non-embeddable in [0,1]^{\mathbb {Z}}. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This group discussion concerning a proposed special Israeli high school for gifted students covers curriculum content and organization, identification of potential students, and students' educational needs. (KM)

In this paper I explore the question of what counts as successful implementation of a mathematics professional development (PD) project at scale. Two kinds of upscale are presented and differentiated from one another: upscale of settings and upscale of values, and the link between this differentiation and how success may be defined is discussed. As part of the discussion, three models of taking a PD project to scale are described, namely replication, adaptation and reproduction, and these are tied to the degree of professional autonomy of teachers within the PD. The examination of these ideas draws on data from two PD projects for secondary mathematics teachers in Israel, that are now years after their pilot phase and still being implemented. The first project is aimed at supporting mathematics teachers in teaching mathematically at-risk students and in helping these students to succeed in high-stakes exams. The second project is aimed at enhancing mathematics teachers' reflection on their teaching practices, using classroom video as a tool. Both projects were implemented at scale across Israel, and reviewing results from these implementations enables some general insights to be gained regarding the success of scaled-up PD projects. The crucial role of PD facilitators in successful implementations is highlighted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many physics learners take the specific mathematical representations they are using as part of their learning and doing physics for granted. The paper addresses this problem by highlighting two goals. The first is to show how a historical investigation from history of science can be transformed into a concrete lesson plan in physics, in a physics teacher education program. The second is to explore the role of mathematical representations in scientific inquiry and discuss the educational affordances of historical case studies in explicating this role in preservice and in-service physics teacher education. The historical artifact that formed the basis of the lesson is a page cataloged as "folio 116v" that contains Galileo's authentic laboratory notes and calculations written at the time he made his revolutionary discoveries on freely falling objects and projectile motion. To understand and reproduce Galileo's authentic notes, students must first become explicitly aware that the mathematical tools and representations available in his time were radically different from the tools and representations available to physics learners now. The activity thus sparked discussions and reflections on the meanings and implications of mathematical representations in learning and doing physics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a crisis of many years in Israel in the subject of mathematics learning. In the last PISA tests, conducted by the OECD during the last ten years, Israel is placed 39-41 among all the countries participated the research. It was also found that all the years Israel "won" to be one of the first three countries with the highest grade distribution among all the countries and economic entities participating in general and among OECD countries in particular. In addition, it was found that rate of Israeli students who fail the mathematics test is one of the highest in the organization countries. The goal of this research is comparing students' achievements in the Israeli education system and in the Finnish education system, which is considered a system with excellent achievements in mathematics and low-grade distribution rate in general and in mathematics grades in particular. This comparison is aimed to identify the Israeli education system's problems and learn the lessons to improve it. This article discusses the question what is the main success factor in mathematics in Israel compared to Finland according to the 2015 PISA test results and what can be learned from this difference? In this paper I have based on my research findings in which I analyzed the correlation between the PISA questionnaires and student achievement in mathematics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines bounds on upper tails for cycle counts in Gn,p. For a fixed graph H define ξH =ξn,p H to be the number of copies of H in Gn,p. It is a much studied and surprisingly difficult problem to understand the upper tail of the distribution of ξH, for example, to estimate P(ξH). The best known result for general H and p is due to Janson, Oleszkiewicz, and Ruciński [Israel J. Math., 142 (2004), pp. 61--92], who proved that exp[ OH). The best known result for general H and p is due to Janson, Oleszkiewicz, and Ruciński [Israel J. Math., 142 (2004), pp. 61--92], who proved that exp[ OH,η (MH(n, p) ln(1/p))] < P(ξH > (1 + η )EξH) < exp[-Ω H,η (MH(n, p))]. Thus they determined the upper tail up to a factor of ln(1/p) in the exponent. There has since been substantial work to improve these bounds for particular H and p. We close the ln(1/p) gap for cycles, up to a constant in the exponent. Here the lower bound stated above is accurate for l-cycles when p > ln¹/(l-2)n/n. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores several data mining and time series analysis methods for predicting the magnitude of the largest seismic event in the next year based on the previously recorded seismic events in the same region. The methods are evaluated on a catalog of 9,042 earthquake events, which took place between 01/01/1983 and 31/12/2010 in the area of Israel and its neighboring countries. The data was obtained from the Geophysical Institute of Israel. Each earthquake record in the catalog is associated with one of 33 seismic regions. The data was cleaned by removing foreshocks and aftershocks. In our study, we have focused on ten most active regions, which account for more than 80% of the total number of earthquakes in the area. The goal is to predict whether the maximum earthquake magnitude in the following year will exceed the median of maximum yearly magnitudes in the same region. Since the analyzed catalog includes only 28 years of complete data, the last five annual records of each region (referring to the years 2006–2010) are kept for testing while using the previous annual records for training. The predictive features are based on the Gutenberg-Richter Ratio as well as on some new seismic indicators based on the moving averages of the number of earthquakes in each area. The new predictive features prove to be much more useful than the indicators traditionally used in the earthquake prediction literature. The most accurate result (AUC = 0.698) is reached by the Multi-Objective Info-Fuzzy Network (M-IFN) algorithm, which takes into account the association between two target variables: the number of earthquakes and the maximum earthquake magnitude during the same year. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports an attempt to improve results in the mathematics course in one of the architecture colleges in Israel through practise in applications. The effect of integrating structure design problems in the calculus curriculum on students' achievements and attitudes was examined. The applied topics in the curriculum were connected to calculus topics and studied through problembased learning activities. The integrated curriculum was implemented and the learning results in experimental and control groups were assessed by means of achievement tests, attitude questionnaires and student interviews. The learning achievements in the experimental group proved to be significantly higher than in the control group. The positive impact of learning applications on motivation, understanding, creativity and interest in mathematics is indicated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the early 1980s, Erdős and Sós initiated the study of the classical Turán problem with a uniformity condition: the uniform Turán density of a hypergraph H is the infimum over all d for which any sufficiently large hypergraph with the property that all its linear-size subhypergraphs have density at least d contains H. In particular, they raise the questions of determining the uniform Turán densities of K_4^{(3)-} and K_4^{(3)}. The former question was solved only recently by Glebov, Král', and Volec [Israel J. Math. 211 (2016), pp. 349–366] and Reiher, Rödl, and Schacht [J. Eur. Math. Soc. 20 (2018), pp. 1139–1159], while the latter still remains open for almost 40 years. In addition to K_4^{(3)-}, the only 3-uniform hypergraphs whose uniform Turán density is known are those with zero uniform Turán density classified by Reiher, Rödl and Schacht [J. London Math. Soc. 97 (2018), pp. 77–97] and a specific family with uniform Turán density equal to 1/27. We develop new tools for embedding hypergraphs in host hypergraphs with positive uniform density and apply them to completely determine the uniform Turán density of a fundamental family of 3-uniform hypergraphs, namely tight cycles C_\ell ^{(3)}. The uniform Turán density of C_\ell ^{(3)}, \ell \ge 5, is equal to 4/27 if \ell is not divisible by three, and is equal to zero otherwise. The case \ell =5 resolves a problem suggested by Reiher. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of the intervention with teaching applications of mathematics in other disciplines on teachers' attitudes towards teaching applications of mathematics. The research was conducted in the 2021-2022 school year in Israel and a two-groups pretest- posttest quasi-experimental research design was used. The participants were four classes (two of them are 11th grades and two are 12th grades) with four teachers at Al-Bukhari High School in Arraba city in northern Israel. The research instruments were three interview guides. The first interview was conducted before the intervention with all the 4 teachers and it contained 16 questions about their attitudes toward teaching mathematics and applications of mathematics. The second and third interview was similar and it was conducted during respectively after the intervention with the teachers in the experimental group. These interviews contained 5 questions related to teaching applications of mathematics in other disciplines. The results of the study showed that teaching applications of mathematics in other disciplines has a positive effect on teachers. Before the intervention, the teachers taught using the standard method, and they rarely taught applications. The teachers were not qualified enough to teach applications of mathematics and were not aware of the advantages of teaching applications of mathematics. By the intervention teachers were exposed to the inclusion of applications in teaching mathematics, and their attitudes towards teaching applications of mathematics improved and their level of confidence to teach applications increased significantly (increased from 7 to 9 on a scale from 1 to 10). That means, the intervention helped the teachers to teach the applications of mathematics successfully and with self-confidence. Furthermore, despite the difficulties and the obstacles in teaching applications of mathematics in other disciplines, teachers liked to teach the applications of mathematics and were satisfied with the results and the change among the students. They reported that they would implement the teaching applications of mathematics in other disciplines in all classes that they teach and would recommend it to their fellow teachers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In light of the recent interest in mathematical competencies and the ways in which students communicate their ideas, this study aims to explore how undergraduate students communicate their ideas about mathematical tasks through written texts. Forty-three first-year undergraduate students participated in this study. They were given a graph of a function and tangent line and were asked to estimate the value of the derivative at the tangent point justifying their answer. We analyzed the justification of students to the given task by referring to the cooperative principle and to the Anthropological Theory of the Didactic. For the former, we employed the four Grice maxims: Quantity, Quality, Relation and Manner. For the latter, we employed the main components of praxeologies: the type of task, the technique needed to solve the task, the technology as knowledge needed to explain the technique, and a theory as basis to justify the technology. A model of the students' communication about mathematical ideas emerges and is described with reference to data analysis. The model sheds light on the relationship between the discourse of a student solving a mathematical task and how she performs the related problem-solving activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using techniques developed by Kanigowski, Lemańczyk, and Radziwiłł [Fund. Math. 255 (2021), pp. 309–336], we verify Sarnak's conjecture for two classes of rank-one subshifts with unbounded cutting parameters. The first class of rank-one subshifts we consider is called almost complete congruency classes (accc), the definition of which is motivated by the main result of Foreman, Gao, Hill, Silva, and Weiss [Isr. J. Math., To appear], which implies that when a rank-one subshift carries a unique nonatomic invariant probability measure, it is accc if it is measure-theoretically isomorphic to an odometer. The second class we consider consists of Katok's map and its generalizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We prove that the ideal of nowhere Ramsey sets is Tukey reducible to each of the finite-dimensional Silver null ideals. This is in line with an earlier result of the author [Israel J. Math. 211 (2016), pp. 473–480] that the meager ideal is Tukey reducible to the Silver null ideal, and it answers two questions asked by Spinas and Wohofsky [Fund. Math. 254 (2021), pp. 261–303]. We also show that if the homogeneity number \mathfrak {hm} equals 2^{\aleph _0}, then the additivity of the Marczewski ideal is below the \sigma-splitting number \mathfrak {s_\sigma }. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For many years in several countries there has been gender inequality in mathematics achievement, and girls are less likely to study and specialize in precise sciences. A primary explanation for these gender differences is sociocultural. The attitudes and perceptions prevalent in a society's culture regarding gender can affect students' attitudes and performance in maths education and their choice to pursue professional careers in maths related areas. Studies have found that learning in single-sex classrooms can influence girls' achievements and attitudes. The goal of the present study is to examine the attitudes of girls in mixed and single-sex classrooms towards mathematics and towards gender differences in mathematics. The study population included 281 students in the fifth to ninth grades, attending state-religious schools in Israel. The participants completed a multiple-choice questionnaire, which addressed their attitudes toward mathematics and possible differences between boys and girls. Most of the girls, in both types of classrooms, expressed positive attitudes towards learning mathematics and egalitarian views, although differences were found as girls learning in mixed-sex classes expressed views that were slightly more egalitarian. In addition, girls in single-sex classrooms expressed a moderately higher agreement in the "girls are better" category. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Continuing the work of Monnier [Israel J. Math. 129, 189–207 (2002)], we determine the Gerstenhaber algebra structure over the Poisson cohomology groups for a large class of Poisson structures with isolated singularities over the plane. It reveals that there exists a GAGA-type phenomenon. We give an explicit description via generators and relations for the case of simple singularities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bourgain [Israel J. Math. 206 (2015) 165-182] estimated the number of prime numbers with a proportion c > 0 of preassigned digits in base 2 (c is an absolute constant not specified). We establish a generalization of this result in any base g ≥ 2 and we provide explicit admissible values for the proportion c depending on g. Our proof, which develops and enhances Bourgain's arguments, is based on the circle method and combines techniques from harmonic analysis together with results on zeros of Dirichlet L-functions, notably a very strong zero-free region due to Iwaniec. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For a multiplier Hopf algebra pairing 〈 A , B 〉, we construct a class of group-cograded multiplier Hopf algebras D (A , B), generalizing the classical construction of finite dimensional Hopf algebras introduced by Panaite and Staic Mihai [Isr. J. Math. 158 (2007), 349–365]. Furthermore, if the multiplier Hopf algebra pairing admits a canonical multiplier in M (B ⊗ A) we show the existence of quasitriangular structure on D (A , B). As an application, some special cases and examples are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An ordinary plane of a finite set of points in real 3‐space with no three collinear is a plane intersecting the set in exactly three points. We prove a structure theorem for sets of points spanning few ordinary planes. Our proof relies on Green and Tao's work on ordinary lines in the plane, combined with classical results on space quartic curves and non‐generic projections of curves. This gives an alternative approach to Ball's recent results on ordinary planes, as well as extending them. We also give bounds on the number of coplanar quadruples determined by a finite set of points on a rational space quartic curve in complex 3‐space, answering a question of Raz, Sharir, and De Zeeuw [Israel J. Math. 227 (2018) 663–690]. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examined whether appearance compliments, despite their flattery, undermine cognitive performance. In Study 1, women participants (N = 88 Israeli university students) who wrote about past situations in which they had received appearance compliments (but not competence-related compliments) showed worse math performance than women in a control/no compliment condition—especially if they scored high on trait self-objectification (TSO). In Study 2, men and women participants (nwomen = 73, nmen = 75 Israeli university students) received bogus occupational evaluation feedback, which did or did not include an appearance compliment. Although appearance compliments led to mood improvement among participants with high TSO, they also undermined math performance among both women and men. Because receiving appearance compliments is a common experience for women (whereas men are typically complimented for their competencies), our findings suggest that appearance compliments serve as a mechanism that might subtly perpetuate gender inequality. For the promotion of societal gender equality, it is important that the public is aware that appearance compliments, even if meant well, may create sexist environments. Online slides for instructors who want to use this article for teaching are available on PWQ's website at http://journals.sagepub.com/page/pwq/suppl/index [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present research describes the development of a new measure of attention, the Mathematics Continuous Performance Test (MA TH-CPT), which uses a sequence of simple mathematical questions projected onto a computer screen as visual stimuli. A new approach to testing was developed: it has more complicated stimuli and has an open reaction time allowing participants to react according to individual pace. The development of reliability and validity of the MAT H-CPT is described. Discriminant function analysis of 240 normal control participants compared with 63 individuals with ADHD showed correct classification of 91.6% of participants in both groups. The MAT H-CPT diagnosed a sample of participants with ADHD better than another CPT-type test, the Test of Variables of Attention. This is an initial step in developing a new measure of attention and to assist with the diagnosis of adolescents and young adults with ADHD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Education is a distinct “sphere of justice” where resources and rewards (educational ’goods’) are being constantly distributed, and the fairness of their allocation is being evaluated, eliciting a sense of justice or injustice among the evaluators. A sense of (in)justice is a subjective perception of an individual that the reward s/he receives (actual reward) does not match the reward s/he thinks s/he deserves (just reward). This study investigates students’ sense of (in)justice about grades in school, focusing on two questions: (a) What is the level (intensity) of sense of injustice in three subjects: language, mathematics, science (b) Are students’ sense of (in)justice stratified by gender and SES, similar to the well known stratification of academic achievement? The study was carried out in Israel in conjunction with PISA international assessment in a national sample of 165 high schools among 4,500 15 year old students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined a structural model of mathematics achievement of 2 culturally different groups of Jewish and Arab 8th graders in terms of 5 learner-related variables, namely, gender, epistemological beliefs, self-efficacy, attitudes, and mathematics anxiety. Multigroup structural modeling analysis indicated that the goodness of fit of the hypothesized structural model and the total effects of mathematics self-efficacy and epistemological beliefs were comparable in both groups. The 2 groups differed in the effects that gender, attitudes toward mathematics, and mathematics anxiety exerted on mathematics achievement. They also diverged in terms of the amount of variance in mathematics achievement that the 5 learner-related variables accounted for. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]