A robust numeracy foundation is essential in tertiary health science education, requiring students to confidently execute calculations and interpret clinical data. Despite its importance, studies examining the metacognitive alignment between actual competence and subjective confidence remain limited in countries such as Indonesia. To fill this gap, this study evaluated the health numeracy and corresponding confidence judgments of 149 Indonesian health science students to investigate the systemic calibration between objective accuracy and subjective self-efficacy. Using a cross-sectional design, students completed a paper-based survey without computational aids. Competence was measured via the 21-item General Health Numeracy Test (GHNT-21), paired with a 0–10 subjective confidence scale. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and a one-sample Wilcoxon signed-rank test. This study contributes novel empirical evidence by quantifying metacognitive calibration in health numeracy, an aspect rarely examined alongside competence in Indonesian health education contexts. While demonstrating foundational arithmetic proficiency, students exhibited substantial difficulties in multi-step proportional reasoning, spatial mathematics, and probability. Crucially, calibration analysis revealed a significant metacognitive disconnect (p < .001); the predominant student profile displayed profound overconfidence, maintaining high certainty despite low accuracy on complex tasks. Ultimately, these findings highlight the necessity of tailoring numeracy support frameworks that explicitly address students’ mathematical competencies and metacognitive dispositions, ensuring they successfully navigate the quantitative challenges inherent to their academic coursework and future clinical careers.
Numeracy skills are crucial in higher education; however, assessment often places greater emphasis on routine procedures than on the interpretation and evaluation of authentic quantitative information. This study examines the contextual numeracy skills of Indonesian students across various PIAAC proficiency levels, investigates gender differences, and identifies specific error patterns in each task. A descriptive-comparative cross-sectional study design was applied to 406 students (58 males and 348 females) from several state universities in Padang, Indonesia, selected through purposive sampling. Data were collected using an assessment comprising 20 items adapted from the PIAAC numeracy framework, which had been validated by experts and pilot tested. Percentage of correct responses, the Mann–Whitney U test with a biserial effect size, and item-level error analysis were used in this study. Performance peaked at Level 2 (79%) before declining at Levels 3 (61%), 4 (56%) and 5 (45%), indicating an increasing level of difficulty in higher-level numeracy tasks. Female students achieved higher scores than male students at all levels except Level 5, although significant differences were only found below Level 1 and at Levels 1, 3 and 4, with small effect sizes (0.012–0.230). Error analysis revealed difficulties in three-dimensional visualization, proportional and statistical reasoning, geometric modelling, and interpreting contextual constraints. These findings highlight challenges in advanced quantitative reasoning and provide a diagnostic framework to support authentic numeracy assessment and targeted instructional design in higher education.
Mathematical communication is essential in mathematics learning because it enables students to express, explain, and justify mathematical ideas. Although gamified learning may support student engagement under particular conditions, the relationship between game-oriented participation and meaningful mathematical communication remains insufficiently understood. This study aimed to examine and refine a preliminary Chocolate–Broccoli Engagement Framework describing the relationship between game-oriented participation and mathematical communication in gamified mathematics learning. A multiple case study was conducted across six mathematics classrooms from different secondary schools in Indonesia involving various mathematical topics and gamification environments. Data were collected through classroom observations, teacher reflection notes, and students’ mathematical communication artifacts and analyzed using cross-case thematic analysis. The findings revealed that students demonstrated recurring evidence of Chocolate Engagement characterized by enthusiasm toward competition, rewards, points, and leaderboards. Broccoli Engagement was observed in classroom interactions involving mathematical explanation, evaluation, reflection, and correction of solutions. Mathematical communication was documented through representation and procedural explanation across the cases, whereas justification and argumentation were identified in a more limited set of case-level episodes. Cross-case analysis showed that mathematical discussion was associated with the co-occurrence of game-oriented participation, concept-oriented engagement, and mathematical communication. These patterns informed the refinement of the preliminary Chocolate–Broccoli Engagement Framework, which does not posit a causal, mediating, or temporal sequence. The findings suggest that gamified mathematics activities may provide richer opportunities for mathematical communication when they incorporate structured opportunities for explanation, evaluation, reflection, and justification.
Numeracy is a critical 21st-century competency; however, many students still face difficulties in solving contextual problems due to the limited use of PISA-like tasks in classroom learning. This study aimed to develop PISA-like jumping tasks (JUMPISA) on quantity content within a Jambi tourism context and to examine their potential effects on students’ numeracy. The research employed design research in the form of development studies, involving a preliminary stage and Tessmer’s formative evaluation, including expert review, one-to-one, small group, and field test. Participants consisted of six validators, three students in one-to-one sessions, nine students in small-group trials, and 32 grade VIII students in the field test. Data was collected through document analysis, observations, interviews, and students’ written responses and analyzed descriptively to assess validity, practicality, and potential effects. The findings indicate that JUMPISA is valid in terms of content, construct, and language, practical for classroom implementation, and capable of engaging students in discussing multiple solution strategies. Field test results suggest potential effects on numeracy, as students demonstrated abilities to use quantitative information, analyze constraints, and interpret results in real-world contexts. Integrating JUMPISA with local tourism contexts can therefore support numeracy-oriented learning and classroom practice.
Recent national policy developments in Indonesia increasingly position Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) as a strategic driver of innovation, economic competitiveness, and sustainable development. This policy orientation has reshaped research funding, postgraduate scholarship investment, and national innovation agendas, created new opportunities while also redefined the research ecosystem within which mathematics education research is conducted. This editorial examines how STEM-centric national policies influence the future direction of mathematics education research by analyzing their implications for research agendas, interdisciplinary collaboration, human capital development, and disciplinary diversity. Drawing on recent international scholarship and the evolving Indonesian policy landscape, the editorial argues that these developments should be understood not merely as policy reforms but as structural transformations that reshape educational research through interconnected mechanisms of research funding and scholarship investment. Building on international competency frameworks, including the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC), the paper further argues that numeracy, adaptive problem solving, and mathematical reasoning constitute essential competencies for technology-rich societies, reinforcing the central role of mathematics education within contemporary STEM initiatives. Rather than positioning mathematics education as a supporting component of STEM, this editorial proposes a reframing of the field from policy adaptation toward intellectual leadership, arguing that mathematics education provides the intellectual architecture through which meaningful STEM education can be conceptualized and sustained. The paper concludes by proposing strategic directions for researchers, higher education institutions, and policymakers to promote research diversification without disciplinary homogenization, thereby strengthening mathematics education as both an independent scholarly discipline and a central contributor to the future development of STEM education in Indonesia and beyond.
Growing interest in embodied cognition within early mathematics education has underscored the need for rigorous methodologies capable of examining the relationship between mathematical and motor competence during early childhood. Nevertheless, empirical research has rarely employed standardized instruments to assess both domains simultaneously in authentic educational settings. This pilot study investigated the feasibility of jointly administering the Test of Early Mathematics Ability–Third Edition (TEMA-3) and the Movement Assessment Battery for Children–Second Edition (MABC-2), while exploring preliminary associations between mathematical and motor competence. A quantitative, non-experimental, ex post facto design was implemented with 30 children enrolled in the final year of Early Childhood Education, proportionally distributed across four schools representing diverse educational contexts and randomly selected within each institution. Mathematical competence was measured using the TEMA-3, whereas motor competence was assessed with the MABC-2 following standardized administration protocols. Descriptive statistics and exploratory correlation analyses indicated that the combined assessment protocol was feasible in terms of administration procedures, testing conditions, participant engagement, and score variability. Although no statistically significant associations emerged for the overall sample, subgroup analyses revealed moderate positive relationships between balance and both informal and overall mathematical competence among girls, and between aiming and catching, balance, and mathematical competence among older children, whereas formal mathematical competence exhibited consistently weak associations with motor competence. Despite the limited sample size and exploratory nature of the study, these findings demonstrate the methodological feasibility of integrating standardized assessments of mathematical and motor competence in Early Childhood Education and provide preliminary evidence to inform adequately powered confirmatory research. The observed subgroup patterns are consistent with embodied cognition perspectives and should be interpreted as hypothesis-generating rather than confirmatory.
Statistics and probability have become fundamental components of contemporary mathematics education because they enable students to interpret data, evaluate evidence, and make informed decisions under uncertainty. However, their inclusion in school curricula does not ensure effective classroom implementation, particularly when teachers perceive themselves as insufficiently prepared to teach these domains from both conceptual and pedagogical perspectives. Since teachers’ attitudes influence instructional practices, professional confidence, and the value attributed to disciplinary content, understanding these attitudes is critical for strengthening statistics and probability education. This study characterised Chilean primary school teachers’ attitudes towards statistics and probability and towards teaching these domains, examined gender differences through a gender-informed perspective, and evaluated the internal consistency and relational coherence of the instrument scores. A quantitative, non-experimental, cross-sectional, descriptive-comparative design was employed with 344 in-service teachers who completed a 56-item Likert-scale questionnaire comprising two parallel scales assessing attitudes towards statistics and probability and towards teaching these domains. Overall, teachers reported favourable attitudes on both scales (M = 3.83/5). Nevertheless, component-level analyses revealed an important discrepancy: although teachers highly valued statistics and probability and expressed willingness to teach these domains, they reported comparatively lower levels of perceived cognitive and pedagogical competence. The instrument demonstrated strong internal consistency and relational coherence. No significant gender differences emerged at the global scale level; however, men reported higher perceived statistical competence, whereas women assigned greater educational value to statistics and probability and their teaching. These findings suggest that strengthening statistics and probability education requires not only fostering positive attitudes but also enhancing teachers’ conceptual understanding, pedagogical confidence, and gender-responsive professional learning to support equitable and effective classroom practice.
This study developed and evaluated DAKOGI, an innovative digital game-based learning platform that integrates adaptive learning algorithms with culturally responsive pedagogy grounded in Dakon, a traditional Indonesian game, to address students’ persistent difficulties in understanding the concepts of Least Common Multiple (LCM) and Greatest Common Divisor (GCD). The research employed a development methodology based on the ADDIE model, encompassing the phases of analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation. Participants included 30 secondary school students from SMAN 1 Kuta, Indonesia. The evaluation process incorporated expert validation of content, media design, and pedagogical quality, as well as effectiveness testing through a pre-experimental one-group pre-test–post-test design supported by platform usage analytics. The findings indicate that DAKOGI achieved high levels of quality across all evaluated dimensions, demonstrating strong content validity, pedagogical appropriateness, and technological usability. Furthermore, statistically significant improvements were observed in students’ conceptual understanding of LCM and GCD, with mean achievement scores increasing from 42.17% in the pre-test to 81.50% in the post-test. These gains were further supported by substantial learning improvement indicators and a very large effect size, suggesting a meaningful educational impact. Students also reported high levels of practicality, perceiving the platform as accessible, engaging, and supportive of their learning processes. Finally, DAKOGI provides preliminary empirical evidence for a promising model of technology-enhanced mathematics education that combines game-based learning, adaptive personalization, and ethnomathematical perspectives to strengthen conceptual understanding in secondary mathematics. Future studies employing controlled experimental designs are recommended to further validate and extend these findings.
Mathematical communication is central to students’ mathematical reasoning because challenging problems require learners to represent, model, connect, explain, and reflect on mathematical ideas. However, how these processes are associated with students’ productive struggle remains insufficiently understood in problem-solving contexts. This study investigates the association between mathematical communication skills and productive struggle profiles among eighth-grade students at a school in Bandung, Indonesia. A qualitative comparative case study informed by Grounded Theory coding was conducted with 24 students classified into high, medium, and low productive struggle profiles based on a productive struggle questionnaire and communication skills test. Six participants, two from each profile, were purposively selected through criterion sampling for analysis of written work and interviews. Data were analyzed through open, axial, and selective coding supported by NVivo 12, and cross-case comparison. The findings revealed differentiated communication patterns: high-profile participants demonstrated all five dimensions, such as representation, mathematical modelling, connecting representations, drawing conclusions, and reflection, whereas medium-profile participants showed limitations in representation, mathematical formulation, and reflection, and low-profile participants experienced greater difficulties in modelling, conclusion drawing, and reflection. These findings offer a conjectural framework for understanding how engagement with mathematical challenges may relate to students’ representation, explanation, connection, and reflection, without implying causality or developmental progression.
Despite increasing international emphasis on fostering mathematical reasoning and classroom discourse, limited empirical evidence exists regarding how discourse-oriented instructional practices are enacted in non-Western educational contexts. This gap is particularly evident in Saudi Arabia, where teachers’ implementation of practices that promote productive mathematical discussions remains insufficiently understood. This mixed-methods study employed an explanatory sequential design to investigate the extent and characteristics of Saudi mathematics teachers’ implementation of five core instructional practices for orchestrating productive mathematical discussions: anticipating, monitoring, selecting, sequencing, and connecting students’ mathematical thinking. A total of 260 mathematics teachers completed a validated survey instrument, followed by semi-structured interviews with seven purposefully selected participants to provide deeper contextual insights into the quantitative findings. The results revealed a moderate overall level of implementation (M = 2.32), with monitoring (M = 2.39), connecting (M = 2.38), and selecting (M = 2.34) implemented more frequently than sequencing (M = 2.28) and anticipating (M = 2.22). Significant differences were identified according to gender and teaching experience, with female and more experienced teachers reporting higher levels of implementation. The qualitative findings further illuminated contextual factors shaping teachers’ enactment of these practices. By providing empirical evidence from a culturally underrepresented educational context, this study extends current understanding of discourse-oriented mathematics instruction and highlights the need for context-responsive teacher education and curriculum initiatives that strengthen equitable, reasoning-rich mathematical discourse across diverse educational settings.
Developing students’ numeracy and mathematical abstraction requires learning environments that meaningfully connect formal mathematics with learners’ cultural experiences while supporting progressive conceptual development. Although Virtual Reality (VR), ethnomathematics, and Realistic Mathematics Education (RME) have each demonstrated potential to enrich mathematics learning, empirically validated design principles for integrating these approaches remain scarce. This study addressed this gap by developing and evaluating a VR-based Ethno-Realistic Mathematics Education (Ethno-RME) e-module grounded in Baduy cultural practices to enhance students’ numeracy and mathematical abstraction while generating transferable instructional design principles. An Educational Design Research (EDR) methodology was implemented through iterative cycles of problem analysis, prototype development, expert validation, formative classroom evaluation, and refinement, followed by a quasi-experimental non-equivalent control group design involving 72 eighth-grade students (36 experimental and 36 control) during a six-week intervention. The iterative design process generated four complementary principles: contextualizing mathematical tasks through authentic Baduy cultural practices, supporting progressive abstraction with immersive VR representations, scaffolding transitions from concrete experiences to symbolic reasoning through the RME learning trajectory, and embedding adaptive reflective tasks to strengthen conceptual development. Expert evaluation confirmed strong content validity (Aiken’s V ≥ .80; S-CVI = .93), and the instruments demonstrated high reliability (α = .83; κ = .87). Compared with the control group, students receiving the Ethno-RME intervention achieved significantly higher learning outcomes (posttest M = 82.1 vs. 65.3; N-gain = .72; ANCOVA: F(1,69) = 28.47, p < .001, η²p = .292, d = 1.21), progressed from perceptual grounding to symbolic formalization, increased the proportion reaching the highest abstraction level from 11.6% to 61.1%, and reduced conceptual errors by 38%. The e-module also demonstrated high usability (SUS = 82.3) and implementation fidelity (.92). These findings contribute empirically grounded design principles that extend the integration of VR, ethnomathematics, and RME and provide a transferable framework for culturally responsive mathematics learning that promotes numeracy and mathematical abstraction.
Problem posing remains underutilized in mathematics education, and little is known about how concrete representations such as dioramas can support this practice. This study examined pre-service teachers’ (PSTs) proficiency in a diorama-based problem-posing activity in trigonometry and explored how dioramas functioned in the posing process. Two cohorts of PSTs (n = 67) participated, where they constructed dioramas and generated corresponding problems and solutions. Outputs were analyzed using a rubric that assesses four aspects: diorama representation, problem statement, solution, and problem complexity. Results showed that PSTs demonstrated strong performance in problem statement and complexity, with most problems classified as procedures with connections or doing mathematics. Diorama representation was generally clear but varied in precision, while mathematical solutions showed the greatest variability, with some incomplete or inconsistent solutions. A consistent pattern emerged: clear and complete problem statements were associated with coherent solutions, while incomplete statements, mislabeled 2D illustrations, and misapplied trigonometric ratios often reduced solution accuracy. These findings highlight the interdependence of problem posing and problem solving. Dioramas supported PSTs in visualizing trigonometric relationships and framing creative scenarios, but their effectiveness depended on accurate alignment with problem statements and solutions. As such, diorama-supported problem posing offers a practical way to examine PSTs’ understanding of trigonometric concepts, provided that it is accompanied by structured guidance. It is recommended that PSTs be given sustained opportunities to pose problems, receive feedback, and iteratively refine their work to improve precision and coherence.
The meaning, scope, and educational purpose of ethnomathematics remain subjects of continuing scholarly debate. While some researchers conceptualize ethnomathematics as an instructional approach for facilitating the learning of formal mathematics, others emphasize its contributions to mathematical understanding beyond conventional school practices or its potential to promote cultural emancipation and social justice. Clarifying these perspectives requires a more coherent conceptual framework for evaluating the aims and educational contributions of ethnomathematics. This study examines the philosophical and pedagogical relationships between ethnomathematics and the Montessori method, arguing that both approaches share common educational principles and broader socio-cultural aspirations. Adopting an ethnographic approach, the study draws upon informal conversations with teachers and students at an Amazonian university in Latin America, complemented by an interpretative analysis of Montessori literature. The findings reveal substantial convergence between the two approaches within the framework of culturally responsive pedagogy, particularly in their emphasis on connecting learning with learners’ prior experiences, cultural knowledge, and familiar environments. Whereas the Montessori method primarily supports children’s cognitive development through culturally meaningful materials, ethnomathematics extends these principles across diverse cultural and social contexts by integrating learners’ everyday mathematical practices into formal education. This conceptual relationship positions ethnomathematics as a pedagogical continuation of Montessori principles and broadens its applicability beyond ethnic communities to any learning context grounded in learners’ cultural experiences, thereby offering a novel theoretical perspective for contemporary mathematics education.
Learning the volume of a sphere requires students to coordinate concrete experiences, representations, quantitative relationships, and symbolic generalization, making it a context for examining understanding. However, differentiated learning trajectories have rarely been designed to account for students’ readiness while tracing how different pathways support reflective abstraction; thus, how readiness-responsive differentiation can be embedded within a Hypothetical Learning Trajectory (HLT) remains insufficiently understood. This study aimed to design a readiness-based differentiated HLT and investigate how it facilitates students’ reflective abstraction in learning sphere volume. Employing design research comprising preliminary design, teaching experiment, and retrospective analysis, the study involved 25 ninth-grade students, and data were collected through interviews, observations, document analysis, and diagnostic assessments. Findings revealed readiness-responsive pathways within the same HLT. Low-readiness students relied on concrete experiences and empirical reasoning, exhibiting recognition-based thinking; medium-readiness students identified patterns and organized quantitative relationships, progressing from representation toward structural abstraction; and high-readiness students generalized and justified mathematical relationships, demonstrating structural awareness. The differentiated HLT accommodated these differences through representations and scaffolding ranging from manipulatives and visual models to relational reasoning and symbolic generalization. Despite divergent pathways, all students converged toward conceptual understanding of the sphere volume formula. These findings indicate that readiness-based differentiation concerns not divergent learning goals but differentiated representational, reasoning, and scaffolding pathways, offering a design principle for embedding branching and convergent HLTs that preserve a conceptual goal while supporting reflective abstraction.
Mathematical literacy, defined as the capacity to formulate, apply, and interpret mathematics across diverse contexts, is a fundamental competency for all learners, including students with special educational needs. Nevertheless, teachers in inclusive schools frequently encounter challenges in fostering mathematical literacy due to limited pedagogical knowledge and insufficient professional preparation. Addressing this gap, this design-based research study aimed to design, develop, and validate Mathematical Literacy Learning Environment based on Course, Social media, and Community (ML-LECSCOM), an integrated professional learning environment that combines formal coursework, social media engagement, and participation in professional learning communities to support inclusive mathematics teachers’ professional growth. Employing iterative design cycles, the study involved 30 inclusive mathematics teachers affiliated with the Muhammadiyah Subject Teacher Conference network in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Data were generated through questionnaires, classroom observations, semi-structured interviews, and expert reviews, and were analyzed using descriptive statistical techniques and thematic analysis. The findings indicate that the course component demonstrated strong validity (M = 4.3/5.0) and practicality (M = 4.1/5.0), with 89% of participants reporting a reconstructed understanding of mathematical literacy. The social media component sustained professional engagement, achieving a participation rate of 73% and extending learning beyond formal instructional settings. Furthermore, the professional learning community facilitated collaborative reflection, knowledge sharing, and the application of learning to practice. Participating teachers successfully designed culturally responsive learning trajectories and implemented inclusive instructional strategies, while classroom observations provided preliminary evidence of positive impacts on student learning. These findings suggest that integrated professional learning environments can effectively strengthen teachers’ professional knowledge, instructional practices, and capacity to promote mathematical literacy in inclusive classrooms. The study offers important implications for teacher educators, school leaders, and policymakers seeking to design comprehensive and sustainable professional learning models for inclusive mathematics education.
Deductive thinking is a fundamental strategy in mathematical problem-solving that enables individuals to derive logical conclusions based on known premises or general principles. This study aimed to develop a typology of students’ deductive thinking ability in solving routine mathematical proof problems, emphasizing how they apply general principles to construct arguments and reach specific conclusions. This study employed a qualitative descriptive approach, involving 83 undergraduate students in their seventh semester from Indonesia and Malaysia. The participants were selected because they had acquired a general understanding of mathematical concepts that can be applied in proof-based problem-solving using deductive thinking, allowing them to apply deductive reasoning systematically. Data were collected through a written test and audiovisual recordings. The analysis was conducted using the Constant Comparative Procedure (CCP). The results revealed three types of students’ deductive thinking: definitive, attributive, and representative. These types illustrate different ways in which students utilize deductive reasoning in constructing mathematical proofs. No study has developed a typology of students’ deductive thinking in solving mathematical proof problems. This research introduces a new typological framework that provides a deeper understanding of how students apply deductive reasoning in structured mathematical arguments. This research provides a deeper understanding of students’ deductive thinking strategies, which serves as a foundation for the design of more effective teaching methods to enhance students’ deductive reasoning skills.
This study examines the ethnomathematical connections activated by artisans who employ crochet techniques in the production of bucket bags. The research responds to the need to recognize and valorize everyday mathematical practices that contribute to the productive, economic, and cultural sustainability of communities, yet have historically remained marginalized within science education, particularly in school mathematics. Adopting a qualitative approach grounded in an ethnographic perspective, the study was conducted in three phases: (1) the selection of artisan weavers from Barranquilla, Colombia; (2) data generation through semi-structured interviews and direct observation of the weaving process; and (3) thematic analysis aimed at identifying and interpreting ethnomathematical connections embedded in artisanal practice. The findings reveal multiple relationships between every day, and institutionalized mathematical knowledge manifested in the construction of bucket bags. These include the use of numerical sequences, counting strategies, arithmetic operations such as addition and multiplication, proportional reasoning, and geometric concepts including circumference, symmetry, and pattern formation. Furthermore, the study identifies non-conventional measurement procedures and intuitive forms of mathematical modeling employed by artisans during production. These ethnomathematical connections demonstrate how culturally situated practices can serve as meaningful contexts for the construction of mathematical understanding, contributing to the re-signification of mathematical knowledge and highlighting the pedagogical potential of artisanal activities for the teaching and learning of arithmetic and geometry.
Effective mathematics instruction requires teachers to diagnose students’ errors and provide scaffolding that is responsive to their learning needs. Yet, pre-service pre-service mathematics teachers (PMTs) frequently encounter challenges in identifying the nature of students’ mistakes and in designing appropriate instructional support. This study investigates the types of student errors diagnosed by pre-service pre-service mathematics teachers and the scaffolding patterns that emerge from their diagnostic practices. Adopting a qualitative descriptive approach, data were gathered through video analysis, microteaching, classroom practice, and in-depth interviews. The analysis indicates that pre-service pre-service teachers recognized four major categories of student errors: conceptual misunderstandings, procedural inaccuracies, representational mistakes, and strategic misapplications. In addressing these errors, they employed four corresponding scaffolding patterns. Conceptual scaffolding supported students in reconstructing mathematical meaning, procedural scaffolding provided step-by-step guidance, strategic scaffolding encouraged evaluation of alternative approaches, and metacognitive scaffolding fostered reflection on reasoning and symbolic interpretation. These findings underscore scaffolding as a dynamic and adaptive practice shaped by teachers’ professional vision. The study contributes to mathematics teacher education by demonstrating how practice-based programs can strengthen pre-service pre-service teachers’ capacity to notice, diagnose, and respond to students’ thinking, thereby promoting more inclusive and meaningful mathematics learning. This research provides new insights into how pre-service teachers’ scaffolding practices, shaped by error diagnosis, can inform teacher education globally.
In 2025, the Indonesian Ministry of Education mandated the integration of Deep Learning pedagogy into all teaching activities; however, little is known about how primary teachers perceive its application in STEM education that incorporates local culture. Grounded in Fullan and Langworthy’s 6C framework and perspectives on culturally responsive pedagogy, this study primarily examined teachers’ perceptions of school vision and mission, implementation and impact, training support, and technology‑based learning media. A cross‑sectional survey was administered to 174 teachers from seven cities who had participated in government‑mandated Deep Learning training. Purposive sampling was used, and a self‑developed 30‑item instrument was reviewed by two experts in science and primary education. Reliability analyses showed high internal consistency across four dimensions (Cronbach’s α = 0.890–0.948, exceeding the 0.70 benchmark). Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics (mean, standard deviation, skewness, kurtosis). The results indicated strong agreement across the four dimensions, suggesting that teachers view culture‑integrated STEM through Deep Learning pedagogy as relevant for meaningful learning, although disagreements emerged regarding technology use, training support, and implementation challenges. Key limitations include reliance on self‑report data, purposive sampling that may limit representativeness, and the absence of multi‑step, formal instrument validation. The findings imply that policy should enhance curriculum alignment and authentic assessment, practice should foreground teacher facilitation and digital literacy, and future research should adopt mixed‑methods designs and classroom observations to examine implementation in greater depth. Overall, this study extends understanding of how Deep Learning pedagogy intersects with cultural contexts in STEM education while explicitly acknowledging its methodological constraints.
Mathematical representation plays a pivotal role in students’ understanding, reasoning, and problem-solving processes. Despite its centrality in mathematics education, systematic approaches to assessing representational behavior remain limited, particularly within diverse cultural and curricular contexts. Existing assessment practices often emphasize cognitive outcomes, overlooking affective, psychomotor, and meta-representational dimensions that shape students’ mathematical understanding. Addressing this gap, the present study developed and validated an analytical rubric designed to assess mathematical representation behavior comprehensively across these four domains. Grounded in the Educational Design Research (EDR) framework, the rubric was constructed through four iterative stages, namely reflection, recording, grouping and naming, and application. Six mathematics education experts from Indonesia and Malaysia participated in the validation process, while empirical data were collected from 42 undergraduate students who had completed a geometry course. The analysis revealed strong content validity, with Aiken’s V coefficients ranging from 0.78 to 0.93 and full expert agreement, confirming the rubric’s clarity and relevance in evaluating representational behaviors. The rubric categorized student performance into three levels, namely Eikasia, Dianoia, and Intellectus, providing a nuanced diagnostic framework for assessing students’ mathematical representation. This study contributes to the field by introducing a cross-culturally grounded assessment tool that integrates cognitive, affective, psychomotor, and meta-representational perspectives. The findings highlight the rubric’s potential as both a formative and diagnostic instrument, enhancing the precision of assessment and offering insights for improving mathematics instruction and future digital-based evaluation practices.
