This study examined the quality of government-issued mathematics textbooks by systematically identifying and analyzing content mistakes that may affect mathematical understanding and instructional effectiveness. Using a qualitative descriptive design with a document analysis approach, 16 secondary school mathematics textbooks were analyzed across five error categories: conceptual, procedural, representational, didactic, and technical errors. The findings revealed that all analyzed textbooks contained errors, with technical errors being the most frequent, while conceptual, procedural, and representational errors posed the greatest instructional risk. To extend existing textbook evaluation approaches, this study integrates error-type classification with an instructional severity analysis, distinguishing between major and minor errors based on their potential impact on learning. The results highlight that textbook quality issues are not limited to editorial inaccuracies but also include substantive mathematical and pedagogical weaknesses. This study contributes a severity-informed framework that can support more targeted textbook revisions, quality assurance, and instructional decision-making in mathematics education.
Mathematics education continues to face representational challenges because abstract concepts are often disconnected from students lived and cultural experiences. Although ethnomathematics offers a way to contextualize learning, limited research has examined how visual and interface design may support the links between cultural contexts and formal mathematical understanding. This study presents a systematic literature review of 17 empirical studies from Scopus published between 2020 and 2025, following the PRISMA guidelines. The analysis identified recurring visual and interface design elements used to represent mathematical concepts in culturally meaningful and interactive ways. These elements are associated with three mediational processes: concretization, embodied engagement, and structured cognitive scaffolding, which may support learners in moving from cultural experiences to formal mathematical understanding. The novelty of this review lies in proposing these three constructs as analytical interpretations developed through cross-study thematic synthesis, rather than as mechanisms directly identified or tested within the primary studies. This review offers a design-oriented perspective on ethnomathematics learning and proposes an analytical framework to guide future research and practice, while highlighting the need for further empirical validation across diverse contexts.
This study was motivated by the limited conceptual understanding of area and volume among prospective mathematics teachers, who often rely on procedural strategies instead of conceptual reasoning. This study aimed to develop and evaluate an interactive GeoGebra applet based on dynamic unitizing, an approach that extends GeoGebra beyond dynamic visualization by supporting conceptual construction through the manipulation of unit squares and cubes. An explanatory sequential mixed-methods design was used. The applet was developed using the ADDIE model integrated with Tessmer’s formative evaluation and implemented through one-on-one (three students), small-group (seven students), and field testing (28 students). The applet demonstrated very high validity (media: 99.48%; material: 99.31%) and high practicality, as evaluated by students (92%) and lecturers (89.93%). Students’ conceptual understanding improved significantly after using the applet (Wilcoxon Signed-Rank Test: Z = −4.541, p < 0.001), with a large effect size (r = 0.86) and moderate normalized gain (N-gain = 0.542). Qualitative findings further indicated that the applet enabled students to move beyond procedural strategies by independently exploring and constructing the area and volume concepts. These findings suggest that the applet is a valid, practical, and promising learning medium for enhancing the conceptual understanding of area and volume.
Epistemological obstacles in acquiring variables and linear equations in one variable (LEOV) remain a systemic and unresolved issue in Indonesian mathematics education. Prior research has identified their symptoms but not their origins. This study reconstructs the epistemic path towards early algebraic knowledge by integrating the Anthropological Theory of the Didactic (ATD) and Didactical Design Research (DDR). Using a qualitative hermeneutic-phenomenological approach, ATD-based praxeological analysis was applied to the responses of 120 students in Grades VII to X in West Java, Indonesia, and to their teaching modules and lesson plans, followed by the design and implementation of a didactic sequence. Four obstacles were identified: ambiguity in the meaning of variables, difficulties with algebraic operations, procedural dependency without justification, and conceptual collapse when variables appear on both sides of an equation. Each was traced to the systematic absence of the logos block in didactical transposition. After implementation, full relational justification rose from 9.4% to 65.6%. The findings affirm that this epistemic path can be traversed only through designs that deliberately construct praxeological completeness, from practical technique to logical justification, with implications for curriculum and teacher professional development.
This study addresses the inherent limitations of traditional Euclidean approaches to geometric extremum and distance problems, which frequently result in unsystematic and difficult-to-generalize solutions. To overcome these challenges, a structured three-step mathematical modeling framework is introduced: (1) vectorization of the geometric configuration; (2) formulation of an analytical objective function; and (3) systematic optimization via derivatives or gradients. Methodologically, the research employs a constructive modeling strategy that translates complex spatial relationships into vector-based algebraic expressions, rigorously tested across eight purposively selected examples ranging from elementary plane geometry to advanced spatial dynamics. The results indicate that this framework effectively transforms intricate geometric constraints into tractable, variable-dependent functions, allowing derivative-based optimization to yield precise extremum values while bypassing ad hoc geometric constructions. Ultimately, this research contributes to the literature by bridging synthetic geometry and mathematical analysis, offering a robust, generalizable tool that clarifies the underlying mathematical structures and fosters the development of abstract thinking and generalization capabilities for future pedagogical applications.
