Four Fully funded PhD position, at University of Agder, Norway

[Mathematics Education Researchers (MER) community]

Project 1: Creating opportunities for productive ambiguity, productive struggle, and productive failure in mathematics education

This project is connected to the research group Math-CuSP: Cultural, Social, and Political Perspectives on Mathematics Education

This PhD project focuses on productive ambiguity, productive struggle, and productive failure in mathematics education. Although these three concepts are often treated separately in the mathematics education literature, the project seeks to examine them in relation to one another and to explore the extent and nature of their connections. It aims to investigate how these concepts can be understood, developed, and studied empirically across a range of educational contexts. The successful candidate will have the opportunity to shape the project in line with their own interests and may, for example, focus on pre-service teacher education, in-service teacher professional development, or school-based research in mathematics classrooms. These are intended as illustrative research directions rather than as an exhaustive list. The project will contribute to knowledge about the teaching and learning of mathematics in ways that value uncertainty, sustained effort, and reflection.

Project 2: Recruitment to STEM grades 8-13 Teacher Education Programs

This project is connected to the research group Mathematics in Higher Education.

In Norway STEM grades 8-13 teacher programs are facing a sharp decline in recruitment. Statistics show that from 2019 to 2024 the number of first-choice applicants to STEM teacher education programmes dropped by more than half. Thus, Norway needs a strategy for recruitment to these programs. Melander and Lind (2021) responding to these challenges, argued for availability of a one-year “add-on” programme that allowed students from non-STEM upper-secondary backgrounds to enter university STEM programmes. Additionally, they found that targeted efforts to improve girls’ and women’s attitudes toward STEM increased recruitment effectively over time. In Norway, we need to know why students are not entering STEM grades 8-13 teacher education programmes and develop incentives that are rooted in knowledge of individual and systemic obstacles and lost opportunities for recruitment. This project aims to produce knowledge of such individual and systemic obstacles and lost opportunities and develop incentives and establish policy guidelines to increase recruitment.

Project 3: Comparing and measuring quantities as an approach to develop number sense in primary school.

This project is connected to the research group Mathematics teaching and learning in kindergarten and early school years

This project is inspired by Davydov’s mathematics curriculum and seeks to understand how comparing continuous quantities and measuring continuous quantities can develop primary school children’s number sense. Davydov argues that, when introducing children to mathematics, teachers should focus on comparisons of physical attributes of objects and continuous quantities rather than on counting and numbers. Comparisons of quantities can be described using concepts such as shorter than, longer than, or equally long (when focusing on length), and can be represented by relational statements such as G > L, where the letters represent the quantities being compared. After working with comparisons of quantities, teachers should focus on measurement. In Davydov’s approach, the concept of a unit is a prerequisite for understanding the concept of number. Measuring requires a unit (either discrete or continuous). For example, if you are going to count socks, you must decide whether the unit is a pair or a single sock. Likewise, if you are going to measure an amount of sugar, you must decide whether a spoonful or a cup is the unit. This also lays the groundwork for understanding higher‑order units (such as the base‑10 system), as well as how a unit may be divided into smaller units or parts (fractions). Therefore, the project could focus on children’s development of the unit concept or the fraction concept through Davydov’s approach. Candidates are welcome to propose other theoretical approaches or additional to Davydov's approach to investigate the project topic.


More: https://www.jobbnorge.no/en/available-jobs/job/300117/three-phd-research-fellows-in-mathematics-education

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Project 4: Innovative approaches to university mathematics teaching


Mathematics research, application of mathematics in industry and the teaching of mathematics in schools have all been affected by societal, technological and didactical changes. However, much of university mathematics teaching does not reflect these changes. We invite research projects addressing this gap. 

These could combine foci on:

• a changing aspect, for example, research related to children’s mathematical developmental and learning trajectories, 
  
• digital tools used in research and industry (AI, Mathematica, automated theorem provers, CAS) and in schools (dynamic geometry, CAS), 
  
• concrete materials and visualizations used in research, industry and schools. 
  
• a target group, for example, engineering students, calculus students, future teachers, etc. early or late in their studies.
  
• one or more research methods, for example, teaching experiments, eye tracking studies, task-based interviews, surveys, literature reviews.
  
• A background theoretical framework, for example, socio-cultural, constructivist, etc. 
  

More: https://www.jobbnorge.no/en/available-jobs/job/300746/phd-research-fellow-in-mathematics-education