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Learners’ Dealing with a Financial Applications-Like Problem in a High-Stakes School-Leaving Mathematics Examination

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Mathematical Modelling in Education Research and Practice

Abstract

Research of students’ ways of working with modelling and applications-like problems in time-restricted examinations is rare. Using ideas and notions from ethnomethodology and the sociological study of work in science, the actual scripts of examinees were analysed to tease out the examinees’ ways of working with a modelling and applications-like problem in a high-stakes school-leaving examination. The analysis was anchored around the various agencies exerted by elements present in the context of high-stakes school-leaving examinations. Three ways of working which characterised the candidates’ ways of working are focused on. It is demonstrated how the prevailing contexts of writing high-stakes examinations exercised agency for these ways of working. The pragmatic value of analysis of this nature is recommended.

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Acknowledgement

This research is supported by the National Research Foundation under Grant number 77941. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views the National Research Foundation.

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Correspondence to Cyril Julie .

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Julie, C. (2015). Learners’ Dealing with a Financial Applications-Like Problem in a High-Stakes School-Leaving Mathematics Examination. In: Stillman, G., Blum, W., Salett Biembengut, M. (eds) Mathematical Modelling in Education Research and Practice. International Perspectives on the Teaching and Learning of Mathematical Modelling. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-18272-8_40

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