Faculty of Education and Culture and Graduate School of Education, University of Miyazaki, have been implementing a research project for the support of continuity from elementary through junior secondary levels since 2011. This project aims at conducting comprehensive research on the theory and practice of continuity from elementary through junior secondary levels, developing a teacher education programme (pre-service and in-service) based on the research, and pronouncing research outcomes.
For the purpose of contributing the research project, this paper intended to identify the trend of previous researches on the continuity from elementary through junior secondary levels in Mathematics Education and to gain suggestions for the programme by reviewing the 63 selected previous research papers in terms of research questions, research methods and outcomes. As a result, the following trends were identified:
a) In terms of “teaching contents”, the previous researches have proposed a lot of perspectives and concrete ideas on development of teaching contents and lesson designs especially for the domains of “Numbers and calculation/algebra” and “geometry”. In addition, they have also developed and practiced some curriculum for continuity from elementary through junior secondary levels.
b) In terms of “students”, they have identified the characteristics of students’ understanding and learning during the transitional period (from 10 to 13 years old) at a certain level. However, it is necessary to research more about their affective dimension.
c) In terms of “teachers”, although they have proposed some desirable teaching activities, there is a need to implement more comprehensive research. For instance, the points of view on the gap of school/teacher cultures between at elementary and junior secondary levels, the difference of teachers’ academic backgrounds should be considered.
d) In terms of “context”, there is also a need to conduct more researches, for instance, focusing on the influence of examination, the expectation of parents, the perspectives of learning in community etc.
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