Transcend socioeconomic status constraints to mathematics and science achievement by collaborative problem-solving: The female people-smartness hypothesis.

This study examines the female people-smartness (FPS) hypothesis, which addresses the reasons why females are more responsive to socioeconomic status (SES) and posits that using females' strengths of people-smartness can assist females to overcome SES constraints. This study used data from the student surveys of the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) in 2015, including 519,334 students from 72 participating countries and economies. The results of the general linear model analysis revealed that females are better at collaborative problem-solving (CPS) and reading, while males are better at mathematics and science. Structural equation modeling revealed that the effect of SES on (mathematics and science) achievement is higher for females than for males. CPS can reduce the effect of SES on achievement. The findings generally support the FPS hypothesis and suggest that CPS-related competences should be emphasized and exercised to transcend SES constraints, especially for females in STEM curricula, studies and careers.

Online mathematics education as bio-eco-techno process: bibliometric analysis using co-authorship and bibliographic coupling.

Under the COVID-19 pandemic, mathematics education has moved completely online. To tackle this new norm based on bio-eco-techno theories, this study aims to provide educators an overview of the research landscape for envisioning educational practices through bibliometric analysis of 319 articles and reviews published in peer-reviewed journals from 1993 to 2020. Country and institutional co-authorship depicts the social network structure of the field to identify top productive contributors. Bibliographic coupling of publications forms the conceptual structure, revealing research themes. Together, the results are mapped according to the bio-eco-techno perspective. The bioecological system highlights student achievement as the central concerns. The microsystem emphasizes techno-subsystems for supporting flipped learning. The exosystem and mesosystem require institution support for teacher pedagogical design, digital competencies, and collaboration. The macrosystem raises the issue of distribution or centralization in the strengths of online mathematics education and calls for greater cross-national boundary digital use and collaboration. The chronosystem asks: Does Covid-19 force the popularity of blended or flipped learning into online education? Based on the bio-eco-techno perspective, further recommendations are provided. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11192-022-04441-3.