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Psychological Approaches in Mathematics Education

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Encyclopedia of Mathematics Education

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Cognitive psychology, developmental psychology, and educational psychology are general fields of research for which mathematics education naturally seems one among many domains of application. However, the history of these domains of research and of the development of research in mathematics education is much more complex, and not at all hierarchical. For example, in their monumental Human Problem Solving (Newell and Simon 1972), Newell and Simon acknowledged that many of their ideas (which became among the fundamentals of Cognitive Psychology) were largely inspired from George Pólya’s How to Solve It (Pólya 1945). Another prestigious link is of course Piaget’s Epistémologie Génétique – his theory of human development: the theory was based on memorable experiments in which Piaget designed conservation tasks in which mathematical entities were focused on (number, quantity, length, proportions, etc.). Also Cole’s Cultural Psychology (1996) is largely based on the...

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Hebrew University, 91905, Jerusalem, Israel

    Baruch B. Schwarz

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  1. Baruch B. Schwarz
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Correspondence to Baruch B. Schwarz .

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  1. Department of Education, Centre for Mathematics Education, London South Bank University, London, UK

    Stephen Lerman

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Schwarz, B.B. (2014). Psychological Approaches in Mathematics Education. In: Lerman, S. (eds) Encyclopedia of Mathematics Education. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4978-8_167

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4978-8_167

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