Languaging as a Pedagogical Bridge in Primary Mathematics Education : Exploring the Experience-Belief-Teaching Practice Nexus

Abstract

Pedagogical approaches play a critical role in promoting equitable learning outcomes and sustained engagement in primary school mathematics. Globally, including in Finland, declining student performance and interest in mathematics, together with growing disparities linked to social, economic, and cultural backgrounds, have intensified concerns about equity and the overall effectiveness of primary mathematics education. Although curricula emphasize students’ active construction of conceptual understanding, classroom practices often continue to position students as passive learners of knowledge. Motivated by professional experience as both a teacher and a researcher across different educational contexts, this gap between policy aspirations and everyday classroom instruction emerged as a central concern of the present study: “How can teachers be supported to engage all students meaningfully in mathematics learning?”

These challenges are further compounded by teachers’ relatively stable affective orientations—particularly beliefs and attitudes—which shape instructional decision-making and may limit responsiveness to learner diversity. Addressing this problem requires pedagogical sensitivity that enables students to articulate their thinking, engage in dialogic interaction, and construct mathematical meaning through multimodal expression, conceptualized here as <i>Languaging</i>. When teachers systematically recognize and interpret such expressions, they can provide scaffolded support responsive to individual learning needs. By enabling mathematical meaning-making through spoken, written, pictorial, symbolic, and embodied modes, Languaging supports both multiliteracy and language awareness while fostering interactive learning environments.

This doctoral dissertation aims to further conceptualize and empirically investigate Languaging as a pedagogical bridge between primary school teachers’ beliefs and their mathematics teaching practices, with the broader goal of improving students’ opportunities to construct and express mathematical understanding. To address this aim, RQ 1 investigates how teachers’ prior experiences and beliefs relate to instructional practices, conceptualizing this relationship through a multi-layer belief–practice framework encompassing personal, school, and systemic layers. RQ 2 examines the mediating role of Languaging, framing it not as a discrete intervention but as a process of continuous meaning development across the personal, interactional, and systemic layers of mathematics education.

The dissertation employs a multi-method design comprising four interrelated studies. Study I systematically reviewed 25 empirical studies on primary school teachers’ views and instructional practices, revealing conceptual inconsistencies in view-related constructs and informing the later conceptualization of beliefs as the dissertation’s central analytical construct.

Study II analyzed the mathematical beliefs of 97 pre-service class teachers from two teacher education pathways using metaphor analysis to identify systematic associations between prior learning experiences and metaphorical representations of mathematics.

Study III applied convergent mixed methods with 56 pre-service class teachers to examine belief and attitude changes following a Languaging-based methods course, indicating substantial shifts toward meaning-oriented beliefs about mathematics teaching and learning, alongside more positive attitudes, while also revealing persistent emotional complexity among participants with negative prior experiences. Study IV employed a qualitative multiple-case design involving six in-service class teachers and approximately 90 students (grades 2–4), showing that although teachers’ beliefs remained strongly shaped by prior learning histories, classroom enactment of Languaging was aligned with instructional intentions, with variability in assessment practices, conceptual challenge, and support for learner diversity.

Synthesized findings demonstrate that teachers’ mathematical beliefs reflect both continuity and transformation: early learning experiences exert a durable influence, yet sustained engagement with new pedagogical practices enables belief reconstruction. Within this dynamic process, Languaging operates as a mediational and iterative mechanism for reinterpreting current beliefs and reconstructing instructional enactment, rather than as a linear progression from belief to action.

The dissertation contributes theoretically by refining the experience–belief–(future) practice nexus, methodologically by demonstrating the value of a multi-method research design, and practically by proposing a five-level conceptualization of Languaging to support coherent curriculum enactment without introducing new curricular content. Future research may extend this work by examining students’ own Languaging processes and the adaptability of multimodal mathematical meaning-making across diverse cultural and educational settings.