Teachers ’ conceptions of mathematical modelling at Swedish Upper Secondary

Researchers argue that teachers ’ conceptions (beliefs) about mathematical modelling have an impact on the low integration of modelling activities into the mathematics classroom. This paper presents a case study of 18 teachers, investigating their conceptions about mathematical modelling and their experiences of working with modelling activities in Swedish upper secondary school. The results, based on an analysis with a grounded theory inspired coding strategy, indicate that the teachers’ conceptions of the notion mathematical modelling relates to designing a mathematical model based on a situation. It is also concluded that the teachers have minor experience of the notion of mathematical modelling in mathematics class, but in physics class modelling is used as a common activity. Overall the teachers in this study seem not to give priority to integrate mathematical modelling into their everyday mathematics teaching. One reason may be related to teachers ’ conceptions about mathematics where more than every other teacher expressed that some of the modelling items discussed during the interviews were not considered to be mathematics