norwegian upper secondary school students' views of mathematics ...

pages.” My interpretation is that the man is leaning deeply over the pages on the desk
and writing intensely. The bodily expression of the man is friendly.
Drawing number seven shows a man sitting at a desk, scratching his long thin black
hair so that the scurf is whirling around. On the desk there is a cup of steaming coffee
and a beaker with many stumps of cigarettes, some still giving smoke. The face is
strange with two eyes on each side of what could be a very long nose and a big mouth
dividing the face in two parts. The upper teeth are shown in a long straight row and
there is growing beard on the cheek. The image has the label ‘The mathematician’.
Drawing number eight shows a man sitting at a desk in a room with a bookshelf full
of books, a blackboard full of notes (12+4+x+a 3 =~ ….) and paper basket full of
crumpled papers. On top of the desk there is a book in front of the man, a ruler, a
computer (?) and a paper. The man is thinking √25 + mc 2 , which is shown in a
bubble. The man has curly hair and spectacles and a little smile on his face. There is
peacefulness in the room.
Drawing number nine is a head of a man, drawn in red ink. It is a triangle shaped
head with big unordered hair and a long tapering beard. The mouth is dark and
hidden in the beard, the nose is strong and the eyes are narrow. The face is somewhat
expressionless.
Drawing number ten shows a man sitting in a dark room at a desk with a strong lamp
enlightening his working area. He works on a computer. On the floor there is a
striped home-woven carpet and two pictures on the wall. One picture shows sun, the
other the number 4 (could indicate a calendar?). We see the man from the back so the
face is not accessible.
Drawing number eleven shows a man walking and above his head is written 3 times
√9 raised to 12 π s. He has short black hair and an expressionless face. The hands are
drawn in a childish way with just five lines as fingers.
Drawing number twelve is the upper half of a man with spectacles and dark hair close
to his head. The eyes are wide open and somehow starring. The nose is small. In his
pocket is a pencil. Beside him is a cascade of mathematical expressions springing out
of a hole (2+3=5, √4 divided by 2 2 times x b 3 =z, E= mc 2 ). He has a lot of dots in his
face and maybe a cigarette in his mouth?
ANALYSIS
In the answers to what is mathematics the most common word is numbers (mentioned
10 times) and second common is calculations and to solve problems (mentioned 3
times each). Although the answers are rather short taken together they represent
several of the categories found by Mura. Mathematics is seen as a formal system,
models and application, symbols, a tool, and there are references to arithmetic and
relations. Mentioned are the mathematical objects number, problem, equation, model,