1. Faculty of Social Sciences
  2. School of Education
  3. Research and expertise
  4. Research projects
  5. The Foundational Number Sense (FoNS) Research Project

Research project

The Foundational Number Sense (FoNS) Research Project

  • Start date: 1 July 2016
  • End date: 31 January 2021
  • Funder: Vetenskapsrådet (Swedish Research Council)
  • Value: SEK 9,500,000 (€1,000,000)
  • Primary investigator: 01035075
  • Co-investigators: P.I.: Prof. Paul Andrews at Stockholm University; Post doc: Jöran Petersson & researcher: Eva Ronsenqvist
  • External co-investigators: P.I.: Prof. Paul Andrews at Stockholm University; Post doc: Jöran Petersson & researcher: Eva Ronsenqvist

The project investigates the development of Foundational Number Sense in year one children in England and Sweden.

The project involves interviews, surveys and observations with parents and teachers of year one children in both countries. It also analyses mathematics text books written and used by teachers, including text books influenced by Singapore and Finland.

Impact

Teacher training and education programmes in both Sweden and England.

The FONS framework has also been used in Cyprus teacher education.

Publications and outputs

  • Opportunities to acquire foundational number sense: A quantitative comparison of popular English and Swedish textbooks. In A. Unknown B Unknown (Eds.), Proceedings of the Tenth Congress of the European Society for Research in Mathematics Education (pp. 371-378). Dublin: Institute of Education, Dublin City University. 
  • The role of conceptual subitising in the development of foundational number sense Sayers, J., Andrews, P., & Björklund Boistrup, L. (2016). The role of conceptual subitising in the development of foundational number sense. In T. Meaney, O. Helenius, M. Johansson, T. Lange, & A. Wernberg (Eds.), Mathematics education in the early years: Results from the POEM2 conference, 2014 (pp. 371-396). Dordrecht: Springer.
  • Foundational number sense: The basis for whole number arithmetic competence Sayers, J., & Andrews, P. (2015). Foundational number sense: The basis for whole number arithmetic competence. In X. Sun, B. Kaur, & J. Novotná (Eds.), Proceedings of the twenty-third ICMI Study: Primary mathematics study on whole numbers (pp. 124-131). University of Macao.
  • Pre-funded project related publications:
  • Opportunities to acquire foundational number sense: A framework for classroom analyses Andrews, P., & Sayers, J. (2015). Identifying opportunities for grade one children to acquire foundational number sense: developing a framework for cross cultural classroom analyses. Early Childhood Education Journal, 43(4), 257-267.
  • Developing foundational number sense: Number line examples from Poland and Russia Andrews, P., Sayers, J., & Marschall, G. (2015). Developing foundational number sense: Number line examples from Poland and Russia. In K. Krainer & N. Vondrová (Eds.), Proceedings of the Ninth Congress of the European Society for Research in Mathematics Education (pp. 1681-1687). Prague: Charles University in Prague, Faculty of Education and ERME.
  • Foundational Number Sense: Summarising the development of an analytical framework Sayers, J., & Andrews, P. (2015). Foundational Number Sense: Summarising the development of an analytical framework. In K. Krainer & N. Vondrová (Eds.), Ninth Congress of European Research in Mathematics Education (CERME9) (pp. 361-367). Prague: Charles University in Prague, Faculty of Education.
  • Foundational number sense: A framework for analysing early number-related teaching Andrews, P., & Sayers, J. (2015). Foundational number sense: A framework for analysing early number-related teaching. In O. Helenius, A. Engström, T. Meaney, P. Nilsson, E. Norén, J. Sayers, & M. Österhom (Eds.), Developments of mathematics teaching: Design, scale, effects (pp. 17-26). Umeå: SMDF.
  • Foundational number sense in England and Hungary: A case study comparison Back, J., Sayers, J., & Andrews, P. (2013). The development of foundational number sense in England and Hungary: A case study comparison. In B. Ubuz, Ç. Haser, & M. A. Mariotti (Eds.), Proceedings of the Eighth Congress of the European Society for Research in Mathematics Education (pp. 1835-1844). Ankara: Middle East Technical University.

Project website

https://www.mnd.su.se/english/research/mathematics-education/research-projects/fons