Thesis abstract:

Although mathematics education has traditionally been about a passive acquisition of knowledge, this teaching and learning approach no longer meet the needs and demands of a world described by the OECD as 'increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous'. These profound and ongoing changes are reshaping how we live, learn and work. One strategy to foster cognitive engagement and 21st century skills in secondary students is through teachers’ implementation of problem-solving tasks such as challenging tasks. Although teachers are aware of challenging tasks and their benefits to students’ learning, challenging tasks are not as researched and used in the secondary context compared to the primary context. To better respond to reforms in national syllabi and international curricula emphasising 21st century priorities and help to fill the gap in the literature, my PhD project aims to investigate secondary mathematics teachers’ implementation of challenging tasks. Only then can identified enablers and barriers to implementation be leveraged to develop recommendations and improve practice.