Abductive reasoning in mathematics education

Call for papers - Abductive reasoning in mathematics education

From a traditional perspective, induction and deduction have been discussed as key ways to generate new knowledge. On the other hand, Charles Sanders Peirce introduced the notion of abduction, distinct from deduction and induction, to avoid the pitfalls of empiricism and rationalism. Abduction is the process of forming an explanatory hypothesis on observed surprising result. Peirce emphasized that abductive reasoning is the only way of creating new ideas, and epistemologists as well as educational researchers have attempted to tackle the notorious problem, so-called learning paradox, from Peircean perspective on knowledge generation.

With mathematics educators’ recent interests in semiotic approaches, there is a growing attention on the importance of investigating abductive reasoning in mathematics education researches. Studies have attempted to clarify the forms and uses of abductive reasoning in the students’ mathematical inquiries to identify how students generate new mathematical ideas. Researchers also consider that investigating the students’ abductive reasoning may help to interpret and understand mathematics classrooms. Thus, exploring abductive reasoning in mathematics education may provide a more helpful cornerstone in order to understand how mathematics teaching and learning progresses.

Based on the above, this special issue mainly focuses on abductive reasoning in mathematics education. Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• The roles and nature of abductive reasoning in mathematical inquiries
• Empirical studies identifying interaction between abductive reasoning and other types of reasoning in the students’ mathematical inquiries.
• Specific features or characteristics of abductive reasoning in different instructional settings and mathematical contents.
• Methodology on investigating the students’ abductive reasoning in educational research.
• Specific features of the students’ or mathematics teachers’ abductive reasoning at particular levels of education.
• Concrete tasks or teaching units for supporting abductive reasoning.
• Future trends of researches on abductive reasoning in mathematics education


Before manuscript submissions, authors should carefully read ‘Aims & Scope’ of the EURASIA Journal of Mathematics, Science, & Technology Education and particularly ‘Instructions for Authors’ ( https://www.ejmste.com).

Authors should submit their manuscripts using Editorial System at https://www.editorialsystem.com/ejmste and please kindly select the manuscript type: SI - Abductive reasoning in mathematics education

The timetable is below: