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Cost, price and profit: what influences students’ decisions about fundraising?

journal contribution
posted on 2018-12-01, 00:00 authored by Carly SawatzkiCarly Sawatzki, Merrilyn Goos
This article examines some of the complexities associated with developing financially literate, enterprising young Australians through school education. We aimed to explore what seems to influence students in pricing goods for sale within their school community. Data were collected from more than 300 years 5 and 6 students (10–12 years of age) in four government primary schools in urban Darwin. Students were asked to respond to problem contexts involving fundraising as an example of an enterprise activity. The findings reveal that familiarity with fundraising initiatives, personal values, and language and literacy skills shaped the responses students gave. Students who gave loss-making and break-even responses were price conscious, but also tended to confuse terminology influencing mathematisation—i.e., “cost”, “price” and “profit”. Students who gave profit-making responses applied reasoning that was mathematical, financial and entrepreneurial, giving explanations that distinguished between these terms. We argue that these insights contribute to our understanding how upper primary school students interpret and respond to financial problems, with useful implications for schools and teachers.

History

Journal

Mathematics education research journal

Volume

30

Pagination

525-544

Location

Dordrecht, The Netherlands

ISSN

1033-2170

eISSN

2211-050X

Language

eng

Publication classification

C1 Refereed article in a scholarly journal

Copyright notice

2018, Mathematics Education Research Group of Australasia, Inc.

Issue

4

Publisher

Springer

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