Supporting data for "The Use of Variation and Connections in Chinese Mathematics Lessons"

The current study is dedicated to obtaining a more thorough understanding of the use of variation and connections in naturalistic mathematics teaching practices in China. The research object is the mathematics topic of functions in the senior secondary school curriculum, which requires approximately 8–16 lessons to fit the specific situations of different classes. The participants were six ordinary mathematics teachers in three locally renowned schools located in three different cities in China.

Various data collection methods were applied in this research to identify more information on natural real-world teaching design regarding the use of variation and connections. First, observation with video recording was conducted in all lessons to capture more details and can be repeatedly viewed and examined. The essential information has been extracted and integrated, which can be found in the file "Video Note". Second, semi-structured interviews were conducted with teachers to gather their basic information, explore their intentions and reflections about lessons, and validate the ideas of the researcher. This information can be found in the file "Interview". Third, students' performances were also collected from tests, which can be found in the file "Test". The data of all types were categorized by teachers, i.e., the video set of lessons taught by each teacher, the interview of each teacher, and the overall test results of the class taught by each teacher. Therefore, there are usually six cases corresponding to six teachers in all files.