Differences in grade 7 students’ understanding of the equal sign

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Titel: Differences in grade 7 students’ understanding of the equal sign
Autoren: Sumpter, Lovisa, 1974, Löwenhielm, Anna
Quelle: Mathematical Thinking and Learning. 26(2):143-158
Schlagwörter: Conceptual understanding, equal sign, notion of equality, procedural understanding, Mathematics Education, matematikämnets didaktik
Beschreibung: This paper studies grade 7 (age 13) students’ expressed understanding about the equal sign/notion of equivalence in order to investigate what aspects of the concept that could be seen as an established knowledge at lower secondary school/middle school. Using items from different instruments and combining these to a new one that covered a broad spectrum of procedural and conceptual knowledge, we collected data from 159 students. The different statistical tests showed that if focusing only on separate items, it could confirm that students could be seen either having operational or relational understanding of the equal sign. However, when taking all results into account using several analyses, students’ understanding appear to be much more complex. Instead of a dichotomized view, students’ expressed knowledge of mathematical equivalence should be seen as a continuum.
Dateibeschreibung: print
Zugangs-URL: https://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:su:diva-203299
https://doi.org/10.1080/10986065.2022.2058160
Datenbank: SwePub
Beschreibung
Abstract:This paper studies grade 7 (age 13) students’ expressed understanding about the equal sign/notion of equivalence in order to investigate what aspects of the concept that could be seen as an established knowledge at lower secondary school/middle school. Using items from different instruments and combining these to a new one that covered a broad spectrum of procedural and conceptual knowledge, we collected data from 159 students. The different statistical tests showed that if focusing only on separate items, it could confirm that students could be seen either having operational or relational understanding of the equal sign. However, when taking all results into account using several analyses, students’ understanding appear to be much more complex. Instead of a dichotomized view, students’ expressed knowledge of mathematical equivalence should be seen as a continuum.
ISSN:10986065
15327833
DOI:10.1080/10986065.2022.2058160