The literature has amply shown that primary and secondary school students have difficulties in understanding rational number size. Many of these difficulties are explained by the natural number bias or the use of other incorrect reasoning such as gap thinking. However, in many studies, these types of reasoning have been inferred from comparing…

The aim of this study is to determine the algebraic thinking levels, misconceptions and understanding levels of algebraic expressions of 6th, 7th and 8th grade students. In this research, developmental research methods, which is one of the descriptive studies, were used. This study was carried out with secondary school students (6th, 7th and 8th…

Understanding students' mathematical thinking in problem solving process plays an important role in facilitating the solution. Hence, teachers or pre-service teachers need to understand students' thoughts and guide them to the correct answer. The aim of this study was to examine pre-service teachers' approaches to guiding students in problem…

The research shared in this conference paper report illustrates how an iterative process to item development that involves expert review and cognitive lab interviews with students can be used to collect evidence of validity for assessment items. Analysis of students' reasoning was also used to expand a model for identifying conceptions and…

The purpose of this research is the determination of the effect of the activities of the planetarium on students' views, three-dimensional thinking skills and academic achievement. Mixed method was used in the research. The embedded pattern is preferred because qualitative data are supported by quantitative data that was used a single group…

In this study, we investigated students' thinking about the use of letters in algebra. Responses from over 1,400 Australian secondary school students to a set of three algebra items were analysed to determine the prevalence of the "letter as object" misconception. We estimate that 50% to 80% of Year 7 students bring this misconception to…

This study focuses on teacher learning of student thinking through grading homework, assessing and analyzing misconceptions. The data were collected from 10 teachers at fifth-eighth grade levels in the USA. The results show that assessing and analyzing misconceptions from grading homework is an important approach to acquiring knowledge of…

How do you refute the erroneous claim that all ratios are fractions? This book goes beyond a simple introduction to ratios, proportions, and proportional reasoning. It will help broaden and deepen your mathematical understanding of one of the most challenging topics for students--and teachers--to grasp. It will help you engage your students,…

This book describes and illustrates learning paths for the mathematical concepts and skills of each grade 8 Focal Point as presented in Curriculum Focal Points for Prekindergarten through Grade 8 Mathematics. It includes representational supports for teaching and learning that can facilitate understanding, stimulate productive discussions about…

Informal reasoning fallacies are violations of critical discussion norms. As epistemological understanding of knowledge justification appears to underlie the informal reasoning skills of argument construction and evaluation, it was hypothesized that adolescents with greater epistemological sophistication would be more able to identify informal…