Unit:
Διαπανεπιστημιακό ΠΜΣ Διδακτική και Μεθοδολογία των ΜαθηματικώνLibrary of the School of Science
Author:
Δημητρακοπούλου Στυλιανή
Supervisors info:
Γεώργιος Ψυχάρης Λέκτορας ΕΚΠΑ (επιβλέπων), Κωνσταντίνος Π. Χρήστου Επίκ. Καθηγητής Πανεπιστήμιο Δυτικής Μακεδονίας, Διονύσιος Λάππας Αναπλ. Καθηγητής ΕΚΠΑ
Original Title:
Χρήση Γραμμάτων ως Μεταβλητές. Τρόποι κατανόησης από τους Μαθητές και Τρόποι εμφάνισης στα Σχολικά βιβλία του Γυμνασίου.
Translated title:
The use of Literal Symbols as Variables. How Students Interpret them and how they are Used in the Greek Middle Grades Mathematics Textbooks
Summary:
This thesis reports results of two empirical studies. The first study focused
on how students interpret literal symbols in algebra and more specifically the
tendency to think that literal symbols stand mostly for natural numbers. The
results showed that students tended to interpret literal symbols as generalized
numbers, that is more than one number, but these numbers are natural numbers in
priority. The second study examined how middle school textbooks of mathematics
in the Greek public high school present the literal symbols as variables and
whether the numerical values assigned to them are mostly natural numbers. The
use of variables as generalized number dominated the uses of variables, and it
was also shown that natural and non-natural numbers appeared in about the same
proportion as values of variables. The results are confronted to the main
findings and research outputs of other related studies in the literature and
some suggestions on pedagogical applications are expressed.
Keywords:
Variables, Natural numbers, Literal symbols, Curriculum
Number of references:
100
