Relationships Between How Students Construct Diagrams and Their Mathematical Understandings

• In Event: Students’ Mathematical Thinking and Learning

Abstract

Historically, research on representations in mathematics education has focused on how students interpret, use, and move between conventional representations, such as tables, graphs, and equations, and on students’ conceptual difficulties with and misconceptions about representations. More recently, research has turned to the use of unconventional, student-constructed representations, such as diagrams. However, little is known about whether or not the particular ways in which students physically draw diagrams are related to their understandings. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between students’ diagram construction processes and their inferred conceptions. The main finding was that students that used the same diagram-construction process were all members of the same category with respect to their conception of increasing speed.

Authors

• Charles Hohensee, University of Delaware

• Joanne Lobato, San Diego State University

• Jaime Marie Diamond, San Diego State University & University of California at San Diego