Assessing Junior High School Students' Systems Thinking Skill in Mathematics

• In Event: Marriott Roundtable Session One
  In Roundtable Session: Exploring the Academic Rigor of Curriculum Resources and Assessment (Table 4)

Abstract

This study investigated junior high school students’ systems thinking skill in mathematics. An operational framework comprising the three subskills of identifying/constructing relevant components, recognizing/constructing relationships, and analyzing/constructing a system was proposed. A survey on a set of items based on the framework was administered to a total of 449 students. The findings were as follows: most students constructed new elements by combining several categories, but very few of these combinations solved the problem; most students constructed only the first-order structure but not the second-order structure; and students in higher grade levels and with higher levels of mathematical achievements performed better than the others, which indicated the effect of intellectual maturity on the development of mathematical thinking.

Author

• Ting-Ying Wang, National Taiwan Normal University
  Presenting Author