Abstract/Description:
Scholars suggest that students’ difficulties in making sense of and meaningfully manipulating algebraic expressions is due to their lack of structural reasoning. Research studies have documented that students seldom use expert structural reasoning but give little insight into the nature of students’ non-expert structural reasoning. Our study examines how six AP students identify structure, match structures to rules for manipulation, and evaluate their matches as they solve problems involving rational expressions. We found that students were engaged in structural reasoning throughout the hour-long interviews, and that successful solutions were characterized by students identifying structures by breaking expressions into smaller parts based on the highest level of operation (HLO), matching those structures to valid rules, and evaluating the correctness and progress made by the match they constructed.
Presenters:
Dan Siebert, Brigham Young University