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How Do Elementary School Students Understand '='? - Performance on Various Item Types -  

Kim, Jeongwon (Shintanjin Elementary School)
Choi, Jiyoung (Youngnam Elementary School)
Pang, JeongSuk (Korea National University of Education)
Publication Information
Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics / v.26, no.1, 2016 , pp. 79-101 More about this Journal
Abstract
Understanding the equal sign is of great significance to the development of algebraic thinking. Given this importance, this study investigated in what ways a total of 695 students from second to sixth graders understand the equal sign. The results showed that students were successful in solving standard problems whereas they were poor at items demanding high relational thinking. It was noticeable that some of the students were based on computational thinking rather than relational understanding of the equal sign. The students had a difficulty both in understanding the structure of equations and in solving equations in non-standard problem contexts. They also had incomplete understanding of the equal sign. This paper is expected to explore the understanding of the equal sign by elementary school students in multiple problem contexts and to provide implications of how to promote students' understanding of the equal sign.
Keywords
Equal sign; Relational understanding; Algebraic thinking;
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