• School Mathematics
• /
• v.10 no.4
• /
• pp.537-555
• /
• 2008

The study aims to analyze elementary school students' understanding of the concept of equality sign in contexts, to reflect the types of contexts for equality sign which mathematics textbook series for $1{\sim}4$ grades on natural numbers and its operation provide, and to invetigate the effects of teaching methods of the concept of equality sign suggested in this research. In order to achieve these purposes, the origin, concept, and contexts of equality sign were theoretically reviewed and organized. Also the error types in using equality sign were reflected. Modelling, discussing truth or falsity of equations, identifying relations between numbers and their operation, conjecturing basic properties of numbers and their operations, experiencing diverse contexts for equality sign, and creating contexts for equality sign are set up as teaching methods for better understanding the concept of equality sign. The conclusions are as follows. Firstly, elementary school students' under-standing of the concept of equality sign varied by context and was generally far from satisfactory. In particular, they had difficulties in understanding the concept of the equal sign in contexts with operations on both sides. The most frequently witnessed error was to recognize equality sign as a result of operations. Secondly, student' lack of understanding of the concept of equality sign came from the fact that elementary textbooks failed to provide diverse contexts for equality sign. According to the textbook analysis, contexts with operations on the left side of the equal sign in the form of $a{\pm}b=c$ were provided excessively, with the other contexts hardly seen. Thirdly, teaching methods provided in the study were found to be effective for enhancing understanding the concept of equality sign. In other words, these methods enabled students to focus on relational understanding of concept of equality sign rather than operational one.

• Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics
• /
• v.13 no.3
• /
• pp.287-307
• /
• 2003

This study analyzed the concept of equal symbol(=) that is the most symbol used in learning of mathematics and investigated students' understanding of that. The equal symbol is endowed with the 'same', 'equal', and 'equivalent' meaning, represented by =, but students interpret the meaning of equal symbol according to the mathematical con text. Thus, we analyzed the equal symbol on the basis of the theory of conceptual fields. In the theory of conceptual fields, concept is a three-tuple of three sets of situation, operational invariants and symbolic representations, and the operational invariants are the concept-in-action and the theorems- in-action. With the analysis contents, we investigated how students read = by korean, what equals in the expression containing = or by what meaning students used =, and which they could correct the error for =. This study imply that we should consider the symbol notation agreed by mathematical society, the meaning, and the situational context that it used, when we teach the mathematics symbols.

• Journal of Elementary Mathematics Education in Korea
• /
• v.18 no.2
• /
• pp.211-236
• /
• 2014

The purpose of this study is to investigate teacher's knowledge of concept of equality and derive implications about proper teaching methods. To solve these study problems, three elementary school teachers are chosen for this study, and a pencil-and paper tests for comprehension of the equality concept targeting 72 students for elementary school that the teachers are in charge of the students was carried out. Also, The semi-structured interview(using a questionnaire) was conducted for analyzing of the teachers' knowledge of the equality concept. The findings are as follows. First, during the lesson, the teachers' reading of equal sign has a decisive effect on the students' the way of reading. Second, teachers tend to interpret the concept of equality as a systematic analysis rather than a relational analysis, and use a equal sign focusing on meaning of 'same result'. So, Students also can't interpret the concept of equality as a relational analysis. Third, under the influence of teacher's feedback or reaction, making the mistake of the using equal sign of students reoccurred continually. Fourth, teachers misjudged some of examples of the nonstandard context equation for teaching elementary school students. Furthermore, during the lesson, they usually used a limited equality context. So, students can't have a chance to learn equality in a plenty of context. Thus, the knowledge of teachers and their lesson has decisive influence on the comprehension of students about the equality concept. So, Teacher has to focus on the meaning of the equality as a relational analysis and teach them in a plenty of context. With this, lots of study and in-service training are needed to enhance knowledge of teachers. And more of lesson programs and materials have to provided on the instruction manual for teaching the meaning of the equality.

• Communications of Mathematical Education
• /
• v.24 no.2
• /
• pp.365-384
• /
• 2010

This paper is an analysis study where we surveyed how well pre-service teachers understand the mathematical concepts taught in elementary school. We analyzed the results focusing on the following: First, what are the pre-service teachers' understandings of the equal sign and variables? Secondly, how exact are their understandings of other elementary school mathematical concepts? The survey was done on the students in Teachers College of Jeju National University. We hope that the results of this study will help the improvement of mathematical education for elementary pre-service teachers.

• The Mathematical Education
• /
• v.42 no.5
• /
• pp.697-706
• /
• 2003

In this paper we consider the equality sign as a mathematical concept and investigate its meaning, errors made by students, and subject matter knowledge of mathematics teacher in view of The Model of Mathematic al Concept Analysis, arithmetic-algebraic thinking, and some examples. The equality sign = is a symbol most frequently used in school mathematics. But its meanings vary accor ding to situations where it is used, say, objects placed on both sides, and involve not only ordinary meanings but also mathematical ideas. The Model of Mathematical Concept Analysis in school mathematics consists of Ordinary meaning, Mathematical idea, Representation, and their relationships. To understand a mathematical concept means to understand its ordinary meanings, mathematical ideas immanent in it, its various representations, and their relationships. Like other concepts in school mathematics, the equality sign should be also understood and analysed in vie w of a mathematical concept.

• Education of Primary School Mathematics
• /
• v.25 no.4
• /
• pp.459-475
• /
• 2022

The equal sign and equivalence are the most basic and core concepts in elementary mathematics, but there has been lack of research on how to teach these concepts with textbooks. Given this, this study analyzed elementary mathematics textbooks in terms of three instructional elements (i.e., emphasizing the meaning of the equal sign as a relational symbol, dealing with an equation as an object for reasoning, and using an equation with a missing value). In particular, this study analyzed 10 different mathematics textbook series that are newly used in 2022 and examined the overall trends and characteristics for teaching the equal sign and equivalence. The results of this study showed that the activities emphasizing the meaning of the equal sign as a relational symbol were most noticeable but the activities dealing with an equation as an object for reasoning or using an equation with a missing value were relatively rare. Based on the results of the analysis, this study provides textbook writers with implications on what to further consider in covering the equal sign and equivalence.

• Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics
• /
• v.26 no.1
• /
• pp.79-101
• /
• 2016

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.

• Journal of Elementary Mathematics Education in Korea
• /
• v.17 no.2
• /
• pp.207-223
• /
• 2013

Teachers unfold a series of timeless mathematical symbols such as 5+2=7 in time by verbalizing the symbols in classrooms. A number sentence 5+2=7 is read in Korean as '5 더하기 2는(five plus two) 7과(seven) 같다(equals). Unlike in English, 5+2 and 7 are read first before the equal sign in Korean. This sequence of reading in Korean conflicts with the conventional linguistic sequence of writing from left to right. Ways of resolving the discrepancy between reading and writing sequences can make a difference students' understanding of the equal sign. Students would be in danger of perceiving the equal sign as an operational symbol, if a teacher resolves the discrepancy by subordinating reading sequence to linguistic convention of writing. This way of resolving results in the undesired phenomenon of changing the reading expressions in Korean elementary math textbook which represent relational notion of the equal sign into other reading expressions that represent operational notion of it. For understanding of relational notion of the equal sign, the discrepancy should be resolved by changing writing sequence in accordance with reading sequence. In addition, teaching of verbalizing the equal sign should be integrated with teaching of verbalizing inequality signs.

• School Mathematics
• /
• v.17 no.3
• /
• pp.391-405
• /
• 2015

This study was aimed to investigate how students' relational thinking about equations could be formed by exploring web-based balance. The researchers developed 3 groups of 4 typed 12 equation problems of (a+b+c = d+ _ ) to test 24 4th graders. Pretest and post-test were conducted using Eye-tracker for investigating their eye movements. The researchers interviewed students who were not having distinct strategies to look into their cognitive process. As a result, we can conclude web-based balance helped students to get the concept of the equal sign and to form the relational thinking by the process of comparing both sides, right and left on the basis of fulcrum on balance.

• Journal of the Korean School Mathematics Society
• /
• v.20 no.2
• /
• pp.141-161
• /
• 2017

As it's important to understand the order of operation in the mixed calculation of natural number and perform it, mathematics curriculums and textbooks focused that students can calculate with understanding the order of operation and its principles. For attaining the implications of teaching about the mixed calculations, this study analyzed the problem solving abilities and error types of 67 elementary students and 57 pre-service teachers using questionnaire which was developed in this study and composed of numeric expressions and word problems. The conclusions drawn from this study were as follows: Students were revealed the correct rates(86.2% and 73.5%) in numeric expressions and word problems, but they were showed the paradigmatic error types-the errors of the order of operation and the composition of numeric expression from word problems. Even though the correct rates of the preservice teachers were extremely high, the result of problem solving processes required that it's needed to be interested in teaching the principles of the order of operation in the mixed calculations. In addition, subjects were revealed the problems about using parentheses and equal sign.