• Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.165-180
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• 2014

This study analyzed in what ways the instructional materials have been dealing with the fraction as quotient, since the seventh national mathematics curriculum. An analysis of this study urged us to re-consider the content related to the fraction as quotient. First, the fraction as quotient has weakened in the current mathematics textbooks and workbooks in comparison to those developed under the previous curriculum. Second, the contexts of whole number division taught in grades 3 and 4 were not naturally connected to those of the fraction as quotient taught in grade 5. Third, the types of word problems, visual models, and partitioning strategies in the textbooks and the workbooks were partial, and the process of formalization was limited. Building on these results, this study is expected to suggest specific implications which may be taken into account in developing new instructional materials in process.

• School Mathematics
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.783-802
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• 2014

The purpose of this study was to explore in detail students' understanding of fraction as quotient. A total of 158 sixth graders in 6 elementary schools were surveyed by 8 tasks in relation to fraction as quotient. As a result, students used various partitioning strategies to solve the given sharing tasks such as partitioning the singleton unit, the composite unit, or the whole unit of the dividend. They also used incorrect partitioning strategies that were not appropriate to the given context. Students' partitioning strategies and performance of fraction as quotient varied depending on the given contexts and models. This study suggests that students should have rich experience to partition various units and reinterpret the context based on the singleton unit of the dividend.

• Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.467-480
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• 2014

Concepts related to the fraction should be taught with formative thinking activities as well as concrete operational activities. Teaching improper fraction should follow the concept of fraction as a relation of two natural numbers. This concept is also important not to be skipped before teaching the fraction such as "4 is a third of 12". Mixed number should be taught as a sum of a natural number and a proper fraction. Fraction as a quotient of a division is a hard concept to be taught since it requires very high abstractive thinking process. Learning the transformation of division into multiplication of fractions should precede that of fraction as a quotient of a division.

• Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.53-68
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• 2012

This paper investigated the conceptual schemes four children constructed as they related division number sentences to various types of fraction: Proper fractions, improper fractions, and mixed numbers in both contextual and abstract symbolic forms. Methods followed those of the constructivist teaching experiment. Four fifth-grade students from an inner city school in the southwest United States were interviewed eight times: Pre-test clinical interview, six teaching / semi-structured interviews, and a final post-test clinical interview. Results showed that for equal sharing situations, children conceptualized division in two ways: For mixed numbers, division generated a whole number portion of quotient and a fractional portion of quotient. This provided the conceptual basis to see improper fractions as quotients. For proper fractions, they tended to see the quotient as an instance of the multiplicative structure: $a{\times}b=c$ ; $a{\div}c=\frac{1}{b}$ ; $b{\div}c=\frac{1}{a}$. Results suggest that first, facility in recall of multiplication and division fact families and understanding the multiplicative structure must be emphasized before learning fraction division. Second, to facilitate understanding of the multiplicative structure children must be fluent in representing division in the form of number sentences for equal sharing word problems. If not, their reliance on long division hampers their use of syntax and their understanding of divisor and dividend and their relation to the concepts of numerator and denominator.

• Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.83-102
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• 2014

The purpose of this study was to explore students' understanding on units embedded in multiple interpretations of fractions: (a) part-whole relationships, (b) measures, (c) quotients, (d) ratios, and (e) operators. A total of 150 sixth graders in elementary schools were surveyed by a questionnaire comprised of 20 tasks in relation to multiple interpretations of fractions. As results, students' performance on units varied depending on the interpretations of fractions. Students had a tendency to regard the given whole as the unit, which led to incorrect answers. This study suggests that students should have rich experience to identify and operate various units in the context of multiple fractions.

• Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.25-43
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• 2009

The fraction concept consists of various meanings and is one of the abstract and difficult in elementary school mathematics. This study intends to find out the implication for introducing the fraction concept by comparing mathematics textbooks of Korea and Singapore. Both countries' students peformed well in recent TIMMSs. Some implications are as follows; The term 'equal' is not defined and the results of various 'equal partitioning' activities can not easily examined in Korea's mathematics textbook. And contexts of introducing fractions as a quotient and a ratio are unnatural in Korea's mathematics textbook in comparison with Singapore's mathematics textbook. So these ideas should be reconsidered in order to seek the direction for improvement of it. And Korea's textbooks need the emphasis on the fraction as a measure and on constructing fraction concept by unit fraction.

• School Mathematics
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.685-706
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• 2009

This dissertation is aimed to investigate the reason why a contextualization is needed to help the meaningful teaching-learning concerning multiplications and divisions of fractions, the way to make the contextualization possible, and the methods which enable us to use it effectively. For this reason, this study intends to examine the differences of situations multiplying or dividing of fractions comparing to that of natural numbers, to recognize the changes in units by contextualization of multiplication of fractions, the context is set which helps to understand the role of operator that is a multiplier. As for the contextualization of division of fractions, the measurement division would have the left quantity if the quotient is discrete quantity, while the quotient of the measurement division should be presented as fractions if it is continuous quantity. The context of partitive division is connected with partitive division of natural number and 3 effective learning steps of formalization from division of natural number to division of fraction are presented. This research is expected to help teachers and students to acquire meaningful algorithm in the process of teaching and learning.

• Journal of Elementary Mathematics Education in Korea
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.425-439
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• 2014

The concept of a fraction as division is a core idea which serves as a axiom in the process of a extension of the natural number system to rational number system. Also, it has necessary position in elementary mathematics. Nevertheless, the timing and method of the introduction of this concept in Korean elementary math textbooks is not well established. In this thesis, I suggested a solution of a various topics which is related to this problem, that is, transforming improper fraction to mixed number, the usage of quotient as a term, explaining the algorithm of division of fraction, transforming fraction to decimal.

• Education of Primary School Mathematics
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.193-210
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• 2016

In the $10{\div}2.4$ problem situation, we could find that curious upper and middle level students' solution. They solved $10{\div}2.4$ and wrote the result as quotient 4, remainder 4. In this curious response, we researched how students realize quotient and remainder in division of decimal. As a result, many students make errors in division of decimal especially in remainder. From these response, we constructed fraction based teaching method about division of decimal. This method provides new aspects about quotient and remainder in division of decimal, so we can compare each aspects' strong points and weak points.

• Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.17-35
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• 2013

The purpose of this study was to analyze the extendibility of division algorithm and Euclid algorithm for integers to algorithms for rational numbers based on word problems of fraction division. This study serviced to upgrade professional development of elementary and secondary mathematics teachers. In this paper, fractions were used as expressions of rational numbers, and they also represent rational numbers. According to discrete context and continuous context, and measurement division and partition division etc, divisibility was classified into two types; one is an abstract algebraic point of view and the other is a generalizing view which preserves division algorithms for integers. In the second view, we raised some contextual problems that can be used in school mathematics and then we discussed division algorithm, the greatest common divisor and the least common multiple, and Euclid algorithm for fractions.