• Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.147-162
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• 2007

This paper reports an analysis of 19 Chinese and Korean middles school mathematics teachers' understanding of division by fractions. The study analyzes the teachers' responses to the teaching task of generating a real-world situation representing the meaning of division by fractions. The findings of this study suggests that the teachers' conceptual models of division are dominated by the partitive model of division with whole numbers as equal sharing. The dominance of partitive model of division constraints the teachers' ability to generate real-world representations of the meaning of division by fractions, such that they are able to teach only the rule-based algorithm (invert-and-multiply) for handling division by fractions.

• Communications of Mathematical Education
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.39-54
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• 2002

분수의 개념은 초등학교 수학에서 학생들이 이해하기에 가장 어려운 부분 중의 하나이다. 더욱이, 분수의 나눗셈은 이를 가르치는 교사들이나 배우는 학생들 모두에게 다루기가 쉽지 않은 과제로 남아 있다. 본고에서는 한국과 미국의 교과서에서 (분수)${\div}$(분수)를 어떻게 도입하며 전개하고 있는지 살펴보고, 이에 대한 학생들의 이해를 돕기 위한 제안을 하고자 한다.

• The Mathematical Education
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• v.60 no.1
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• pp.1-19
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• 2021

This study investigates students' conceptions of fractions from a measurement approach while providing a technological environment designed to support students' understanding of the relationships between quantities and adjustable units. 13 third-graders participated in this study and they were involved in a series of measurement tasks through task-based interviews. The tasks were devised to investigate the relationship between units and quantity through manipulations. Screencasting videos were collected including verbal explanations and manipulations. Drawing upon the theory of semiotic mediation, students' constructed concepts during interviews were coded as mathematical words and visual mediators to identify conceptual profiles using a fine-grained analysis. Two students changed their strategies to solve the tasks were selected as a representative case of the two profiles: from guessing to recursive partitioning; from using random units to making a relation to the given unit. Dragging mathematical objects plays a critical role to mediate and formulate fraction understandings such as unitizing and partitioning. In addition, static and dynamic representations influence the development of unit concepts in measurement situations. The findings will contribute to the field's understanding of how students come to understand the concept of fraction as measure and the role of technology, which result in a theory-driven, empirically-tested set of tasks that can be used to introduce fractions as an alternative way.

• The Mathematical Education
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• v.61 no.3
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• pp.375-396
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• 2022

With the importance for teachers of understanding students' strategies and providing appropriate feedback to their students, the purpose of this study is to analyze how prospective elementary teachers interpret and respond students' strategies for fraction tasks with number lines. The findings from analysis of 64 prospective teachers' responses were as follow. First, the prospective teachers in general could identify the students' understanding and errors based on their strategies, however, some prospective teachers overgeneralized students' mathematical thinking at a superficial level. Second, the prospective teachers could pose diverse tasks or activities for revising the students' errors, while some prospective teachers tried to correct students' errors by using only the area models. Based on these results, this study suggests for prospective teachers to have opportunities to understand elementary students' diverse problem strategies and to consider teaching methods with different fraction models.

• The Mathematical Education
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• v.61 no.1
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• pp.157-178
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• 2022

Mathematics teachers' content knowledge is an important asset for effective teaching. To enhance this asset, teacher's knowledge is required to be diagnosed and developed. In this study, we employed problem-posing and problem-solving tasks to diagnose preservice teachers' understanding of fraction multiplication. We recruited 41 elementary preservice teachers who were taking elementary mathematics methods courses in Korea and the United States and gave the tasks in their final exam. The collected data was analyzed in terms of interpreting, understanding, model, and representing of fraction multiplication. The results of the study show that preservice teachers tended to interpret (fraction)×(fraction) more correctly than (whole number)×(fraction). Especially, all US preservice teachers reversed the meanings of the fraction multiplier as well as the whole number multiplicand. In addition, preservice teachers frequently used 'part of part' for posing problems and solving posed problems for (fraction)×(fraction) problems. While preservice teachers preferred to a area model to solve (fraction)×(fraction) problems, many Korean preservice teachers selected a length model for (whole number)×(fraction). Lastly, preservice teachers showed their ability to make a conceptual connection between their models and the process of fraction multiplication. This study provided specific implications for preservice teacher education in relation to the meaning of fraction multiplication, visual representations, and the purposes of using representations.

• 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.

• Communications of Mathematical Education
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.153-166
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• 2017

164 preservice elementary teachers' decision and enactment of their knowledge of fraction multiplication were examined in a context where they were asked to write a story problem for a multiplication problem with two proper fractions. Participants were selected from an entry level course and an exit level course of their teacher preparation program to reveal any differences between the groups as well as any recognizable patterns within each group and overall. Patterns and tendencies in writing story problems were identified and analyzed. Implications of the findings for teaching and teacher education are discussed.

• Communications of Mathematical Education
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.145-174
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• 2009

Based on the thinking that people can understand more clearly when the problem is related with their prior knowledge, the Purpose of this study was to analysis students' informal knowledge, which is constructed through their mathematical experience in the context of real-world situations. According to this purpose, the following research questions were. 1) What is the characteristics of students' informal knowledge about fraction before formal fraction instruction in school? 2) What is the difference of informal knowledge of fraction according to reasoning ability and grade. To investigate these questions, 18 children of first, second and third grade(6 children per each grade) in C elementary school were selected. Among the various concept of fraction, part-whole fraction, quotient fraction, ratio fraction and measure fraction were selected for the interview. I recorded the interview on digital camera, drew up a protocol about interview contents, and analyzed and discussed them after numbering and comment. The conclusions are as follows: First, students already constructed informal knowledge before they learned formal knowledge about fraction. Among students' informal knowledge they knew correct concepts based on formal knowledge, but they also have ideas that would lead to misconceptions. Second, the informal knowledge constructed by children were different according to grade. This is because the informal knowledge is influenced by various experience on learning and everyday life. And the students having higher reasoning ability represented higher levels of knowledge. Third, because children are using informal knowledge from everyday life to learn formal knowledge, we should use these informal knowledge to instruct more efficiently.

• Education of Primary School Mathematics
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.219-236
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• 2023

This study examined the relationship between preservice teachers' mathematical understanding and problem posing in fractions multiplication and division. To this purpose, 41 preservice teachers performed visual representation and problem posing tasks for fraction multiplication and division, measured their mathematical understanding and problem posing ability, and examined the relationship between mathematical understanding and problem posing ability using cross-tabulation analysis. As a result, most of the preservice teachers showed conceptual understanding of fraction multiplication and division, and five types of difficulties appeared. In problem posing, most of the preservice teachers failed to pose a math problem that could be solved, and four types of difficulties appeared. As a result of cross-tabulation analysis, the degree of mathematical understanding was related to the ability to pose problems. Based on these results, implications for preservice teachers' mathematical understanding and problem posing were suggested.

• The Mathematical Education
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• v.61 no.1
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• pp.1-28
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• 2022

The purpose of this study is to explore how students' fractional knowledge is related to their solving of proportion problems. To this end, 28 clinical interviews with four middle-grade students, each lasting about 30~50 minutes, were carried out from May 2021 to August 2021. The present study focuses on two 7th grade students who exhibited their ability to coordinate three levels of units prior to solving whole number problems. Although the students showed interiorization of three levels of units in solving whole number problems, how they coordinated three levels of units were different in solving proportion problems depending on whether the problems required reasoning with whole numbers or fractions. The students could coordinate three levels of units prior to solving the problems involving whole numbers, they coordinated three levels of units in activity for the problems involving fractions. In particular, the ways the two students employed partitioning operations and how they coordinated quantitative unit structures were different in solving proportion problems involving improper fractions. The study contributes to the field by adding empirical data corroborating the hypotheses that students' ability to transform one three levels of units structure into another one may not only be related to their interiorization of recursive partitioning operations, but it is an important foundation for their construction of splitting operations for composite units.