• The Mathematical Education
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• v.54 no.4
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• pp.299-315
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• 2015

The aim of this qualitative case study is twofold: 1) to analyze how an eleventh-grader, Min-Seon, conceive and represent a pattern of change between two varying quantities in a quadratic functional situation, and 2) further to help her form a concept of 'derivative' as a tool to express the relationship with employing a concept of 'rate of change.' The result indicates that Min-Seon was able to construct graphs of piecewise functions that take average rates of change as range of the functions, and managed to conjecture the derivative of a quadratic function, $y=x^2$. In conclusion, we argue that covariational approach could not only facilitate students' construction of an initial function concept, but also support their understanding of the concept of 'derivative.'

• Research in Mathematical Education
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.289-305
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• 2014

The current mathematical education calls for a learning environment from the constructionism perspective that actively creates mathematical objects. This research first analyzes JavaMAL's expression 'move' that enables students to express the agent's behavior constructively before they learn vector as a formal concept. Since expression 'move' is based on a coordinate, it naturally corresponds with the expression of vectors used in school mathematics and lets students take an embodied approach to the concept of vector. Furthermore, as a design tool, expression 'move' can be used in various activities that include vector structure. This research studies the educational significance entailed in JavaMAL's expression 'move'.

• Journal of the Korean School Mathematics Society
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.129-158
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• 2020

In this study, we presented two geometric tasks to three 11th grade students to identify the characteristics of the images that the students had at the beginning of problem-solving in the problem situations and investigated how their images changed during problem-solving and effected their problem-solving behaviors. In the first task, student A had a static image (type 1) at the beginning of his problem-solving process, but later developed into a dynamic image of type 3 and recognized the invariant relationship between the quantities in the problem situation. Student B and student C were observed as type 3 students throughout their problem-solving process. No differences were found in student B's and student C's images of the problem context in the first task, but apparent differences appeared in the second task. In the second task, both student B and student C demonstrated a dynamic image of the problem context. However, student B did not recognize the invariant relationship between the related quantities. In contrast, student C constructed a robust quantitative structure, which seemed to support him to perceive the invariant relationship. The results of this study also show that the success of solving the task 1 was determined by whether the students had reached the level of theoretical generalization with a dynamic image of the related quantities in the problem situation. In the case of task 2, the level of covariational reasoning with the two varying quantities in the problem situation was brought forth differences between the two students.

• Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.1-22
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• 2017

This study investigated three $10^{th}$ grade students' concept of rate of change while they perceived changing values of given functions. We have conducted a teaching experiment consisting of 6 teaching episodes on how the students understood and expressed changing values of functions on certain intervals in accordance with the concept of rate of change. The result showed that the students did use the same word of 'rate of change' in their analysis of functions, but their understanding and expression of the word varied, which turned out to have diverse perceptions with regard to average rate of change. To consider these differences as qualitatively different levels might need further research, but we expect that this research will serve as a foundational study for further research in students' learning 'differential calculus' from the perspective of rate of change.

• Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.467-490
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• 2013

Correlation is a basic statistical concept which is necessary for understanding the relationship between two variables when they change values. In the middle school curriculum of Korea, only informal definition of correlation is taught with two-way data representations such as scatter plots and contingency tables. In this study, we investigated Korean high school students' understanding of correlation using a test consisting of 35 items about interpretation of scatter plot, contingency table, and text in realistic situation. 216 students from a high school in Seoul took the test for 20 minutes. From the results, we could observe the following: First, students did not have right criteria for determining the strength of correlation presented in scatter plots. Most of students could determine if there is correlation/no correlation and if the correlation is positive/negative by seeing the data presented in scatter plots. However, they did not judge by the closeness to the regression line but rather judged by the closeness between data points. Second, when statements about comparing the strength of correlation in the context of real life situation were given in text, the students had difficulty in understanding the distribution-related characteristic of the bi-variate data. Students had difficulty in figuring out the local distribution characteristic of data, which cannot be guessed merely based on the expression 'The correlation is strong' without statistical knowledge of correlation. Third, a large number of students could not judge the association between two variabels using conditional proportions when qualitative data are given in 2-by-2 tables. They made judgement by the absolute cell count and when the marginal sum of two categories are different for explanatory variable they thought the association could not be determined. From these results, we concluded that educational measures are required in order to remove such misconceptions and to improve understanding of correlation. Considering that the current mathematics curriculum does not cover the concept of correlation, we need to improve the curriculum as well.