• Education of Primary School Mathematics
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.237-260
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• 2018

This study investigated the models of four countries' elementary mathematics textbooks in Ratio and Rate and identified how multiplicative perspectives on proportional relationships and the structure of proportion situations are reflected in the textbooks. For this, textbooks of 5th and 6th grade textbooks in Korea Japan, Singapore and U.S. are compared and analyzed. As a result, we can find multiplicative perspectives on proportional relationships and the structure of proportion situations on pictorial models, ratio tables, double number lines and double tape diagrams. Also, the development of Japanese textbooks from multiple batches perspectives to variable parts perspectives and the examples of the use with two models together implied the connection and union of two multiplicative perspectives. Based on these results, careful verification and discussion for the next textbook is needed to develop students' proportional reasoning and teach some effective reasoning strategies. And this study will provide the implication for what kinds of and how visual models are presented in the next textbook.

• Communications of Mathematical Education
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.255-273
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• 2019

In order to help students to understand the essence of prime concepts, this study looked at the history of prime concept development and analyzed how to introduce the concept of textbooks. In ancient Greece, primes were multiplicative atoms. At that time, the unit was not a number, but the development of decimal representations led to the integration of the unit into the number, which raised the issue of primality of 1. Based on the uniqueness of factorization into prime factor, 1 was excluded from the prime, and after that, the concept of prime of the atomic context and the irreducible concept of the divisor context are established. The history of the development of prime concepts clearly reveals that the fact that prime is the multiplicative atom is the essence of the concept. As a result of analyzing the textbooks, the textbook has problems of not introducing the concept essence by introducing the concept of prime into a shaped perspectives or using game, and the problem that the transition to analytic concept definition is radical after the introduction of the concept. Based on the results of the analysis, we have provided several pedagogical implications for helping to focus on a conceptual aspect of prime number.

• Communications of Mathematical Education
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• v.37 no.3
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• pp.419-442
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• 2023

This study investigated fifth graders' understanding of variables from a generalized arithmetic and a functional perspectives of early algebra. Specifically, regarding a generalized perspective, we included the property of 1, the commutative property of addition, the associative property of multiplication, and a problem context with indeterminate quantities. Regarding the functional perspective, we covered additive, multiplicative, squaring, and linear relationships. A total of 246 students from 11 schools participated in this study. The results showed that most students could find specific values for variables and understood that equations involving variables could be rewritten using different symbols. However, they struggled to generalize problem situations involving indeterminate quantities to equations with variables. They also tended to think that variables used in representing the property of 1 and the commutative property of addition could only be natural numbers, and about 25% of the students thought that variables were fixed to a single number. Based on these findings, this paper suggests implications for elementary school students' understanding and teaching of variables.