• The Mathematical Education
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• v.53 no.3
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• pp.383-397
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• 2014

This study aims to explore secondary students' thinking while doing proof in geometry. Two secondary students were interviewed and the interview data were analyzed. The results of the analysis suggest that the two students similarly showed as follows: a) tendencies to use the rules of congruent and similar triangles to solve a given problem, b) being confused about the rules of similar and congruent triangles, and c) being confused about the definitions, partition and hierarchical classification of quadrilaterals. Also, the results revealed that a relatively low achieving student has tendency to rely on intuitive information such as visual representations.

• School Mathematics
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.527-539
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• 2016

A word 'is' in "A parallelogram is trapezoid." is ambiguous and very rich when it comes to its meaning. In this paper, 'is' as in everyday language will be identified as semantic primes that can be interpreted in different ways depending on context and situation, and meanings of 'is' in mathematics will be discussed separately. Focusing on 'identity', 'is' will be reinterpreted in the view of equivalence relation and van Hieles' work. 'Is', as a mathematical sign, is thought to have a significant importance in producing mathematical ideas meaningfully.