• Research in Mathematical Education
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.1-22
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• 2000

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of using graphing calculators on students' understanding of the linear and quadratic function concepts. The populators of this study are tenth graders at high school in Seoul, one class for the treatment group and another class for the comparison group, and experiment period is 14 weeks including two weeks for school regular exams.Function tests used in the study was proposed which described a conceptual knowledge of functions in terms of the following components: a) Conceptual understanding, b) Interpreting a function in terms of a verbal experission, c) Translating between different representations of functions, and d) Mathematical modeling a real-world situation using functions. Even though the group test means of the individual components of conceptual understanding, interpreting, translating, mathematical modeling did not differ significantly, there is evidence that the two groups differed in their performance on conceptual understanding. It was shown that students learned algebra using graphing calculators view graphs more globally. The attitude survey assessed students' attitudes and perceptions about the value of mathematics, the usefulness of graphs in mathematics, mathematical confidence, mathematics anxiety, and their feelings about calculators. The overall t-test was not statistically significant, but the students in the treatment group showed significantly different levels of anxiety toward mathematics.

• The Mathematical Education
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• v.50 no.1
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• pp.69-87
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• 2011

The aim of this research is to develop a 'program which improves critical thinking' to improve elementary school students' mathematical thinking, and investigate the effect of program by applying and verifying the program. In order to achieve the objective, the author determined the factors of critical thinking capabilities matched to the discipline of mathematics, and accordingly designed relevant programs and test questions for critical thinking skills which contributes to improving the critical thinking of elementary school students, and thus applied the program the developed program of improving the critical thinking to both preliminary and main experiments, which verified the effects of the test method. The following results have been acquired through this research : In the preliminary inspection that this researcher has developed, it was able to predict that 'the program which improves critical thinking' would have a positive influence on the students' critical thinking. In the main experiment which was performed after modifying and supplementing it, the result showed that the program had a positive influence on the students' critical thinking.

• Education of Primary School Mathematics
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.85-99
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• 2003

In this paper, firstly examined various proofs types that cover informal empirical justifications by Balacheff, Miyazaki, and Harel ＆ Sowder and Tall. Using these theoretical frameworks, justification activities by 5th graders were analyzed and several conclusions were drawn as follow: 1) Children in 5th grade could justify using various proofs types and method ranged from external proofs schemes by Harel & Sowder to thought experiment by Balacheff This implies that children in elementary school can justify various mathematical statements of ideas for themselves. To improve children's proving abilities, rich experience for justifying should be provided. 2) Activities that make conjectures from cases then justify should be given to students in order to develop a sense of necessity of formal proof. 3) Children have to understand the meaning and usage of mathematical symbol to advance to formal deductive proofs. 4) New theoretical framework is needed to be established to provide a framework for research on elementary school children's justification activities. Research on proof mainly focused on the type of proof in terms of reasoning and activities involved. But proof types are also influenced by the tasks given. In elementary school, tasks that require physical activities or examples are provided. To develop students'various proof types, tasks that require various justification methods should be provided. 5) Children's justification type were influenced not only by development level but also by the concept they had. 6) Justification activities provide useful situation that assess students'mathematical understanding. 7) Teachers understanding toward role of proof(verification, explanation, communication, discovery, systematization) should be the starting point of proof activities.

• The Mathematical Education
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• v.47 no.3
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• pp.273-290
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• 2008

This article provides how to implement the use of Realistic Mathematics Education (RME) in a teaching a function at a school to improve the equity based on the gender in students' mathematization for their mathematical thinking using technology. This study was planed to get research results using the mixed methodology with qualitative and quantitative methodologies. 120 middle school students participated in the study to bring us data about their mathematical achievement. Through the data analysis used by ANCOVA for the qualitative method, the students with the experiment of the mathematization based on technology excelled the other groups of students who were not provided with technology or both of them. Through the data analysis used by the constant comparative method for the qualitative data, the technology environment had helped the female students manipulate learning trends easily, strong construction on horizontal mathematization, depending on discussion with peers, and more reflexive thinking using a calculator. This means that teachers can put careful assignment on each category of mathematization regarding the gender. The study results in a lot of resources for teachers to use into their teaching mathematics for improving students' equity in interactive technology environment.

• The Mathematical Education
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• v.43 no.3
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• pp.217-231
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• 2004

The purpose of this paper is to investigate a new method for activating the metacognitive abilities that play a key role in the Mathematical Problem Solving Process (MPSP). The proposed research question is as follows: Can the MPSP activate metacognitive abilities of high school students in the pencil-and-paper environment using guidance material for metacognitive activities\ulcorner To solve this question, two case studies have been carried out. Two students for the study were selected via informal interview. They voluntarily took part in 13 experimental lectures. The activating paths of their metacognitive abilities in the MPSP were chronically described and analyzed. All the activating processes of the students focusing on the aspects of metacognitive behaviors were analyzed by means of interview, observation, self-report, and activity data. The two high school students participating in the MPSP voluntarily recognized and reflected their deficiencies in metacognitive abilities, and therefore maximized their own performance. They made quite significant progress in the course of activating their metacognitive abilities through voluntary participation and gained greater confidence in the MPSP. Hence they have become good problem solvers. They expressed not only the factors influencing their behavior but also their self-awareness during the metacognitive activities. In the long run, this experiment will increase possibilities for the internalization of the metacognitive process.

• The Mathematical Education
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• v.43 no.2
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• pp.139-149
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• 2004

This study was initiated by the idea to help students to be more ideally educated following the 7th curriculum that seeks the proactive students along with creativity for the 21st century. Mind-map was the main tool throughout the study and this was performed to find answers for the following questions : 1) to examine how students' drawing a mind-map affects their mathematical tendency or emotional aspects (motivation for study, interest, etc); 2) to investigate the types and characteristics of mind-maps that students draw; 3) to analyze advantages and obstacles that they experience during the process of drawing a mind-map and provide some suggestions for overcoming them. The research shows that students were highly motivated by the drawing a mind-map. There are types of mind-maps: tree shape and radial shape, and each shape has its own advantages. But the more important factor for being a good mind-map is where and how each concept is located and connected. Although it is true that drawing a mind-map helped students to see the bigger structure of what they learned, but there are several hardships taken care of. The study suggests to extend the experiment to various levels of students and diverse contents.

• Journal of the Korean School Mathematics Society
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.67-79
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• 2004

Researchers in education intend and aspire to improve education practice. Researches should provide practical knowledge, instruments, teaching/learning skills which are needed in real educational environments. Research should closely related to practice. Design-experiment researches intend to promote and help education innovation. A variety of design experiment researches are presented with their characteristics, methods, goals, principles, case studies, prospects.

• Journal of Elementary Mathematics Education in Korea
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.459-474
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• 2014

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of mathematical instruction using GSP program on the symmetrical figures learning and self-directed learning attitude. According to the pretest result, the experiment group and the comparison group showed to be homogeneous groups. The experiment group has learned symmetrical figures for 9 hours using the GSP program and the comparison group has learned for 9 hours using the traditional method(paper and pen lesson). As the posttests, self-directed learning attitude test and symmetry figure understanding test were performed. The results obtained in this research are as follows; First, there was a significant difference in symmetry figure understanding test between the experiment group which learned through GSP program and the comparison group which learned through traditional method. Since there showed a very high achievement in the experiment group which learned using GSP, it can be inferred that GSP was very effective in the lessons of symmetrical movements. Second, there was a significant difference in self-directed learning attitude test between the experiment group and the comparison group. This seems to be because the length of the sides of the figures, size of the angles of the figures etc can be verified instantly and the students can correct by themselves and give feedbacks when they use GSP program. Students preferred drawing using the GSP over drawing using rulers and pencils, and they showed interest in the GSP program and they did not have burden in being wrong in their study and studied in various methods. And as they become familiar with the GSP program, they even studied other contents beyond the scope presented in the textbook.

• Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.395-418
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• 2007

The purpose of this study was to analyze the influence of mathematical tasks on mathematical communication. Mathematical tasks were classified into four different levels according to cognitive demands, such as memorization, procedure, concept, and exploration. For this study, 24 students were selected from the 5th grade of an elementary school located in Seoul. They were randomly assigned into six groups to control the effects of extraneous variables on the main study. Mathematical tasks for this study were developed on the basis of cognitive demands and then two different tasks were randomly assigned to each group. Before the experiment began, students were trained for effective communication for two months. All the procedures of students' learning were videotaped and transcripted. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were applied to analyze the data. The findings of this study point out that the levels of mathematical tasks were positively correlated to students' participation in mathematical communication, meaning that tasks with higher cognitive demands tend to promote students' active participation in communication with inquiry-based questions. Secondly, the result of this study indicated that the level of students' mathematical justification was influenced by mathematical tasks. That is, the forms of justification changed toward mathematical logic from authorities such as textbooks or teachers according to the levels of tasks. Thirdly, it found out that tasks with higher cognitive demands promoted various negotiation processes. The results of this study implies that cognitively complex tasks should be offered in the classroom to promote students' active mathematical communication, various mathematical tasks and the diverse teaching models should be developed, and teacher education should be enhanced to improve teachers' awareness of mathematical tasks.

• The Mathematical Education
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• v.44 no.1 s.108
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• pp.41-65
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• 2005

In this paper we make an experiment in order to test whether the teaching method with the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) developed by Vygotsky can be more effective and well applied in the middle school pratces. Based on this investigation, we conclude that ZPD help to efficiently enhance the study of students, in particular, the inferior student group. Moreover, if we divide the student by more precise stoups, the ZPD will be more effective on teaching and learning in middle school. Lastly, we arrive at the conclusion that a continuous teaching with ZPD will improve the student attitude positively in solving mathematical problem even it does not appeared apparently on this test.