• Journal of Elementary Mathematics Education in Korea
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.601-625
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• 2016

In this study, I hoped to reveal the understanding of pre-service elementary teachers about proportional reasoning and the traits of proportional reasoning strategy used by pre-service elementary teachers. The results of this study are as follows. Pre-service elementary teachers should deal with various proportional reasoning tasks and make a conscious effort to analyze proportional reasoning task and investigate various proportional reasoning strategies through teacher education program. It is necessary that pre-service elementary teachers supplement the lacking tasks such as qualitative reasoning and distinction between proportional situation and non-proportional situation. Finally, It is suggested to preform the future research on teachers' errors and mis-conceptions of proportional reasoning.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.304-313
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• 2009

Proportional reasoning is one of the most widely used concepts in everyday life. It could be the most important basic concept in science and mathematics. In research where the subjects were animals, it has been found that learning effect rapidly decreased with any stimulation given after a optimalperiod. Therefore, it is necessary to research about optimal periods in order to instruct about proportional reasoning. The purpose of this study was to investigate the optimal periods in proportional reasoning. The three programs for proportional reasoning instruction were developed by researchers. The titles of the programs were 'Block', 'Balance scale' and 'Water glass'. The subjects were 131 3$^{rd}$ to 6$^{th}$ grade students who were not expected to have any proportional reasoning skills yet. In order to find out the optimal periods in proportional reasoning, the programs were applied to these students. After 4-5 weeks of treatment, the researchers investigated whether their proportional reasoning skills were formed or not through the instrument. The results indicated that it would be most effective to teach proportional reasoning to 6$^{th}$ grade students. Teaching of proportional reasoning is essential not only for mathematics but also for science. The findings could be used to investigate the optimal periods of controlling variables, probability, combinational and correlational logic.

• Communications of Mathematical Education
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.537-556
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• 2011

This paper focuses on proportional reasoning being emphasized in today's elementary math, and analyzes the way students use their proportional reasoning abilities and strategies according to their academic achievement levels in solving proportional problems. For this purpose, various types of proportional problems were presented to 173 sixth-grade elementary school students and they were asked to use a maximum of three types of proportional reasoning strategies to solve those problems. The experiment results showed that upper-ranking students had better ability to use, express and perceive more types of proportional reasoning than their lower-ranking counterparts. In addition, the proportional reasoning strategies preferred by students were shown to be independent of academic achievement. But there was a difference in the proportional reasoning strategy according to the types of the problems and the ratio of the numbers given in the problem. As a result of this study, we emphasize that there is necessity of the suitable proportional reasoning instruction which reflected on the difference of ability according to student's academic achievement.

• Education of Primary School Mathematics
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.57-79
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• 2022

Current mathematics It is necessary to ensure that ratio and proportion concept is not distorted or broken while being treated as if they were easy to teach and learn in school. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to analyze the activities presented in the textbook. Based on prior work, this study reinterpreted the proportional reasoning task from the proportional perspective of Beckmann and Izsak(2015) to the multiplicative structure of Vergnaud(1996) in four ways. This compared how they interpreted the multiplicative structure and relationships between two measurement spaces of ratio and rate units and proportional expression and proportional distribution units presented in the revised textbooks of 2007, 2009, and 2015 curriculum. First, the study found that the proportional reasoning task presented in the ratio and rate section varied by increasing both the ratio structure type and the proportional reasoning activity during the 2009 curriculum, but simplified the content by decreasing both the percentage structure type and the proportional reasoning activity. In addition, during the 2015 curriculum, the content was simplified by decreasing both the type of multiplicative structure of ratio and rate and the type of proportional reasoning, but both the type of multiplicative structure of percentage and the content varied. Second, the study found that, the proportional reasoning task presented in the proportional expression and proportional distribute sections was similar to the previous one, as both the type of multiplicative structure and the type of proportional reasoning strategy increased during the 2009 curriculum. In addition, during the 2015 curriculum, both the type of multiplicative structure and the activity of proportional reasoning increased, but the proportional distribution were similar to the previous one as there was no significant change in the type of multiplicative structure and proportional reasoning. Therefore, teachers need to make efforts to analyze the multiplicative structure and proportional reasoning strategies of the activities presented in the textbook and reconstruct them according to the concepts to teach them so that students can experience proportional reasoning in various situations.

• School Mathematics
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.723-742
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• 2013

The purpose of this study was to analyze children's proportional reasoning process on an ill-structured "architectural drawing" problem solving and to investigate their level and characteristics of proportional reasoning. As results, they showed various perspective and several level of proportional reasoning such as illogical, additive, multiplicative, and functional approach. Furthermore, they showed their expanded proportional reasoning from the early stage of perception of various types of quantities and their proportional relation in the problem to application stage of their expanded and generalized relation. Students should be encouraged to develop proportional reasoning by experiencing various quantity in ration and proportion situations.

• Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.505-516
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• 2013

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the essence of proportional reasoning and to analyse the contents of the textbooks according to the mathematics curriculum revised in 2007, and to seek the direction for developing the proportional reasoning in the elementary school mathematics focused the task variables. As a result of analysis, it is found out that proportional reasoning is one form of qualitative and quantitative reasoning which is related to ratio, rate, proportion and involves a sense of covariation, multiple comparison. Mathematics textbooks according to the mathematics curriculum revised in 2007 are mainly examined by the characteristics of the proportional reasoning. It is found out that some tasks related the proportional reasoning were decreased and deleted and were numerically and algorithmically approached. It should be recognized that mechanical methods, such as the cross-product algorithm, for solving proportions do not develop proportional reasoning and should be required to provide tasks in a wide range of context including visual models.

• Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.791-810
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• 2017

This study explored the possibility of using visual models in teaching proportional reasoning based on the review of previous studies. Many studies on proportional reasoning emphasize that students tend to simply apply formal procedures without understanding the meaning behind them and that using visual models may be an alternative to help students develop informal strategies and proportional reasoning. Given these, we re-constructed and implemented the unit of a textbook to teach sixth graders proportional reasoning with ratio table, double number line, and double tape diagram. The results of this study showed that such visual models helped students understand the meaning of proportion, explore the properties of proportion, and solve proportional problems. However, several difficulties that students experienced in using the visual models led us to suggest cautionary notes when to teach proportional reasoning with visual models. As such, this study is expected to provide empirical information for textbook developers and teachers who teach proportional reasoning with visual models.

• The Mathematical Education
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• v.46 no.2 s.117
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• pp.141-153
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• 2007

The purpose of the study is to analyze children's proportional reasoning and problem solving in proportional problems with/without iconic representations. Proportional problems include 3 tasks such as (a) without any picture, (b) with simple picture, and (c) with/without iconic representation. As a result, children didn't show any significant differences in two tasks such as (a) and (b). However, children showed better proportional reasoning with iconic representation. In addition, 'build-up expression' strategy was used mostly in solving problems and 'additive strategy' was shown as an error which students didn't make an appropriate proportional relation expression and they made a wrong additive strategy.

• Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.21-58
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• 2015

The aim of this study is to look into the didactical background for teaching proportional reasoning in elementary school mathematics and offer suggestions to improve teaching proportional reasoning in the future. In order to attain these purposes, this study extracted and examined key ideas with respect to the didactical background on teaching proportional reasoning through a theoretical consideration regarding various studies on proportional reasoning. Based on such examination, this study compared and analyzed textbooks used in the United States, the United Kingdom, and South Korea. In the light of such theoretical consideration and analytical results, this study provided suggestions for improving teaching proportional reasoning in elementary schools in Korea as follows: giving much weight on proportional reasoning, emphasizing multiplicative comparison and discerning between additive comparison and multiplicative comparison, underlining the ratio concept as an equivalent relation, balancing between comparisons tasks and missing value tasks inclusive of quantitative and qualitative, algebraic and geometrical aspects, emphasizing informal strategies of students before teaching cross-product method, and utilizing informal and pre-formal models actively.

• Korean Journal of Child Studies
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.161-171
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• 2005

In Experiment 1, 4- and 5-year-olds were shown either continuous(i.e., pizza) or discontinuous Stimuli(i.e., biscuit) by the experimenter. After a proportion(e.g., 2/8, 4/8, or 6/8) was removed, children were asked to remove an equivalent proportion. Whereas 4-year-olds proportional reasoning was correct only when they shared the same stimulus with the experimenter, 5-year-olds reasoned correctly regardless whether or not they shared the stimulus with the experimenter. In Experiment 2, where the discontinuous stimulus was changed, 4-year-olds also made correct proportional reasoning even when their stimulus was different from the experimenter's. Contrary to other studies, quantity didn't affect children's proportional reasoning except the proportion 1/4, where problems with discontinuous quantity were solved more successfully than problems with continuous quantity.