• The Mathematical Education
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• v.62 no.1
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• pp.23-34
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• 2023

The rationalizing denominators presented in the mathematics textbooks is being used in various places of school mathematics curriculum. However, according to some previous research on the rationalizing denominators in school mathematics, it seems that there is no clear explanation as to why rationalizing denominators is necessary and why it should be used. In addition, a previous research insists that most students know how to rationalize denominators but do not understand why it is necessary and important. To confirm this, we examined the rationalizing denominators presented in the 2015 revised mathematics curriculum as school mathematics. Then we also examined the rationalizing denominators algebraically as academic mathematics. In detail, we conducted an analysis on the rationalizing denominators presented in randomly selected three mathematics textbooks and teacher guidebooks for middle school third grade. Then the algebraic meaning of the rationalizing denominators was examined from a proper algebraic structure analysis. Based on this, we present alternative definitions of the rationalizing denominators which is suitable for school mathematics and academic mathematics. Finally, we also present the mathematical contents (irrationals of the special form can be algebraically interpreted as numbers in the standard form) that teachers should know when they teach the rationalizing denominators in school mathematics.