• Journal of the Korean School Mathematics Society
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.483-498
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• 2010

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the dispositions of university students' understanding and reasoning about rational number concept. For this, we surveyed for the subject groups of prospective math teachers(33), engineering major students(35), American engineering and science major students(28). The questionnaire consists of four problems related to understanding of rational number concept and three problems related to rational number operation reasoning. We asked multi-answers for the front four problem and the order of favorite algorithms for the back three problems. As a result, we found that university students don't understand exactly the facets of rational number and prefer the mechanic approaches rather than conceptual one. Furthermore, they reasoned illogically in many situations related to fraction, ratio, proportion, rational number and don't recognize exactly the connection between them, and confuse about rational number concept.

• The Mathematical Education
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• v.56 no.2
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• pp.177-191
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• 2017

This study was to investigate the effect of the statistics education program for the test-free semester. Two tests of questionnaires were used after revising some items for the subjects and statistical contents covered according to the purpose of the study during the 2nd semester, 2016. one was for finding students' attitude toward statistics and the other for understanding my career exploration. The statistics education program was developed for 5 lesson units and was applied to two classes with 53 students of one middle school in Gyeonggi-province. The results showed that students' understanding on career exploration was improved especially, in self understanding, perceiving career world related to statistics, and economical & educational understanding in statistical career. Also, the three areas such as interest, value, and effort among five areas about students' statistical attitude which was measured by the attitude test revised from the previous study, were improved with statistical significance. Moreover, we analyzed the degree of students' satisfaction over the program. Most of students were satisfied with the program saying that "I could not believe it is over now. The time has gone so fast." or "My mentor(a pre-service teacher) helped me a lot." Therefore, the program for the test-free semester should include the contents for exploring future-career and relating to real life.

• Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.599-614
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• 2017

The purpose of this study is to compare and analyze middle school students' understanding of constant rate of change, in terms of observing, representing and interpreting dynamic functions in various ways using the SimCalc MathWorlds. For this purpose, parts of a class conducted for six students in the first grade of middle school were analyzed. The results suggested two implications for a class that used this program (SimCalc MathWorlds): First, we confirmed that the relationships between the two quantities that students notice in the same situation can be different. Second, the program helped students to develop a more comprehensive understanding of the meaning of the constant rate of change. The study also revealed the need to use technology in teaching and learning about functions, particularly to represent and interpret a given situation that involves the constant rate of change in various ways. Further, the results can contribute to developing contents and methods to teach functions using technology in consideration of students' different levels of understanding.

• School Mathematics
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.411-433
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• 2004

Many researchers have reported that 7th graders have severe difficulties in using letters and algebraic expressions. This study investigated the way Microsoft Excel contributes to student's understanding of letters and algebraic expressions. For six hours through two weeks, four 7th grade students experienced various activities with Excel after school and both before and after the experimentation, the interviews to check their understanding was conducted. The results were as follows; First, after the experimentation, students used various letters to express formulas and recognized that letters represent not only some objects but also changing objects. Also they accepted that same objects could be represented by different letters and different objects could be represented by the same letters. Second, Excel improved students' abilities to discriminate variables and invariables in the problem and to find mathematical relationships among variables. And with Excel students could divide the whole calculation procedure into several steps in order to handle it more easily. Also, Excel made immediate numerical feedback possible and it made students express the calculation in a more formalized way than a paper and pencil environment did.

• Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.23-49
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• 2017

This study examined two current learning models for covariational reasoning(Carlson et al.(2002), Thompson, & Carlson(2017)), applied the models to teaching two $9^{th}$ grade students, and analyzed the results according to the types of graphs(a quantitative graph or qualitative graph). Results showed that the model of Thompson and Carlson(2017) was more useful than that of Carlson et al.(2002) in figuring out the students' levels in their quantitative graphing activities. Applying Carlson et al.(2002)'s model made it possible to classify levels of the students in their qualitative graphs. The results of this study suggest that not only quantitative understanding but also qualitative understanding is important in investigating students' covariational reasoning levels. The model of Thompson and Carlson(2017) reveals more various aspects in exploring students' levels of quantitative understanding, and the model of Carlson et al.(2002) revealing more of qualitative understanding.

• Communications of Mathematical Education
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.215-239
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• 2015

A goal of this study is figuring out how fraction learning centered on various representation activities influences the fraction comprehension and mathematical attitudes. The study focused on 33 4th-grade students of B elementary school in Seoul. In the study, 15 fraction learning classes comprising enactive, iconic, and symbolic representations took place over 6 weeks. After the classes, the ratio of the students who achieved relational understanding increased and the students averagely recorded 90 pt or more on the fraction comprehension test I, II and III. Two-dependent samples t-test was conducted to analyze a significant difference in mathematical attitudes between pre-test and post-test. On the test result, there was the meaningful difference with 0.01 level of significance. To conclude, the fraction learning centered on various representation activities improves students' relational understanding and fraction understanding. In addition, the fraction learning centered on various representation activities gives positive influences on mathematical attitudes since it increases learning orientation, self-control, interests, value cognition, and self-confidence of the students and decreases fears of the students.

• The Journal of Korean Association of Computer Education
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.79-88
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• 2006

This study investigated the effects of computer-assisted instruction adapting to the level of students' conceptual understanding upon students' conceptual understanding, retention of conceptions, learning motivation, and perception about computer-assisted instruction in concept learning. 94 seventh grade students from a coed middle school in Seoul were randomly assigned to control, CAI, adaptive CAI groups, and were taught about 'motion of molecules' for 7 class periods. Two-way ANCOVA results revealed that the scores of a conception test and a learning motivation test for the adaptive CAI group were significantly higher than those for the control group. The scores of a retention test of conceptions for the adaptive CAI group were significantly higher than those for other two groups. There were no significant interactions between the instruction and the level of previous achievement in the scores of the conception test, the learning motivation test, and the retention test of conceptions. The perception about computer-assisted instruction for the students of the adaptive CAI group were more positive than those for the students of the CAI group.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.27-36
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• 2004

This paper aims to examine how well university students, who are going to be primary school teachers, understand the International System of Units (SI), focusing on seven basic units such as 'm', '㎏', '㏖', 'A', 'K', 's', 'cd'. This study specifically investigates whether the students know the seven units and understand their uses and how they read and learn them. The subjects were 1030 students from the University of Education in Jinju, Geongsangnamdo. Data was collected through a questionnaire which was designed by this researcher and checked by an authority, and the frequency and percentage of reponses to each question were obtained and analysed. Findings show all the students knew very well that 'm' and '㎏' are included in the seven units, compared to the others which low percentage of the students considered as the elements. In terms of understanding of use, the units of the length 'm', the mass '㎏', and the time 's' are well understood, presumably, because they are often used in ordinary life and school, while the amount of substance '㏖', the electric current 'A', the thermodynamic temperature 'K', and the luminous intensity 'cd' are not as well understood. It is probably because 'A', 'cd', and 'K' are hardly used in everyday life. With respect to reading the units, the subjects read 'm', '㎏', '㏖', and's' much better than the others. As for the source of learning them, most students answered they learned them in schools, which implies school education is very important. From these results it is concluded that school education should be accompanied with use in everyday life for understanding and using the units. SI Base Units understanding was investigated by an academic year. According to this investigation, generally the right answer rate differed 4<2<3<1 by an academic year in order. For the Senior, Sophomore appeared the right answer rate more high. because, they learned before in deepening or elementary course on chemistry and physics related with SI Base Units. On the other hand, for the junior answered low rate by this reason that they couldn't remember about SI Base Units that learned before. For the Freshman appeared low rate by this reason that they were not learned or graduated from the department of liberal art in high school.

• Journal of Elementary Mathematics Education in Korea
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.169-192
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• 2019

This study investigates how well grade 4, 5, and 6 students understand graphs before formal education is done on graphs. For this, we analyzed students' understanding of graphs by classifying them into 'reading data', 'finding relationships between data', 'interpreting data', and 'understanding situations' based on previous studies. The results show that the students have good understanding of graphs that did not have formal education. This suggests that it is necessary to consider the timing of the introduction of the graph. In addition, when we look at the percentage of correctness of each graph, it is found that the understanding of the line graph is weaker than the other graphs. The common error in most graphs was that students relied on their own subjective thoughts and experiences rather than based on the data presented.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.39-48
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• 2017

In this study, we investigated the characteristics of analogs generated by high school students to explain ionic bonding in the perspectives of the number of analogs, the understanding of mapping, and the source and type of analogs. We also compared the results by students' conceptual understanding, logical thinking ability, and analogical reasoning ability. Participants in this study were 395 11th graders in Seoul. The results of the study showed that the higher the conceptual understanding, the logical thinking ability, and the analogical reasoning ability, the more the students generated the analogs. The understanding of mapping was related to logical thinking ability and analogical reasoning ability. It is noteworthy that the sources of analogs differed only depending on their conceptual understanding of the target concept among the cognitive variables studied. Students who had higher conceptual understanding also generated analogs from more diverse sources. Some types of the generated analogs were related to the cognitive variables. For examples, the students who had higher conceptual understanding and logical thinking ability generated more verbal/pictorial analogs. The types of analogs were not related to cognitive variables in terms of artificiality, abstraction, and systemicity. Educational implications of these findings were discussed.