Fifth grade students’ process of generalizing divisibility rules

Date

2024-9-04

Author

Özcan, Sena

Metadata

Show full item record

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Item Usage Stats

45
views

0
downloads

Cite This

The purpose of the study was to analyze how fifth-grade students generalize the divisibility rules of 2, 3, and 6, with no prior knowledge on the subject, using a virtual manipulative with guidance offered when necessary during clinical interviews. It was ensured that the students conceptualize the divisibility rules with the help of critical questions of a more knowledgeable person through Vygotsky’ ZPD. Three fifth grade students who were studying at private schools in Ankara were selected by using the purposive sampling. Case study design was used to interpret the data. Data were collected in the summer semester of 2023-2024 through activity sheets and clinical interviews. Each student was given three activity sheets during clinical interviews. First, the students were given activity sheets on divisibility by 2, then by 3, and finally by 6 during the three clinical interviews. The findings of the study demonstrated that the students were able to generalize the divisibility rules conceptually. More specifically, students could reach a generalization about for a number to be divisible by 2 the ones digit of the number needs to be even. Additionally, students could reach a generalization that for a number to be divisible by 3, the sum of digits needs to be multiple of 3. Also, they could generalize that for a number to be divisible by 6, it needs to be divisible by 2 and 3. They could reach these generalizations conceptually even though they did not know the rules before during the clinical interviews.

Subject Keywords

Mathematics education, Middle school students, Division, Divisibility rules, Zone of proximal development

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/111496

Collections

Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences, Thesis