A Study on fifth grade students' mistakes, difficulties and misconceptions regarding basic fractional concepts and operations

Download

index.pdf

Date

2012

Author

Tarkan Yuırtsever, Nilgün

Metadata

Show full item record

Item Usage Stats

487
views

445
downloads

The purpose of this study was to investigate mistakes made by elementary fifth grade students regarding basic fractional concepts and operations, and difficulties that they encounter. The other purpose was to investigate underlying misconceptions and reasons of those difficulties and mistakes. For this purpose, a mixed-method research combining quantitative and qualitative approach respectively was performed. Data were collected from elementary fifth grade students at the end of the spring semester of 2009-2010. Operation with Fraction Questionnaire (OFQ) was administered to 151 fifth grade students who were chosen from the two public elementary schools in Eskişehir province. By this way, difficulties that elementary fifth grade students encounter and mistakes they make regarding basic fractionalconcepts and operations was analyzed. Afterwards, sixteen of these students participated in a semi-structured interview which was designed to investigate underlying reasons and misconceptions behind those mistakes and difficulties. Results were presented in two phases. In the first phase, common mistakes and difficulties of students were analyzed in detail and representative examples of these errors were introduced. In the second phase, students' mistakes were grouped under five categories as: algorithmically based mistakes, intuitively based mistakes, mistakes based on formal knowledge on fractions, misunderstanding on problem, and missing information in solution. In this phase, misconceptions and underlying reasons of those mistakes and difficulties which students may encounter while learning fractions were described. Results revealed that there was evidence that fifth grade students made various mistakes regarding fractional concepts and operations in the fifth grade elementary mathematics curriculum and they had many misconceptions regarding fraction concepts and operations.

Subject Keywords

Arithmetic, Mathematics, Fractions.

URI

http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12614462/index.pdf
https://hdl.handle.net/11511/21651

Collections

Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences, Thesis

Suggestions

OpenMETU
Core

An investigation of mathematics achievement of eighth grade students with respect to their learning styles Kurbal, Serkan Süleyman; Çakıroğlu, Erdinç; Department of Educational Sciences (2011) This study aimed to investigate the differences in mathematics achievement scores of the eighth grade students with respect to their learning styles. Mathematics achievements of the eighth grade students were determined by the number of correct answers given in the mathematics subtest of Level Determination Examination (abbreviated in Turkish as SBS) which was administered in June 2009. Mathematics achievements of the eighth grade students were also determined by teacher-assigned mathematics grades which we...
A study on pre-service elementary mathematics teachers’ subject matter knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge regarding the multiplication and division of fractions Işıksal, Mine; Çakıroğlu, Erdinç; Department of Secondary Science and Mathematics Education (2006) The purpose of this study was to examine pre-service mathematics teachers’ subject matter knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, and the relationships between the two on multiplication and division of fractions. For this purpose, pre-service teachers’ understanding of key facts, concepts, principles, and proofs, their knowledge on common (mis)conceptions and difficulties held by the elementary students, their strategies of teaching these concepts, and representations they use to reason their understandin...
Examining prospective elementary mathematics teachers‘ knowledge about students‘ mistakes related to fractions Eroğlu, Deniz; Işıksal Bostan, Mine; Haser, Çiğdem; Department of Elementary Science and Mathematics Education (2012) The purpose of this study was to investigate the prospective teachers’ knowledge of mistakes held by elementary students in fractions and their proposed strategies to overcome those mistakes. The data were collected from 149 prospective elementary mathematics teachers enrolled in the elementary mathematics education programs from a public university in Central Anatolian Region. Fraction Knowledge Questionnaire was used to accomplish the purpose of the study. The data collection tool included nine open ended...
A Study on sixth grade students' understanding of multiplication of fractions using Pirie and Kieren model Düzenli Gökalp, Nurgül; Bulut, Safure; Department of Secondary Science and Mathematics Education (2012) The purposes of this study were to investigate sixth grade students’ understanding of multiplication of fractions in terms of the Pirie–Kieren Model of Understanding in the light of use of multiple representations and to improve mapping feature of the current theory to increase depicting power of the maps produced. One of the qualitative research methods, case study design was used. This study was conducted with two sixth grade students at a public school in Etimesgut, Ankara in the spring semester of 2009-...
An Investigation of prospective elementary mathematics teachers' probabilistic misconceptions and reasons underlying these misconceptions İlgün, Münevver; Işıksal Bostan, Mine; Department of Elementary Science and Mathematics Education (2013) The purpose of this study was to determine performance of prospective elementary mathematics teachers on answering the items handling the probabilistic misconceptions. The other aim was to investigate the underlying reasons behind these misconceptions of prospective elementary mathematics teachers. To address these aims, qualitative approach was performed. The sample of this study was obtained through convenience sampling. Data were gathered during 2011-2012 spring semester by administering Probability Misc...

Citation Formats

N. Tarkan Yuırtsever, “A Study on fifth grade students’ mistakes, difficulties and misconceptions regarding basic fractional concepts and operations,” M.S. - Master of Science, Middle East Technical University, 2012.