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Project

The growth in rationality: An examination of learners' conceptual change from a naïve natural number based concept to the scientifically correct concept of rational numbers.

Understanding rational numbers is of critical importance for learners mathematics achievement. Despite the importance of rational numbers, research has shown the struggle of elementary school children, secondary school students, adults, and even (prospective) teachers to understand the various aspects of rational numbers. A frequently applied theoretical framework to explain these difficulties is the conceptual change theory. According to this theory, children come across rational numbers far less frequently than natural numbers in daily life and in the first years of their school career. This implies that they have already constructed a natural number based concept of what a number is before they are introduced to rational numbers in the classroom. Therefore, to fully understand the several aspects of rational numbers, learners need to substantially revise their concept of a number (e.g., Vamvakoussi, Van Dooren, & Verschaffel, 2012). This research project will first increase our insight in the different stages of learners conceptual change from a naïve natural number based idea of a rational number towards a scientifically correct idea of a rational number. Second, we will show how instruction affects these developmental stages. Third, we will indicate whether the nature and strength of this natural number based idea of a number in learners with dyscalculia is comparable with that of normally developing children.

Date:1 Oct 2015 →  30 Sep 2017
Keywords:dyscalculia, rational numbers, fractions, natural number bias, Conceptual change theory
Disciplines:Developmental psychology and ageing