• Journal of Elementary Mathematics Education in Korea
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.211-229
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• 2009

The purpose of this study is analysis of to investigate relation proportion problem of mathematics textbooks of 7th curriculum to proportional reasoning(relative thinking, unitizing, partitioning, ratio sense, quantitative and change, rational number) of Lamon's proposal at sixth grade students. For this study, I develop two test papers; one is for proportion problem of mathematics textbooks test paper and the other is for proportional reasoning test paper which is devided in 6 by Lamon. I test it with 2 group of sixth graders who lived in different region. After that I analysis their correlation. The result of this study is following. At proportion problem of mathematics textbooks test, the mean score is 68.7 point and the score of this test is lower than that of another regular tests. The percentage of correct answers is high if the problem can be solved by proportional expression and the expression is in constant proportion. But the percentage of correct answers is low, if it is hard to student to know that the problem can be expressed with proportional expression and the expression is not in constant proportion. At proportion reasoning test, the highest percentage of correct answers is 73.7% at ratio sense province and the lowest percentage of that is 16.2% at quantitative and change province between 6 province. The Pearson correlation analysis shows that proportion problem of mathematics textbooks test and proportion reasoning test has correlation in 5% significance level between them. It means that if a student can solve more proportion problem of mathematics textbooks then he can solve more proportional reasoning problem, and he have same ability in reverse order. In detail, the problem solving ability level difference between students are small if they met similar problem in mathematics text book, and if they didn't met similar problem before then the differences are getting bigger.

• School Mathematics
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.723-742
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• 2013

The purpose of this study was to analyze children's proportional reasoning process on an ill-structured "architectural drawing" problem solving and to investigate their level and characteristics of proportional reasoning. As results, they showed various perspective and several level of proportional reasoning such as illogical, additive, multiplicative, and functional approach. Furthermore, they showed their expanded proportional reasoning from the early stage of perception of various types of quantities and their proportional relation in the problem to application stage of their expanded and generalized relation. Students should be encouraged to develop proportional reasoning by experiencing various quantity in ration and proportion situations.

• Journal of the Korean School Mathematics Society
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.719-743
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• 2013

Proportional reasoning is considered as a difficult concept to most elementary school students and might be connect to functional thinking, algebraic thinking, and mathematical thinking later. The purpose of this study is to analyze the sixth graders' development level of proportional reasoning so that children's problem solving processes on different proportional problem items were investigated in a way how the problem type of proportion and the degree of ill-structured affect to their levels. Results showed that the greater part of participants solved problems on the level of proportional reasoning and various development levels according to type of problem. In addition, they showed highly the level of transition and proportional reasoning on missing value problems rather than numerical comparison problems.

• Education of Primary School Mathematics
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.117-132
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• 2009

The purpose of this study was analysis on types of strategies and errors when the sixth grade students were solving proportion problems of mathematics textbooks. For this study, proportion problems in mathematics textbooks were investigated and 17 representative problems were chosen. The 277 students of two elementary schools solved the problems. The types of strategies and errors in solving proportion problems were analyzed. The result of this study were as follows; The percentage of correct answers is high if the problems could be solved by proportional expression and the expression is in constant rate. But the percentage of correct answers is low, if the problems were expressed with non-constant rate.

• Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.331-352
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• 2012

The purpose of the study is to verify what cognitive variables have significant effect on proportional problem solving. For this aim, the study classified proportional problem into well-structured, moderately-structured, ill-structured problem by the level of structuredness, then classified the cognitive variables as well into factual algorithm knowledge, conceptual knowledge, knowledge of problem type, quantity change recognition and meta-cognition(meta-regulation and meta-knowledge). Then, it verified what cognitive variables have significant effects on 6th graders' proportional problem solving abilities through multiple regression analysis technique. As a result of the analysis, different cognitive variables effect on solving proportional problem classified by the level of structuredness. Through the results, the study suggest how to teach and assess proportional reasoning and problem solving in elementary mathematics class.

• Communications of Mathematical Education
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.537-556
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• 2011

This paper focuses on proportional reasoning being emphasized in today's elementary math, and analyzes the way students use their proportional reasoning abilities and strategies according to their academic achievement levels in solving proportional problems. For this purpose, various types of proportional problems were presented to 173 sixth-grade elementary school students and they were asked to use a maximum of three types of proportional reasoning strategies to solve those problems. The experiment results showed that upper-ranking students had better ability to use, express and perceive more types of proportional reasoning than their lower-ranking counterparts. In addition, the proportional reasoning strategies preferred by students were shown to be independent of academic achievement. But there was a difference in the proportional reasoning strategy according to the types of the problems and the ratio of the numbers given in the problem. As a result of this study, we emphasize that there is necessity of the suitable proportional reasoning instruction which reflected on the difference of ability according to student's academic achievement.

• Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.103-121
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• 2008

The primary purpose of this study was to gather knowledge about $5^{th},\;6^{th},\;and\;7^{th}$ graders' proportional reasoning ability by investigating their reactions and use of strategies when encounting proportional or nonproportional problems, and then to raise issues concerning instructional methods related to proportion. A descriptive study through pencil-and-paper tests was conducted. The tests consisted of 12 questions, which included 8 proportional questions and 4 nonproportional questions. The following conclusions were drawn from the results obtained in this study. First, for a deeper understanding of the ratio, textbooks should treat numerical comparison problems and qualitative prediction and comparison problems together with missing-value problems. Second, when solving missing-value problems, students correctly answered direct-proportion questions but failed to correctly answer inverse-proportion questions. This result highlights the need for a more intensive curriculum to handle inverse-proportion. In particular, students need to experience inverse-relationships more often. Third, qualitative reasoning tends to be a more general norm than quantitative reasoning. Moreover, the former could be the cornerstone of proportional reasoning, and for this reason, qualitative reasoning should be emphasized before proportional reasoning. Forth, when dealing with nonproportional problems about 34% of students made proportional errors because they focused on numerical structure instead of comprehending the overall relationship. In order to overcome such errors, qualitative reasoning should be emphasized. Before solving proportional problems, students must be enriched by experiences that include dealing with direct and inverse proportion problems as well as nonproportional situational problems. This will result in the ability to accurately recognize a proportional situation.

• Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.189-206
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• 2015

There has been a recurring call for using visual representations in textbooks to improve the teaching and learning of proportional reasoning. However, the quantity as well as quality of visual representations used in textbooks is still very limited. In this article, we analyzed visual representations presented in a Grade 6 textbook from two perspectives of proportional reasoning, multiple-batches perspective and variable-parts perspective, and discussed the potential of the double number line and the double tape diagram to help develop the idea 'things covary while something stays the same', which is critical to reason proportionally. We also classified situations that require proportional reasoning into five categories and provided ways of using the double number line and the double tape diagram for each category.

• Journal of the Korean School Mathematics Society
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.609-627
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• 2008

The purpose of this research was to investigate the relationship between the students' strategy types and the recognition for proportional situations. The students' strategy types which were based on the results of ratio and proportion tests were divided into an additive type, a multiplicative type, and a formal type. This research analyzed the students' activities of categorization when were given the proportional problems and nonproportional problems to the students. And it also explored how to develop students' recognizing for the discrimination between the proportional situations and nonproportional situations. The results was the following. First, the students didn't discriminate the proportional situations and the nonproportional situations in the initial state but they came to discriminate little by little. Secondly, the students didn't discriminate the direct proportions and the inverse proportions until the last stage. Third, the multiplicative type was outperformed more than the formal type in solving the ratio and proportion problems but the formal type was outperformed more than the multiplicative type in discriminating between proportional situations and nonproportional situations. These results are interpreted as showing that solving ratio and proportion tasks and recognizing proportional situations are different aspects of proportional reasoning and it is necessary to understand multiplicative strategy with formal strategy in recognizing proportional situations.

• Journal of Elementary Mathematics Education in Korea
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.105-129
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• 2016

The elements of mathematical processes include mathematical reasoning, mathematical problem-solving, and mathematical communications. Proportion reasoning is a kind of mathematical reasoning which is closely related to the ratio and percent concepts. Proportion reasoning is the essence of primary mathematics, and a basic mathematical concept required for the following more-complicated concepts. Therefore, the study aims to analyze the proportion reasoning ability of sixth graders of primary school who have already learned the ratio and percent concepts. To allow teachers to quickly recognize and help students who have difficulty solving a proportion reasoning problem, this study analyzed the characteristics and patterns of proportion reasoning of sixth graders of primary school. The purpose of this study is to provide implications for learning and teaching of future proportion reasoning of higher levels. In order to solve these study tasks, proportion reasoning problems were developed, and a total of 22 sixth graders of primary school were asked to solve these questions for a total of twice, once before and after they learned the ratio and percent concepts included in the 2009 revised mathematical curricula. Students' strategies and levels of proportional reasoning were analyzed by setting up the four different sections and classifying and analyzing the patterns of correct and wrong answers to the questions of each section. The results are followings; First, the 6th graders of primary school were able to utilize various proportion reasoning strategies depending on the conditions and patterns of mathematical assignments given to them. Second, most of the sixth graders of primary school remained at three levels of multiplicative reasoning. The most frequently adopted strategies by these sixth graders were the fraction strategy, the between-comparison strategy, and the within-comparison strategy. Third, the sixth graders of primary school often showed difficulty doing relative comparison. Fourth, the sixth graders of primary school placed the greatest concentration on the numbers given in the mathematical questions.