• Journal of the Korean School Mathematics Society
• /
• v.14 no.3
• /
• pp.355-375
• /
• 2011

This paper was designed for the purpose of helping the functional comprehension on the concept of a circumcenter and an incenter of triangle and offering the help for teaching-learning process on their definitions. We analysed the characteristic of the definition on a circumcenter and an incenter of triangle and studied the context, mean and purpose on the definition. The definition focusing on the construction is the definition stressed on the consistency of the concept through the fact that it is possible to draw figure of the concept. And this definition is the thing that consider the extend of the concept from triangle to polygon. Meanwhile this definition can be confused because the concept is not connected with the terminology. The definition focusing on the meaning is easy to memorize the concept because the concept is connected with the terminology but is difficult to search for the concept truth. And this definition is the thing that has the grounds on the occurrence but is taught in a made-knowledge. The definition focusing on both the construction and meaning is the definition that the starting point is vague in the logical proof process. We hope that the results are used to improve the understanding the concept of a circumcenter and an incenter of triangle in the field of mathematical education.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
• /
• v.14 no.2
• /
• pp.121-127
• /
• 2020

The era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution is increasingly demanding mathematical competencies for virtual reality (VR), artificial intelligence (AI) and the like. In this context, this study intended to identify the basic mathematical competency levels of university freshman students in radiology department and to provide basic data thereon. For this, the diagnostic assessment of basic learning competencies for the domain of mathematics was conducted from June 17, 2019 to June 28, 2019 among 78 freshman students of radiology department at S university and D university. As a result, the university students' overall basic mathematical competency levels were diagnosed to be excellent. However, their levels in the sectors of the geometry and vector and the probability and statistics were diagnosed to be moderate, with the mean scores of 2.61 points and 2.64 points, respectively, which were found to be lower than those of the other sections. As for basic mathematical competency levels according to genders, the levels of male students and female students were diagnosed to be excellent, with the mean scores of 17.48 points and 16.29 points, respectively, showing no statistically significant difference (p>0.05). Given the small number of subjects and regional restriction, there might be some limitations in the generalization of the findings of the present study to all university freshman students and all departments. The above results suggest that it is necessary to implement various programs such as student level-based special lectures for enhancing basic mathematical competencies relating to major in order to improve the basic mathematical competencies of freshman students in radiology department, and that it is necessary to increase the students' mathematical competencies by offering major math courses in the curriculum and applying teaching-learning methods matching students' levels.

• Journal of the Korean School Mathematics Society
• /
• v.16 no.2
• /
• pp.409-434
• /
• 2013

The mathematical ability is an essential element for achieving professional competencies and for enhancing application ability in a vocational world and exploring its experiences. In this aspect, for vocational high school students, it is an important and urgent issue to develop remedial learning programs for developing mathematical basic and application ability. In particular, the program is developed based on the individual achievement level, focused on a mathematical basic ability to be applied efficiently in a vocational world. Because of this reason, in this study, the program is comprised of two phases; one is diagnosis test and the other is remedial teaching and learning materials. Then, diagnosis test includes three test; I) level testing evaluation for selecting the subject of remedial learning, ii) pre-test for deciding on which area and level of the materials when students begin to study, and iii) post-test for confirming the learning status is satisfied and the possibility of next step(level) or the other area of the materials. To accomplish this, this study tried to devise an efficient remedial learning system. Based on the system, this study developed remedial learning programs on the four areas of number and quantity, change and relation, uncertain thing, and figure and shape in the middle school level. In particular, this program is comprised of two types of knowledge. One is K-knowledge which is an essential knowledge to achieve a basic mathematical ability. The other is C-knowledge which is the advanced knowledge required to apply efficiently in a vocational world. This paper deals with the content mentioned above, but examples of the materials is shown focused on the area of change and relation.

• Journal of the Korean School Mathematics Society
• /
• v.16 no.1
• /
• pp.113-139
• /
• 2013

The purpose of this study is to provide informations about cause of failures when students solve word problems by analyzing what errors students made in solving word problems and types of error and features of error according to problem solving strategy. The results of this study can be summarized as follows: First, $5^{th}$ grade students preferred the expressions, estimate and verify, finding rules in order when solving word problems. But the majority of students couldn't use simplifying. Second, the types of error encountered according to the problem solving strategy on problem based learning are as follows; In the case of 'expression', the most common error when using expression was the error of question understanding. The second most common was the error of concept principle, followed by the error of solving procedure. In 'estimate and verify' strategy, there was a low proportion of errors and students understood estimate and verify well. When students use 'drawing diagram', they made errors because they misunderstood the problems, made mistakes in calculations and in transforming key-words of data into expressions. In 'making table' strategy, there were a lot of errors in question understanding because students misunderstood the relationship between information. Finally, we suggest that problem solving ability can be developed through an analysis of error types according to the problem strategy and a correct teaching about these error types.

• The Mathematical Education
• /
• v.57 no.3
• /
• pp.197-213
• /
• 2018

Descriptive problems can be used to grow student's ability of thinking logically and creatively, because it shows if the students had a reasonable way of thinking. Rate of descriptive problems is increasing in middle and high school exams. However, students in middle and high schools are generally used to answering multiple-choice or short-answer questions rather than describing the solving process. The purpose of this paper is to gain a theoretic ground to increase the rate of descriptive problems. In this study, students were to solve some multiple-choice problems, and after a few weeks, to solve the problems of same contents in the form of descriptive problems which requires the students to write the solving process. The difference of the scores were measured for each problems to each students, and students were asked what they think the reason for rise or fall of the score is. The result is as follows: First, average scores of 7 of 8 problems used in this study had fallen when it was in descriptive form, and for 5 of them in the rate of 11.2%~16.8%. Second, the main reason of falling is that the students have actual troubles of describing the solving process. Third, in the case of rising, the main reason was that partial scores were given in the descriptive problems. Last, there seems a possibility gender difference in the reason of falling. From these results, followings are suggested to advance the learning, teaching and evaluation in mathematics education: First, it has to be emphasized enough to describe the solving process when solving a problem. Second, increasing the rate of descriptive problems can be supported as a way to advance the evaluation. Third, descriptive problems have to be easier to solve than multiple-choice ones and it is convenient for the students to describe the solving process. Last, multiple-choice problems have to be carefully reviewed that the possibility of students' choosing incorrect answer with a small mistake is minimal.

• Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics
• /
• v.20 no.4
• /
• pp.459-476
• /
• 2010

The purpose of this study is to suggest a new direction in using LOGO as a gifted education program and to seek an effective approach for LOGO teaching and learning, by analyzing the strategic thinking of mathematically gifted elementary students. This research is exploratory and inquisitive qualitative inquiry, involving observations and analyses of the LOGO Project learning process. Four elementary students were selected and over 12 periods utilizing LOGO programming, data were collected, including screen captures from real learning situations, audio recordings, observation data from lessons involving experiments, and interviews with students. The findings from this research are as follows: First, in LOGO Project Learning, the mathematically gifted elementary students were found to utilize such strategic ways of thinking as inferential thinking in use of prior knowledge and thinking procedures, generalization in use of variables, integrated thinking in use of the integration of various commands, critical thinking involving evaluation of prior commands for problem-solving, progressive thinking involving understanding, and applying the current situation with new viewpoints, and flexible thinking involving the devising of various problem solving skills. Second, the students' debugging in LOGO programming included comparing and constrasting grammatical information of commands, graphic and procedures according to programming types and students' abilities, analytical thinking by breaking down procedures, geometry-analysis reasoning involving analyzing diagrams with errors, visualizing diagrams drawn following procedures, and the empirical reasoning on the relationships between the whole and specifics. In conclusion, the LOGO Project Learning was found to be a program for gifted students set apart from other programs, and an effective way to promote gifted students' higher-level thinking abilities.

• School Mathematics
• /
• v.18 no.4
• /
• pp.819-838
• /
• 2016

This research analyzed proportional reasoning abilities of the 5th grade students who learned only the basis of ratio and rate and 6th grade students who also learned proportion and cross product strategy. Data were collected through the proportional reasoning tests and the interviews, and then the achievement of the students and their proportional reasoning strategies were analyzed. In the light of such analytical results, the conclusions are as follows. Firstly, there is not much difference between 5th and 6th grade students in the achievement scores. Secondly, both 5th and 6th graders are less familiar with the geometric, qualitative and comparisons tasks than the other tasks. Thirdly, not only 5th graders but also 6th graders used informal strategies much more than the formal strategy. Fourthly, some students can't come up with other strategies than the cross product strategy. Finally, many students have difficulties in discerning proportional situation and non-proportional situations. This study provided suggestions for improving teaching proportional reasoning in elementary schools in Korea as follows: focusing on letting students use their informal strategies fluently in geometric, qualitative, and comparisons tasks as well as algebraic, quantitative, and missing value tasks focusing on the concept of ratio and proportion instead of enforcing the formal strategy.

• Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics
• /
• v.17 no.4
• /
• pp.395-418
• /
• 2007

The purpose of this study was to analyze the influence of mathematical tasks on mathematical communication. Mathematical tasks were classified into four different levels according to cognitive demands, such as memorization, procedure, concept, and exploration. For this study, 24 students were selected from the 5th grade of an elementary school located in Seoul. They were randomly assigned into six groups to control the effects of extraneous variables on the main study. Mathematical tasks for this study were developed on the basis of cognitive demands and then two different tasks were randomly assigned to each group. Before the experiment began, students were trained for effective communication for two months. All the procedures of students' learning were videotaped and transcripted. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were applied to analyze the data. The findings of this study point out that the levels of mathematical tasks were positively correlated to students' participation in mathematical communication, meaning that tasks with higher cognitive demands tend to promote students' active participation in communication with inquiry-based questions. Secondly, the result of this study indicated that the level of students' mathematical justification was influenced by mathematical tasks. That is, the forms of justification changed toward mathematical logic from authorities such as textbooks or teachers according to the levels of tasks. Thirdly, it found out that tasks with higher cognitive demands promoted various negotiation processes. The results of this study implies that cognitively complex tasks should be offered in the classroom to promote students' active mathematical communication, various mathematical tasks and the diverse teaching models should be developed, and teacher education should be enhanced to improve teachers' awareness of mathematical tasks.

• Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics
• /
• v.27 no.4
• /
• pp.833-855
• /
• 2017

This study aims to reinvestigate the reason for introducing radian as a new unit to express the size of angles, what is the meaning of radian measures to use arc lengths as angle measures, and why is the domain of trigonometric functions expanded to real numbers for expressing general angles. For this purpose, it was conducted historical, mathematical and applied mathematical analyzes in order to research at multidisciplinary analysis of the radian concept. As a result, the following were revealed. First, radian measure is intrinsic essence in angle measure. The radian is itself, and theoretical absolute unit. The radian makes trigonometric functions as real functions. Second, radians should be aware of invariance through covariance of ratios and proportions in concentric circles. The orthogonality between cosine and sine gives a crucial inevitability to the radian. It should be aware that radian is the simplest standards for measuring the length of arcs by the length of radius. It can find the connection with sexadecimal method using the division strategy. Third, I revealed the necessity by distinction between angle and angle measure. It needs justification for omission of radians and multiplication relationship strategy between arc and radius. The didactical suggestions derived by these can reveal the usefulness and value of the radian concept and can contribute to the substantive teaching of radian measure.

• Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics
• /
• v.9 no.1
• /
• pp.183-203
• /
• 1999

In this study, we analysed the constituents of proof and examined into the reasons why the students have trouble in learning the proof, and proposed directions for improving the teaming and teaching of proof. Through the reviews of the related literatures and the analyses of textbooks, the constituents of proof in the level of middle grades in our country are divided into two major categories 'Constituents related to the construction of reasoning' and 'Constituents related to the meaning of proof. 'The former includes the inference rules(simplification, conjunction, modus ponens, and hypothetical syllogism), symbolization, distinguishing between definition and property, use of the appropriate diagrams, application of the basic principles, variety and completeness in checking, reading and using the basic components of geometric figures to prove, translating symbols into literary compositions, disproof using counter example, and proof of equations. The latter includes the inferences, implication, separation of assumption and conclusion, distinguishing implication from equivalence, a theorem has no exceptions, necessity for proof of obvious propositions, and generality of proof. The results from three types of examinations; analysis of the textbooks, interview, writing test, are summarized as following. The hypothetical syllogism that builds the main structure of proofs is not taught in middle grades explicitly, so students have more difficulty in understanding other types of syllogisms than the AAA type of categorical syllogisms. Most of students do not distinguish definition from property well, so they find difficulty in symbolizing, separating assumption from conclusion, or use of the appropriate diagrams. The basic symbols and principles are taught in the first year of the middle school and students use them in proving theorems after about one year. That could be a cause that the students do not allow the exact names of the principles and can not apply correct principles. Textbooks do not describe clearly about counter example, but they contain some problems to solve only by using counter examples. Students have thought that one counter example is sufficient to disprove a false proposition, but in fact, they do not prefer to use it. Textbooks contain some problems to prove equations, A=B. Proving those equations, however, students do not perceive that writing equation A=B, the conclusion of the proof, in the first line and deforming the both sides of it are incorrect. Furthermore, students prefer it to developing A to B. Most of constituents related to the meaning of proof are mentioned very simply or never in textbooks, so many students do not know them. Especially, they accept the result of experiments or measurements as proof and prefer them to logical proof stated in textbooks.