• School Mathematics
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.427-445
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• 2007

This study presents the results of a case study that investigated a seventh grader's fractional reasoning related to multiplicative reasoning. In addition, by employing domain analysis and taxonomic analysis for analyzing qualitative data, I show how a qualitative methodology was used for the data collected by teaching experiment methodology. The study identifies three distinct issues that emerged as the student engaged in solving fraction problems: a view of fractions as operations vs. results, the issue of units, and mixed numbers vs. improper fractions. These three issues have instructional implications in that each of them is critical in developing multiplicative reasoning and investigating how they relate to each other suggests a way to improve multiplicative reasoning in fractional contexts.

• Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.467-480
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• 2014

Concepts related to the fraction should be taught with formative thinking activities as well as concrete operational activities. Teaching improper fraction should follow the concept of fraction as a relation of two natural numbers. This concept is also important not to be skipped before teaching the fraction such as "4 is a third of 12". Mixed number should be taught as a sum of a natural number and a proper fraction. Fraction as a quotient of a division is a hard concept to be taught since it requires very high abstractive thinking process. Learning the transformation of division into multiplication of fractions should precede that of fraction as a quotient of a division.

• The Mathematical Education
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• v.62 no.1
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• pp.1-21
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• 2023

The purpose of this study is to explore how the student, who interiorized three levels of units, constructed fractions as multipliers by analyzing her ways of conceiving improper fractions with three levels of units and coordinating two three-levels-of-units structures. Among the data collected from our teaching experiment with two 4th grade students meeting 13 times for three months, we focus on how Seyeon, one of the participating students, wrote numerical expressions in the form of "× fraction" for the given situations using her splitting operation for composite units. Given the importance of splitting operation for composite units for the construction of fractions as multipliers, implications for further research are discussed.

• Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.53-68
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• 2012

This paper investigated the conceptual schemes four children constructed as they related division number sentences to various types of fraction: Proper fractions, improper fractions, and mixed numbers in both contextual and abstract symbolic forms. Methods followed those of the constructivist teaching experiment. Four fifth-grade students from an inner city school in the southwest United States were interviewed eight times: Pre-test clinical interview, six teaching / semi-structured interviews, and a final post-test clinical interview. Results showed that for equal sharing situations, children conceptualized division in two ways: For mixed numbers, division generated a whole number portion of quotient and a fractional portion of quotient. This provided the conceptual basis to see improper fractions as quotients. For proper fractions, they tended to see the quotient as an instance of the multiplicative structure: $a{\times}b=c$ ; $a{\div}c=\frac{1}{b}$ ; $b{\div}c=\frac{1}{a}$. Results suggest that first, facility in recall of multiplication and division fact families and understanding the multiplicative structure must be emphasized before learning fraction division. Second, to facilitate understanding of the multiplicative structure children must be fluent in representing division in the form of number sentences for equal sharing word problems. If not, their reliance on long division hampers their use of syntax and their understanding of divisor and dividend and their relation to the concepts of numerator and denominator.

• The Mathematical Education
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• v.61 no.1
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• pp.1-28
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• 2022

The purpose of this study is to explore how students' fractional knowledge is related to their solving of proportion problems. To this end, 28 clinical interviews with four middle-grade students, each lasting about 30~50 minutes, were carried out from May 2021 to August 2021. The present study focuses on two 7th grade students who exhibited their ability to coordinate three levels of units prior to solving whole number problems. Although the students showed interiorization of three levels of units in solving whole number problems, how they coordinated three levels of units were different in solving proportion problems depending on whether the problems required reasoning with whole numbers or fractions. The students could coordinate three levels of units prior to solving the problems involving whole numbers, they coordinated three levels of units in activity for the problems involving fractions. In particular, the ways the two students employed partitioning operations and how they coordinated quantitative unit structures were different in solving proportion problems involving improper fractions. The study contributes to the field by adding empirical data corroborating the hypotheses that students' ability to transform one three levels of units structure into another one may not only be related to their interiorization of recursive partitioning operations, but it is an important foundation for their construction of splitting operations for composite units.

• Education of Primary School Mathematics
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.117-134
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• 2020

Based on the current curriculum, students learn the concept of fraction in the 3rd grade for the first time. At that time, fraction is introduced as whole-part relationship. But as the idea of fraction expands to improper fraction and so on, fraction as measurement would be naturally appeared. In that situation where fraction as whole-part relationship and fraction as measurement are dealt together, it is necessary for students to get experiences of understanding and exploring unit and whole adequately in order to fully understand the concept of fractions. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to analyze how to deal with unit fractions, how to implement activities to find the standard of reference from the part, and what visual representations were used to help students to understand the concept of fractions in elementary mathematics textbooks from the 7th to the 2015 revised curriculum. And we analyzed 60 3rd graders' understanding of finding and drawing the whole by looking at the part. Several didactical implications for teaching the concept of fractions were derived from the discussion according to the analysis results.

• Journal of Elementary Mathematics Education in Korea
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.323-345
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• 2019

This study examines the introduction of fractions in the third grade mathematics textbooks focusing on stages of units coordination and suggests alternative activities to help students develop their understanding of fractions. As results, the sessions of introduction units in textbooks was well organized to allow students to construct more extensive fraction schemes (i.e., Part-whole fraction scheme → Partitive unit fraction scheme → Partitive fraction scheme). However, most of the activities in textbooks were related to stages 1 and 2 of units coordination. In particular, the operations and partitioning schemes (i.e., equi-partitioning and splitting schemes), which are key to the development of students' fraction knowledge, were not explicitly revealed. Fraction schemes also did not extend to the Iterative fraction scheme, which is central to the construction of improper fractions. Based on these results, this study is expected to provide implications for the introduction of fractions in textbooks focusing on stages of units coordination to teachers and textbook developers.

• The Mathematical Education
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• v.40 no.2
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• pp.195-215
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• 2001

The purpose of this paper is to present a specific set of home teaching methods in hopes to prevent slow learner of the elementary mathematics. This paper deals with the number and operations, one of five topics in the elementary mathematics A survey of two hundred elementary school teachers was made to see the teacher's opinions of the role of home studying and to concretize the contents of the research topics. There were asked which is the most essential contents for the concrete loaming and which is the most difficult monad that might cause slow leaner. And those were found to be; counting, and arithmetic operations(addition and subtraction) of one or two-digit numbers and multiplication and their concepts representations and operations(addition and subtraction) of fractions. The home teaching methods are based on the situated learning about problem solving in real life situations and on the active teaming which induces children's participation in the process of teaching and learning. Those activities in teaching each contents are designed to deal with real objects and situations. Most teaching methods are presented in the order of school curriculum. To teach the concepts of numbers and the place value, useful activities using manipulative materials (Base ten blocks, Unifix, etc.) or real objects are also proposed. Natural number's operations such as addition, subtraction and multiplication are subdivided into small steps depending upon current curriculum, then for understanding of operational meaning and generalization, games and activities related to the calculation of changes are suggested. For fractions, this paper suggest 10 learning steps, say equivalent partition, fractional pattern, fractional size, relationship between the mixed fractions and the improper fraction, identifying fractions on the number line, 1 as a unit, discrete view point of fractions, comparison of fractional sizes, addition and subtraction, quantitative concepts. This research basically centers on the informal activities of kids under the real-life situation because such experiences are believed to be useful to prevent slow learner. All activities and learnings in this paper assume children's active participation and we believe that such active and informal learning would be more effective for learning transfer and generalization.

• Education of Primary School Mathematics
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.87-116
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• 2020

The purpose of this study is to explore how units-coordination ability is related to understanding fraction concepts. For this purpose, a teaching experiment was conducted with one fourth grade student, Eunseo for four months(2019.3. ~ 2019.6.). We analyzed in details how Eunseo's units-coordinating operations related to her understanding of fraction changed during the teaching experiment. At an early stage, Eunseo with a partitive fraction scheme recognized fractions as another kind of natural numbers by manipulating fractions within a two-levels-of-units structure. As she simultaneously recognized proper fraction and a referent whole unit as a multiple of the unit fraction, she became to distinguish fractions from natural numbers in manipulating proper fractions. Eunseo with a reversible partitive fraction scheme constructed a natural number greater than 1, as having an interiorized three-levels-of-units structure and established an improper fraction with three levels of units in activity. Based on the results of this study, conclusions and pedagogical implications were presented.

• Journal of Elementary Mathematics Education in Korea
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.241-262
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• 2010

This study was carried out to identify the cognitive obstacles while using addition and subtraction with fractions, and to analyze the sources of cognitive obstacles. For this purpose, the following research questions were established : 1. What errors do elementary students make while performing the operations with fractions, and what cognitive obstacles do they have? 2. What sources cause the cognitive obstacles to occur? The results obtained in this study were as follows : First, the student's cognitive obstacles were classified as those operating with same denominators, different denominators, and both. Some common cognitive obstacles that occurred when operating with same denominators and with different denominators were: the students would use division instead of addition and subtraction to solve their problems, when adding fractions, the students would make a natural number as their answer, the students incorporated different solving methods when working with improper fractions, as well as, making errors when reducing fractions. Cognitive obstacles in operating with same denominators were: adding the natural number to the numerator, subtracting the small number from the big number without carrying over, and making errors when doing so. Cognitive obstacles while operating with different denominators were their understanding of how to work with the denominators and numerators, and they made errors when reducing fractions to common denominators. Second, the factors that affected these cognitive obstacles were classified as epistemological factors, psychological factors, and didactical factors. The epistemological factors that affected the cognitive obstacles when using addition and subtraction with fractions were focused on hasty generalizations, intuition, linguistic representation, portions. The psychological factors that affected the cognitive obstacles were focused on instrumental understanding, notion image, obsession with operation of natural numbers, and constraint satisfaction.