• 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 Educational Research in Mathematics
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.311-329
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• 2012

This study analyzed third graders' understanding on the part-whole fraction concept in both the continuous and the discrete contexts. A set of problems were developed as an equivalent form to compare and contrast students' understanding of fraction in the two contexts. Unexpectedly, the results of this study showed that students' performance in the continuous contexts was slightly lower than their performance in the discrete contexts. Students tended to use different strategies depending on the contexts and they had difficulties in applying what they knew in the new contexts. On the basis of the detailed analyses about students' difficulties and their sources, this paper provides information on how to construct curricular materials and how to teach the basic concepts related to the part-whole fraction.

• The Mathematical Education
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• v.61 no.1
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• pp.157-178
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• 2022

Mathematics teachers' content knowledge is an important asset for effective teaching. To enhance this asset, teacher's knowledge is required to be diagnosed and developed. In this study, we employed problem-posing and problem-solving tasks to diagnose preservice teachers' understanding of fraction multiplication. We recruited 41 elementary preservice teachers who were taking elementary mathematics methods courses in Korea and the United States and gave the tasks in their final exam. The collected data was analyzed in terms of interpreting, understanding, model, and representing of fraction multiplication. The results of the study show that preservice teachers tended to interpret (fraction)×(fraction) more correctly than (whole number)×(fraction). Especially, all US preservice teachers reversed the meanings of the fraction multiplier as well as the whole number multiplicand. In addition, preservice teachers frequently used 'part of part' for posing problems and solving posed problems for (fraction)×(fraction) problems. While preservice teachers preferred to a area model to solve (fraction)×(fraction) problems, many Korean preservice teachers selected a length model for (whole number)×(fraction). Lastly, preservice teachers showed their ability to make a conceptual connection between their models and the process of fraction multiplication. This study provided specific implications for preservice teacher education in relation to the meaning of fraction multiplication, visual representations, and the purposes of using representations.

• Journal of Elementary Mathematics Education in Korea
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.431-455
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• 2013

In this thesis, I classified various meanings of fraction into two categories, i.e concept(rate, operator, division) and model(whole-part, measurement, allotment), and surveyed appearances which is shown in Korea elementary mathematics textbook. Based on this results, I derived several implications on learning-teaching of fraction in elementary education. Firstly, we have to pursuit a unified formation of fraction concept through a complementary advantage of various concepts and models Secondly, by clarifying the time which concepts and models of fraction are imported, we have to overcome a ambiguity or tacit usage of that. Thirdly, the present Korea's textbook need to be improved in usage of measurement model. It must be defined more explicitly and must be used in explanation of multiplication and division algorithm of fraction.

• Education of Primary School Mathematics
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.277-289
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• 2016

Fraction is one of the concepts which are difficult to elementary school students. So, many researches about fraction were performed in mathematics education research. In special, fraction has so many subordinative concepts-proper fraction, improper fraction, mixed number. We have to concentrate on the conceptual understanding in teaching of fraction. In this case, a mixed number and improper fraction are concepts which can convert respectively. And there are methods that a mixed number and improper fraction can be converted. So, it's needed to analyze the converting methods in textbooks for getting the implication of teaching in this areas. In this study, I analyzed the Korean and foreign's textbooks. I certified the methods-using addition expression, using part-whole model in the textbooks. For the conceptual understanding, I suggested to use the fusion of the various part-whole fraction models and addition expression more than the algorithm in converting between a mixed number and improper fraction. It's reason that the use of models in converting between a mixed number and improper fraction is important for the relational understanding.

• The Mathematical Education
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• v.48 no.3
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• pp.235-263
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• 2009

The purpose of the study was to investigate the influence of children's understanding of fractions in mathematics problem solving. Kieren has claimed that the concept of fractions is not a single construct, but consists of several interrelated subconstructs(i.e., part-whole, ratio, operator, quotient and measure). Later on, in the early 1980s, Behr et al. built on Kieren's conceptualization and suggested a theoretical model linking the five subconstructs of fractions to the operations of fractions, fraction equivalence and problem solving. In the present study we utilized this theoretical model as a reference to investigate children's understanding of fractions. The case study has been conducted with 6 children consisted of 4th to 5th graders to detect how they understand factions, and how their understanding influence problem solving of subconstructs, operations of fractions and equivalence. Children's understanding of fractions was categorized into "part-whole", "ratio", "operator", "quotient", "measure" and "result of operations". Most children solved the problems based on their conceptual structure of fractions. However, we could not find the particular relationships between children's understanding of fractions and fraction operations or fraction equivalence, while children's understanding of fractions significantly influences their solutions to the problems of five subconstructs of fractions. We suggested that the focus of teaching should be on the concept of fractions and the meaning of each operations of fractions rather than computational algorithm of fractions.

• School Mathematics
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.259-273
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• 2003

A fraction is one of the most important concepts that students have to learn in elementary school. But it is a challenge for students to understand fraction concept because of its conceptual complexity. The focus of fraction learning is understanding the concept. Then the problem is how we can facilitate the conceptual understanding and estimate it. In this study, Moore's concept understanding scheme(concept definition, concept image, concept usage) was adopted as an theoretical framework to investigate students' fraction understanding. The questions of this study were a) what concept image do students have\ulcorner b) How well do students solve fraction problems\ulcorner c) How do students use fraction concept to generate fraction word problem\ulcorner By analyzing the data gathered from three elementary school, several conclusion was drawn. 1) The students' concept image of fraction is restricted to part-whole sub-construct. So is students' fraction understanding. 2) Students can solve part-whole fraction problems well but others less. This also imply that students' fraction understanding is partial. 3) Half of the subject(N=98) cannot pose problems that involve fraction and fraction operation. And some succeeded applied the concept mistakenly. To understand fraction, various fraction subconstructs have to be integrated as whole one. To facilitate this integration, fraction program should focus on unit, partitioning and quantity. This may be achieved by following activities: * Building on informal knowledge of fraction * Focusing on meaning other than symbol * Various partitioning activities * Facing various representation * Emphasizing quantitative aspects of fraction * Understanding the meanings of fraction operation Through these activities, teacher must help students construct various faction concept image and apply it to meaningful situation. Especially, to help students to construct various concept image and to use fraction meaningfully to pose problems, much time should be spent to problem posing using fraction.

• The Mathematical Education
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• v.56 no.2
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• pp.193-212
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• 2017

This study focuses on cuisenaire rods that can be used when teaching fractions to elementary school students. First of all, this study critically examines the use of cuisenaire rods in learning of fraction proposed by various researches. Then, based on this review, this study explores in detail the use of cuisenaire rods in teachers' manuals developed from the revised curriculum by 2009 and in lessons related to fraction. The results of this study show that there are subtle differences in how to use cuisenaire rods in learning fractions and these subtle differences have a significant impact on students' understanding of the fractions. Therefore, the teachers should be able to accurately grasp the differences and utilize appropriate methods for teaching purpose. The followings are some of the implications for teachers or textbook developers when using cuisenaire rods in fraction learning: First, we should use cuisenaire rods in ways that can fully exploit the interpretations of the fraction as a part-whole and the fraction as a ratio. Second, we should focus on quantitative reasoning with unit to determine what each cuisenaire rod refers to. Third, it is necessary to take a more careful and sensitive approach to the use of cuisenaire rods. Teachers and textbook developers should constantly explore ways to make good use of mathematical manipulatives to help students understand conceptually in fractional learning. Furthermore, when teaching various mathematical topics using different manipulatives, I expect that there will be sufficient discussions and specific studies on how to use each of these manipulatives.

• Education of Primary School Mathematics
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.111-130
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• 2018

In this study, I compared and analyzed the contents of Korean, Japanese, Singapore, American, and Finnish textbooks about fraction which is one of the important and difficult concepts in elementary school mathematics. This is aimed to get the implications for meaningful fractional teaching and learning by analyzing the advantages and disadvantages of the methods and time of introducing the concept because fraction has the diversity of the sub-concepts and the introducing methods or process. As a result of the analysis, the fraction was introduced as part-whole(area) in all five countries' textbooks, but the use of number line, conversion between improper fraction and mixed number, whether to deal with part-whole(set) model. Furthermore, there are differences in the methods in obtaining of the equivalent fraction and the order of arrangement in comparison of fraction. Through this analysis, we discussed the reconsideration of the introducing contexts of fractions, the use of number line when introducing fractions, and the problem of segmentation and classification of contents.

• Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.663-682
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• 2016

This study conducted an analysis of strategies that the 3rd to 6th grade elementary students used when they were solving problems of comparing the size of the fractions with like and unlike denominators, and unit fractions. Although there were slight differences in the students' use of strategies according to the problem types, students were found to use the 'part-whole strategy', 'transforming strategy', and 'between fractions strategy' frequently. But 'pieces strategy', 'unit fraction strategy', 'within fraction strategy', and 'equivalent fraction strategy' were not used frequently. In regard to the strategy use that is appropriate to the problem condition, it was found that students needed to use the 'unit fraction strategy', and the 'within fraction strategy', whereas there were many errors in their use of the 'between fractions strategy'. Based on the results, the study attempted to provide pedagogical implications in teaching and learning for comparing the size of the fractions.