Introducing Tables to Second-Grade Elementary Students in an Algebraic Thinking Context

María D. Torres, Bárbara M. Brizuela, María C. Cañadas and Antonio Moreno
Additional contact information
María D. Torres: Department of Mathematics Didactics, Faculty of Education Sciences, University of Granada, 18071 Granada, Spain
Bárbara M. Brizuela: Department of Education, School of Arts and Sciences, Tufts University, Medford, MA 02155, USA
María C. Cañadas: Department of Mathematics Didactics, Faculty of Education Sciences, University of Granada, 18071 Granada, Spain
Antonio Moreno: Department of Mathematics Didactics, Faculty of Education Sciences, University of Granada, 18071 Granada, Spain

Mathematics, 2021, vol. 10, issue 1, 1-18

Abstract: In this study, we adopted a functional perspective on algebra. Our focus was on tables and how they were first used by second-grade elementary school students (7- and 8-year-olds) when working with functions. This qualitative, exploratory, and descriptive study consisted of five classroom sessions and two semi-structured interviews, one group and one individual, two weeks apart, focused on tasks involving different functions and uses of tables, with and without labels for headings. In this study, we ask the following research questions: How do children organise values in tables with or without (a priori) labels for headings? What are the regularities (structures) identified by students? Our data revealed that students were able to organise the values of variables by listing them in columns and labelling the headings (i.e., identifying the variables involved). The ways in which children organised the data in tables enabled us to identify the structures they identified as regularities between the variables involved in the functions. More structures were correctly identified in the second interview compared to the first.

Keywords: function; functional thinking; generalisation; structure; tabular representation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7390/10/1/56/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7390/10/1/56/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jmathe:v:10:y:2021:i:1:p:56-:d:710611

Access Statistics for this article

Mathematics is currently edited by Ms. Emma He

More articles in Mathematics from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().