The capacity of two Australian eighth-grade textbooks for promoting proportional reasoning

Shelley Dole; Mal Shield

doi:10.1080/14794800801915863

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The capacity of two Australian eighth-grade textbooks for promoting proportional reasoning

Journal article

Peer reviewed

The capacity of two Australian eighth-grade textbooks for promoting proportional reasoning

Shelley Dole and Mal Shield

Research in Mathematics Education, Vol.10(1), pp.19-35

2008

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14794800801915863

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Abstract

Mathematical Sciences

Education

textbooks

proportional reasoning

multiplicative structures

In the middle grades mathematics curriculum, proportional reasoning is fundamental to many topics, and hence, there is considerable scope for instruction to focus on assisting students to recognize the proportional structure of many problem situations. Yet, proportional reasoning, and particularly the study of ratio and proportion, pose considerable difficulty for students. Drawing on proportional reasoning literature as well as mathematics curriculum reform principles underpinning the current mathematics syllabus documents in Queensland, Australia, we devised criteria for textbook analysis, and applied these to eighth-grade Australian mathematics textbooks, to explore the degree to which knowledge connections and proportional reasoning were promoted. The analysis revealed a predominance of calculation procedures, with relatively few tasks and explanations to support conceptual understanding.

Details

Title: The capacity of two Australian eighth-grade textbooks for promoting proportional reasoning
Authors: Shelley Dole (Author) - University of Queensland
Mal Shield (Author) - Queensland University of Technology
Publication details: Research in Mathematics Education, Vol.10(1), pp.19-35
Publisher: Routledge
Date published: 2008
DOI: 10.1080/14794800801915863
ISSN: 1479-4802
Organisation Unit: School of Education - Legacy; Indigenous and Transcultural Research Centre; School of Education and Tertiary Access; University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland
Language: English
Record Identifier: 99449165102621
Output Type: Journal article

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