Students’ relational understanding of the rectangle: a case study

Abstract

Relational understanding refers to know both what to do and why. In other words, relational understanding is an understanding of all the parts, how they relate, and why they are applied in the manner they are. Previous researches showed that students got difficulties in solving mathematics problem using relational understanding, especially in geometry problems. The purpose of this study was to investigate students’ relational understanding of the rectangle. The subjects of this study were four 8th graders. The data were collected using the student’s worksheets and interviews. This study was conducted in four meetings for every student. Every meeting was held for 30 minutes. The students’ understanding was appraised during the first ten minutes using the rectangle problem followed by interview for twenty minutes. The result of this study showed that the students do not have a relational understanding of the rectangle concept, but only instrumental understanding. Additionally, none of the students understands the relationship between both measurement and square with the area and perimeter of the rectangle concept. Furthermore, the result indicated that the relational understanding of a concept would be not understood well if one of the parts of the concept was ignored.