Tuğrul Kar

Analysis of Problems Posed by Sixth-Grade Middle School Students for the Addition of Fractions in Terms of Semantic Structures

This study aimed to investigate how the semantic structures of problems posed by sixth-grade middle school students for the addition of fractions affect their problem-posing performance. The students were presented with symbolic operations involving the addition of fractions and asked to pose two different problems related to daily-life situations for each item, which could only be solved using the given operations. The problems posed were analyzed in terms of their semantic structures and conceptual validity. The results of the study showed that students who posed problems using the two different structures ‘part–part–whole’ and ‘join’ demonstrated higher performance in problem posing. The performance of the students using only one category – join or part–part–whole – was lower, with the latter being the lowest.

Türk ve Amerikan Yedinci Sınıf Matematik Ders Kitaplarının Tamsayılarla Toplama ve Çıkarma İşlemleri Üzerinden Karşılaştırılması

This study analyzes how addition and subtraction with integers are presented in Turkish and American mathematics textbooks. Analyses focus on how the concepts are given as well as the nature of the presented mathematical problems. It was found that both the Turkish and the American textbooks emphasized the relationships among different representations in teaching addition and subtraction with integers. It was found that the coordination among visual representation, verbal explanations and mathematical sentences was constructed in a more organized manner in the textbook named Connected Mathematics 2. It was found that operational skill oriented problems were proportionately featured more in the Turkish textbooks whereas the problems requiring high-level cognitive skills such as mathematical reasoning and problem posing were featured more in the American textbooks.