One year project 2006
Chris Linsell, Dunedin College of Education
  

Project aim

The aim of the research is to make explicit the knowledge and strategic thinking of students as they make the transition from arithmetic to algebra. The research questions consequent on this aim are:

• What knowledge and strategies do students use to solve equations?
• What diagnostic questioning is appropriate for eliciting the knowledge and strategies used by students?

  
Project plan

The teachers will first need to become familiar with the research literature on the learning of algebra. They will then be able to make significant contributions to the development of the diagnostic interview questions. Students from the teachers’ own classes and those of colleagues will be used for trialling the questions in the development process. Recorded interviews of students will be analysed by the whole research team. There will be regular meetings to view the videotapes and discuss the effectiveness of the questions and the student strategies that are revealed. Questions will then be re-written. This process will be repeated a number of times during the year. By the end of the year we will have a diagnostic interview capable of revealing the knowledge and strategies that students use to solve linear equations.
  

Partnerships involved

Principal researcher: Chris Linsell, Dunedin College of Education
Teacher: Melissa Bell, John McGlashan College
Teacher: Noel Johnston, King’s High School
Teacher: John Bell, Otago Boys High School
Researcher: Jan Savell, Numberworks

  
Expected outcomes

It is anticipated that eventually this will extend the Number Framework beyond the current upper level of advanced proportional thinking.
 

Selected Publications

Download the summary of the project report [pdf, 64 KB]
Download the full text of the project report [pdf, 646 KB]

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