- Title
- Pre-service education students’ application of visualisation strategies to solve mathematical word-problems
- Creator
- Shaw, Peter
- Subject
- Word problems (Mathematics)
- Date
- 2019
- Type
- Thesis
- Type
- Doctoral
- Type
- DPhil
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/10353/16604
- Identifier
- vital:40735
- Description
- This classroom-based action research dissertation examined visualisation strategies used by pre-service Intermediate Phase PGCE education students to solve mathematical word-problems. The setting was an Eastern Cape university. Previous literature indicated a positive correlation between the use of visual scaffolds and success in solving word problems. However, a gap was found insofar as little research had been published on the application of visualisation to word-problems by student teachers in South Africa. This thesis advances our understanding of the role visualisation may play in assisting student teachers to solve word-problems. The theoretic framework was informed by Bruner’s theory of learning. The research was grounded in the hermeneutic tradition. An interpretivist research paradigm was expedited by using an inductive, naturalistic perspective and relativist ontology. Thirty-eight student-teachers participated in the study. Parallel and convergent qualitative and quantitative data gathering instruments were used, thereby facilitating triangulation and examination for microgenesis. It was found that vestiges of past teaching practices initially limited the participants’ knowledge to a deeply-flawed, banking model of routines and an instrumental perception of mathematics. Disruptive calls for social justice impeded progress. Albeit visualisation strategies liberated understanding, many foundational concepts and skills had to be reconstructed. The confluence of time and rehearsal culminated in some measure of expertise. Sustained effort enabled new knowledge to be compressed and consigned to long-term memory. Salient visual representations assisted participants to conceptualise relational mathematical meta-concepts and reduced the cognitive demands imposed by word-problems but that achievement was a hard-won prize.
- Format
- 386 leaves
- Format
- Publisher
- University of Fort Hare
- Publisher
- Faculty of Education
- Language
- English
- Rights
- University of Fort Hare
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| Thumbnail | File | Description | Size | Format | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| View Details Download | SOURCE1 | Shaw P- PDF-Thesis-18 April 2019.pdf | 6 MB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download |