The main purpose of this study is to investigate the possibility of teaching plausible reasoning by analysis of the 7th edited textbook (thereafter as ""the textbook"") and to search the learning and teaching methods of plausible reasoning for 2nd gra...
The main purpose of this study is to investigate the possibility of teaching plausible reasoning by analysis of the 7th edited textbook (thereafter as ""the textbook"") and to search the learning and teaching methods of plausible reasoning for 2nd grade students in junior high school and find the effects of it. To this end, I choose the following subjects for the study.
1. Does the textbook for grade 1st, 2nd, and 3rd students in junior high school include th content on plausible reasoning?
2. Is there significant difference in the achievement of learning mathematics between the studnets who have received the teaching of plausible reasoning and the students who have not? And also, is there significant difference in the achievement of learning mathematics between upper level proups, and lower level groups?
3. Is there significant difference in the ability of plausible reasoning between the students who have received the teaching of plausible reasoning and the students who have not?
4. Is there significant difference in the attitude of mathematical reasoning between the students who have received the teaching of plausible reasoning and the students who have not?
5. Is there significant difference in the preference for mathematical reasoning between the students who have received the teaching of plausible reasoning and the students who have not?
The results of this study are as follows;
First, we find that the textbook contains the content regarding plausible reasoning such as induction, analogy and visual reasoning.
Second, in the matter of achievement of learning mathematics, there is little difference (less than .05) between the experimented group, which received the teaching of (less than.05) between upper level group and lower level group.
Third, in the matter of ability of plausible reasoning, students who received the teaching of plausible reasoning, got higher score in the area of induction, analogy and visual reasoning than students who did not received. However, there is little difference between the two groups in the area of visual problem solving. And students of experimented group got higher score than students of controlled grpup in the area of induction, analogy and visual reasoning, however, there is little difference in the area of visual problem solving, in which the achievement of teaching of plausible reasoning, had more positive attitude in the area of deduction, analogy, and visual reasoning than students who did not received. There is, however, not significant difference between them in the area of belief, academic goals, induction.
Fifth, in the preference test for mathematical reasoning, we cannot see significant difference between the experimented group and the controlled group from the test taken before the learning and teaching starts. However the test taken after the leasrning and teaching shows that the experimented group prefers inductive reasoning and the controlled group prefers deductive reasoning in the area of algebra.
Based on the above results, I would like to suggest a few things as follows:
First, we analyzed the chapters and methods to be able to teach of plausible reasoning in the juniou high school mathematics textbook, but it is not enough with just textbook for student to induce the reasoning, and the role of teacher is very important. Therefor teachers should aware of this fact and guide students.
Second, it turned out that learning and teaching of the plausible reasoning which is used by the logic finding out mathematical facts, hardly influences school regular tests, which are composed of items evaluating the understanding degrees of mathematical knowledge. This fact shows that it is necessary to improve contents and items of such paper-based tests to check out the students achievement.
Third, the students ability of plausible reasoning has been improved through plausible reasoning learning-teaching. In terms of plausible reasoning of mathematical guessing and discovery, diverse teaching materials should be developed both in quantity and in quality.
Fourth, plausible reasoning has to be waited for a long time for the effects. Therefor we cna expect that there is the effect for the experiment with extended term.
Fifth, we emphasized on the necessity of plausible reasoning and investigated the effects of learning and teaching of this in this study. However, in fact, both plausible reasoning for discovering the mathematical facts and deductive reasoning for proving the mathematical knowledge have to be important and emphasized. Therefore it is necessary to develop the learning-teaching method of reasoning for plausible reasoning and deductive reasoning are mutual complements each of the other, in school mathematics.