A Study on Elementary School Students' Understanding of Fractions

초등학생의 분수이해에 관한 연구

  • Published : 2003.06.01

Abstract

A fraction is one of the most important concepts that students have to learn in elementary school. But it is a challenge for students to understand fraction concept because of its conceptual complexity. The focus of fraction learning is understanding the concept. Then the problem is how we can facilitate the conceptual understanding and estimate it. In this study, Moore's concept understanding scheme(concept definition, concept image, concept usage) was adopted as an theoretical framework to investigate students' fraction understanding. The questions of this study were a) what concept image do students have\ulcorner b) How well do students solve fraction problems\ulcorner c) How do students use fraction concept to generate fraction word problem\ulcorner By analyzing the data gathered from three elementary school, several conclusion was drawn. 1) The students' concept image of fraction is restricted to part-whole sub-construct. So is students' fraction understanding. 2) Students can solve part-whole fraction problems well but others less. This also imply that students' fraction understanding is partial. 3) Half of the subject(N=98) cannot pose problems that involve fraction and fraction operation. And some succeeded applied the concept mistakenly. To understand fraction, various fraction subconstructs have to be integrated as whole one. To facilitate this integration, fraction program should focus on unit, partitioning and quantity. This may be achieved by following activities: * Building on informal knowledge of fraction * Focusing on meaning other than symbol * Various partitioning activities * Facing various representation * Emphasizing quantitative aspects of fraction * Understanding the meanings of fraction operation Through these activities, teacher must help students construct various faction concept image and apply it to meaningful situation. Especially, to help students to construct various concept image and to use fraction meaningfully to pose problems, much time should be spent to problem posing using fraction.

본 연구는 Vinner와 Moore의 개념정의, 개념이미지, 개념이용의 이론적 체계를 활용하여 초등학생의 분수이해에 대해 조사하였다. 이를 위해 먼저 주어진 분수와 분수식으로 설명할 수 있는 상황을 설정하게 함으로써 아동의 개념이미지를 조사하였다. 두 번째로 분수가 포함된 문제해결이 분수개념이해를 바탕으로 하는 바, 다양한 분수하위개념과 관련된 문제를 제시하고 이를 해결하게 하였다. 세 번째로 분수와 분수식으로 문장제 문제를 만들어 보게 함으로써 아동의 분수개념 이용을 살펴보았다. 연구한 결과, 분수에 대한 아동의 개념이미지가 부분-전체에 제한되어 있었으며 이로 인해 다른 하위개념에 대한 이해가 부족한 것으로 나타났다. 또 분수와 분수식을 효과적으로 적용할 수 있는 문제 상황을 설정하는데 익숙하지 못했다. 아동의 분수이해를 위해서는 다양한 하위개념에 대한 균형된 이해를 돕는 학습활동이 필요하며 교과서에 분수와 분수식을 활용한 문장제 문제만들기 활동이 더 많이 제공될 필요가 있다.

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