A Study on the Visualization Skills of 6th Grade Students

Visualization is an effective method for students to internalize concepts and to establish correlations between concepts. Visualization method is especially more important in mathematics which is perceived as the combination of abstract concepts. In this study, whether 6th grade students can solve questions about 'Fractions' by using visual model and whether they can utilize visualization or not was searched. A literature scan about the visualization in teaching mathematics and an achievement test involving 10 questions were implemented for this study. The participants are 50 6th grade students who are studying at public and private schools in various parts of Istanbul. They were asked to solve questions by using visual model method. In accordance with the findings, it can be said that 6th grade students have difficulties in using visual model while studying on fractions and they prefer calculation by considering rules without using.