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Proportional reasoning: The effect of two context variables, rate type, and problem setting
Author(s) -
Heller Patricia M.,
Ahlgren Andrew,
Post Thomas,
Behr Merlyn,
Lesh Richard
Publication year - 1989
Publication title -
journal of research in science teaching
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.067
H-Index - 131
eISSN - 1098-2736
pISSN - 0022-4308
DOI - 10.1002/tea.3660260303
Subject(s) - proportional reasoning , qualitative reasoning , context (archaeology) , qualitative research , mathematics education , type (biology) , analytic reasoning , qualitative property , mathematics , psychology , deductive reasoning , computer science , statistics , artificial intelligence , sociology , social science , paleontology , ecology , biology
This study investigated the effects of two context variables, ratio type and problem setting, on the performance of seventh‐grade students on a qualitative and numerical proportional reasoning test. Six forms of the qualitative and numerical tests were designed, each form using a single context (one of two settings for each of three ratio types). Different ratio types appear to have a stronger impact on the difficulty of the qualitative and numerical proportional reasoning problems than small differences in problem setting. However, the familiarity of problem setting did show an increasingly large effect on qualitative reasoning as the difficulty of ratio type increased. We also investigated the nature of the relationships between rational number skills, qualitative reasoning about ratios, and numerical proportional reasoning. Qualitative reasoning appears to be sufficient, but not necessary for numerical proportional reasoning. The evidence for the requisite nature of rational number skills for proportional reasoning was equivocal. The implications of these findings for science education are discussed.