TITLE:
Thinking and Scientific Language in the Primary Classes
AUTHORS:
Saleh Y. Abo-Romi
KEYWORDS:
Pre Deductive, Inductive Numeric Examples, Verbal Generalizations, Generic, Everyday Reasoning, Tautological Reason
JOURNAL NAME:
Creative Education,
Vol.11 No.5,
May
27,
2020
ABSTRACT: According to psychological and cognitive development theories, the preferences of pupils in elementary school toward inductive versus deductive and generaltypes of reasoning when asked to prove or review mathematical claims, changesalong the school years. This study examines this hypothesis through a survey in which 267 pupils from the Arabic sector in three different elementary schools in Israel, in grades 4 to 6 participated. The survey, based on the math reasoning tasks by Healy and Hoyles (1998), is comprised of Algebra and Geometry reasoning tasks. Additionally, 12 of these pupils’ teachers were interviewed inorder to explore their attitudes toward mathematical reasoning and mathproving tasks. Findings show that: 1) There is a difference in students’ preferences towards types of reasoning, between grades 4 and 6; 2) Sixth graders will be less likely to accept tautologic and inductive reasoning than fourthgraders; 3) Elementary school pupils tend to prefer empirical arguments (such as inductive and example-based) as their approach in contrast to the argumentsthat they believe will receive the highest scores from their teachers. However, findings do not support the hypothesis that there will be a difference in teachers’preferences towards different types of thinking. The research findings and their practical implications are discussed.