Conparative Study On Fraction Operation In Primary Mathematics Textbooks

It is important to improve students'operation ability and logical thinking,and fraction opration as an important part which mathematics thinking and difficulty appeared in primary mathematics. Previous studies showed that students' performances are strongly linked to the textbooks which they used;Furthemore,with the reform of mathematics curriculum developed gradually in many countries,how to provided students more opportunity to learn is take into account.And to the above aspects, Singapore and American textbooks have provided us lots of valuable experiences.In Chapter one,first introduced the background, meanings, questions, fundamental thinking and steps of the research.In Chapter two, relevant literature were sorted out in detail.In Chapter three,discussed the method, objects,the framework used,the reliability and validity and the limitatioms of the research.In Chapter four and five,used the framework to compare the treatment of calculation of fractions in primary mathematics textbooks used in America, Singapore and China. We found several similarities and differences among the textbooks regarding the topics included and their sequencing,the constructs of fractions,the worked examples,the cognitive demands of the tasks,and the types of responses required of students, as follows:From the horizontal dimensionrThe extent of fraction operation in Singapore and American textbooks was wider than that of China,and the analyzed textbooks present the same content with similar order,but Singapore and American textbooks were more emphasizing prior knowledge to make connections and spiraling principle.From the vertical dimension:Firstly, the predominant representation in worked examples across all textbooks was an area model. Ammrican textbook diffrered from those in the other two Asia countries in terms of the completeness of solutions,in which most worked examples offered complete solutions,but the examples in four textbooks all emphasized real-life situations. Moreover, Singapore and American textbooks tended to use photoes and Chinese textbooks used cartoon pictures. Singapore textbook used fraction structures and solution methods were the most.Secondly, the fraction construct's type and percentage in all tasks in Singapore textbook is more than other two countries,but American textbook used the measure construct is the most.Tirdly, Singapore textbook had higher cognitive demands than American and Chinese textbooks.Fourth,the tasks in Singapore and American textbook students were asked to explain the approach to solve the task were more than Chinese tasks.Moreover,the tasks in Singapore textbook required students to represent the underlting structure of the problm in mathematical sentence is more than the other two countries.Finally,based on the research results,we analysed the cultureal character of the three eduction systems.and then we proposed several individual opinions and views for the compiling works of our primary mathematics books in the aspect of fraction opration.