| Mathematical language is very important to students’ math study,and curriculum standards attach great importance to the development of students’ mathematical language skills.As an important part of mathematical language skills,the capacity to convert mathematical language helps to foster a good mind-set of student and is in line with the national requirements for educational reform.Geometry has an important place in modern mathematics education,and the learning of geometric content often involves mathematical language conversion.Therefore,it is important to use geometry problems as an entry point to investigate students’ mathematical language conversion performance.Students in four eighth grade classes of Shanghai Y Middle School participated in this study,and their mathematical language conversion performance was investigated through a test.Interviews were used to further understand the problems of students in mathematical language conversion.The study was organized around the following questions:(1)How well do eighth graders perform in mathematical language conversion in geometry problems?(2)What problems do eighth graders have in mathematical language conversion in geometry problems?(3)What is the relationship between eighth graders’ mathematical language conversion skills and their performance in geometry?The study found that:(1)Students’ mathematical language conversion performance still needs to be improved,and that the performance of converting symbolic language to graphic language is the best and that the performance of converting graphic language to symbolic language is the weakest.(2)The main problems in students’ mathematical language conversion include: weak foundation in mathematical language,irregularity in graphing as well as weak graphing ability,logic error,and unsound basic knowledge.(3)Students’ performance of converting mathematical language was significantly correlated with their academic performance in mathematics. |
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