Education Commons^™

Students' Reasoning Around The Functional Relationship, Michele Carney, Angela Crawford

Curriculum, Instruction, and Foundational Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

Proportional reasoning is related to flexible use of the scalar and functional relationships that exist in proportional situations. More specifically, in regard to the functional relationship, students’ understanding of the multiplicative comparison that exists between two quantities in a ratio is a key concept. We conducted student interviews with 12 high performing students to examine their conception of the functional relationship. Analyses provided initial evidence that the majority of students did not conceive of the multiplicative comparison when solving problems designed to press the functional relationship, indicating students’ written work that makes use of the functional relationship should not imply …