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Choose Your Words: Refining What Counts As Mathematical Discourse In Students' Negotiation Of Meaning For Rate Of Change Of Volume, Christine Johnson

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to describe how university honors calculus students negotiate meaning and language for conceptually important ideas through mathematical discourse. Mathematical discourse has been recognized as an important topic by mathematics education researchers of various theoretical perspectives. This study is written from a perspective that merges symbolic interactionism (Blumer, 1969) with personal agency (Walter & Gerson, 2007) to assert that human choice reflects, but is not determined by, meanings that are primarily developed through social interaction. The process of negotiation of meaning is identified, described, and analyzed in the discourse of four students and their professor …