RUME 25
2023
Omaha, Nebraska
Graphical Resources: Different Types of Knowledge Elements Used in Graphical Reasoning
Page: 172
In broad terms, much of the research on graphical reasoning can be characterized as focusing on misconceptions, covariational and quantitative reasoning, and graphing as a social practice. In contrast, other research has focused on graphing as a cognitive process, emphasizing the fine- grained knowledge elements related to graphing, with a focus on characterizing ideas students associate with graphical patterns (i.e., graphical forms). This paper moves beyond graphical forms to characterize other categories of fine-grained knowledge – “graphical resources” – that are activated and used in concert when constructing and interpreting graphs. In this study, we identified six categories of graphical resources: graphical forms resources, framing resources, ontological resources, convention resources, quantitative resources, and function resources. We posit that holistically considering different categories of fine-grained graph-related knowledge resources can connect various bodies of research on graphing.