RUME 14 (Volume 2)
2011
Portland, Oregon
RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN QUANTITATIVE REASONING AND STUDENTS’ PROBLEM SOLVING BEHAVIORS
Page: 298
Over the past half-century, one strand of problem solving research has investigated problem solvers’ behaviors during various phases of the problem solving process. A second strand of problem solving research has explored the mental actions, reasoning abilities, and understandings involved in using specific concepts to solve novel problems. These two strands of research provide valuable contributions to mathematics education, but they have remained as separate strands of inquiry within the research literature. This paper reports on the results of a study that investigated three students’ problem solving behaviors in the context of their confronting novel problems when learning central ideas of trigonometry. The study’s findings illustrate specific mental processes that enabled or hindered the students in engaging in productive problem solving behaviors. Particularly, the study describes how a student’s ability to engage in quantitative reasoning shaped their movement through the problem solving phases.