EXAMINING THE EXAMPLE GENERATION ABILITIES OF HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF MATHEMATICS COURSE

Abstract

Examples are an indispensable part of mathematical thinking through analogy, learningand the teaching process. In this study, the strategies that high school students used inexample generation activities in mathematics course; operational and conceptual knowledgelevels were determined and their effect on example generation ability was examined. Theworking group of the study was designed as a case study that followed a qualitative researchmethod; the study consisted of 22 students attending high school in the 2016-2017 academicyear. As a data collection tool, example generation questions were administered to thestudents. To analyze students' example generation processes in depth, semi-structuredinterviews were conducted and data obtained from the interviews were analyzed using acontent analysis method. The results showed that the students used trial and error strategymore than transformation strategy while generating examples but no finding of analysisstrategy was obtained. Factors affecting the students' example generation skills negativelyincluded the lack of a mathematical equivalent of the concept images related to the topicscovered by the questions and their not having a high enough level of concept knowledge.Results also indicated that conceptual knowledge had a positive effect on the ability togenerate examples.