Base Ideas of Function Mobilized by Students in the Early Years of Elementary School in Simple Proportion Situations

Abstract

This research has its foundation in the Didactics of Mathematics. The Theory of Conceptual Fields supported the elaboration of the research instrument and the analysis of the data produced. The objective was to identify which basic ideas of function are mobilized by students of the 5th grade of Elementary School when solving division situations by quota and multiplication. For its development, four situations of simple proportion class were elaborated, from which two of them are analyzed in this article, from the quota and one-to-many multiplication subclasses. The research instrument was developed by 12 fifth-graders. Data analysis took place from audio recordings of the dialogues of the pairs of students and from their written productions. These analyses point to the fact that the base ideas of function correspondence, dependence, regularity, and variable were manifested by all participants in the situation involving one-to-many multiplication, and in the situation involving quota, only two students did not manifest them. The base idea of generalization was expressed by four students for the situation involving quota. From the results and based on the Theory of Conceptual Fields, we infer that multiplicative situations must be presented since the early years of Elementary School, considering the variety of subclasses, so that the basic ideas of function are developed by students throughout the school process.

Keywords
Conceptual Field of Multiplicative Structure; Correspondence; Dependency; Regularity; Variable