Primary students' reasoning about diagrams: The building blocks of matrix knowledge

Abstract

This paper reports on the development of primary students’ ability to justify their reasoning for the selection of the matrix as an appropriate representation for specific mathematical scenarios. The results over a 3-year period revealed that less than 50% of students were able to justify their selections adequately and that this percentage dropped substantially with age. Additionally, although 20% of students’ provided more adequate explanations over time, 73% of students declined in their explanations or provided erratic or consistently inadequate explanations. These results suggest the need for explicit instruction in diagram use because there is scant evidence that a generic focus in the curriculum on representation, reasoning and communication is sufficient to support students to develop sound diagrammatic knowledge.