An Analysis of Seventh-Grade Students' Mathematical Reasoning

Abstract

The aim of this study is to determine the seventh-graders' levels of mathematical reasoning and to reveal their performance. The present study was carried out with 167 seventh-grade students studying at randomly selected three middle schools that served low and middle socioeconomic areas in a city of Turkey. "Mathematical Reasoning Test (MRT)" was developed and used as data collection tool. In analyzing the data, participants' scores of the test was computed and which mathematical reasoning level they were in was determined. Sample responses of the some students regarding any question (Q7) in the test were presented directly and discussed. As a result of the analysis, it was found that about half of the students (45.5%) had medium and 27.5% of them had low level of mathematical reasoning. When the results are evaluated, it is probable to say that most of the students' mathematical reasoning is at medium or low level in general. On the other hand, it is remarkable that rather than the familiar classical problems, students need to be enabled to deal with the problems that they can do reasoning and thus their mathematical reasoning could be improved.