Investigation of Seventh Grade Students’ Transition Skills among Representations

Abstract

This descriptive case study was aimed at revealing the level of students’ transition skills among representations (verbal, numeric, algebraic, graphic) at the completion of 7th grade. The participants included 133 students attending 7th grade at a state school located in Ankara in Turkey. Students’ skills in transitioning between representations were tested using the “Test of Skills in Transitioning between Representations (TSTBR)”, which included 12 open-ended questions and analyzed student answers through a graded rubric developed by the researcher. Descriptive statistics such as frequency and percentage were used to examine students’ skills in making transitions between representations. Thus, it was determined in the findings that a majority of students had moderate transition skills. According to the mean scores, the number of students with low representation transition skills was greater than the number of students with high representation transition skills. Also, the students were most successful at transitioning from other representations to algebraic, verbal, numeric, and graphic representations, respectively. The mean scores for each representation transition were examined and possible reasons for the difficulties that students faced were discussed.