In this design experiment study, we investigated the problem: What conditions might foster students' discernment of a critical aspect--variation in unidirectional change (e.g., discerning a "decreasing" increase)? At a public middle school in a large US city, we led a sequence of three days of whole class lessons, followed by task-based,…

This paper considers what students attend to as they first encounter R[superscript 3] coordinate axes and are asked to graph y = 3. Graphs are critical representations in single and multivariable calculus, yet findings from research indicate that students struggle with graphing functions of more than one variable. We found that some students…

Trigonometry is one of the fundamental topics taught in high school and university curricula, but it is considered as one of the most challenging subjects for teaching and learning. In the current study Mason's theory of attention has been used to examine undergraduate student's perception of the transformation of sinusoidal functions. Two types…

Statistical knowledge for teaching is not precisely equivalent to statistics subject matter knowledge. Teachers must know how to make statistics understandable to others as well as understand the subject matter themselves. This dual demand on teachers calls for the development of viable teacher education models. This paper offers one such model,…

In this study I investigate Saldanha and Thompson's (1998) claim that conceptualizing a coordinate pair in the Cartesian coordinate system as a multiplicative object, a way to unite two quantities' values, supports students in conceptualizing graphs as emergent representations of how two quantities' values change together. I presented three…

In the context of a generic harmonic oscillator, we investigated students' accuracy in determining the period, frequency, and angular frequency from mathematical and graphical representations. In a series of studies including interviews, free response tests, and multiple-choice tests developed in an iterative process, we assessed students in both…

This study explored first-semester calculus students' understanding of tangent lines as well as how students used tangent lines within the context of Newton's method. Task-based interviews were conducted with twelve first-semester calculus students who were asked to verbally describe a tangent line, sketch tangent lines for multiple curves, and…

Previous research has demonstrated how young children can identify the signal in data. In this exploratory study we considered how they might also express meanings for noise when creating computational models using recent developments in software tools. We conducted extended clinical interviews with four groups of 11-year-olds and analysed the…

The Common Core State Standards (CCSSI 2010) and NCTM's (2014) "Principles to Actions" agree that "for meaningful learning of mathematics, tools and technology must be indispensable features of the classroom . . . that support students in exploring mathematics as well as in making sense of concepts and procedures and engaging in…

Results from a study of 16 community college students are presented. The research question concerned how students reasoned about p-values. Students' approach to p-values in hypothesis testing was procedural. Students viewed p-values as something that one compares to alpha values in order to arrive at an answer and did not attach much meaning to…

This article reports on a study of six Grade 11 learners' levels of understanding of concepts related to the function definition and representation. Task-based clinical interviews were used to elicit the learners' interpretations and reasoning when working with these function-related concepts. Indicators for Action-Process-Object-Schema (APOS)…

Research that has explored students' interpretations of graphical representations has not extended to include how students apply understanding of particular statistical concepts related to one graphical representation to interpret different representations. This paper reports on the way in which students' understanding of covariation, evidenced…

Connecting data and chance is fundamental in statistics curricula. The use of software like TinkerPlots can bridge both worlds because the TinkerPlots Sampler supports learners in expressive modeling. We conducted a study with elementary preservice teachers with a basic university education in statistics. They were asked to set up and evaluate…

A growing body of literature has identified quantitative and covariational reasoning as critical for secondary and undergraduate student learning, particularly for topics that require students to make sense of relationships between quantities. The present study extends this body of literature by characterizing an undergraduate precalculus…

As part of a larger research study, this paper describes calculus students' reasoning about the Intermediate Value Theorem (IVT) in verbal, written, and graphical form. During interviews, students were asked to verbally describe the IVT in their own words. They then provided written descriptions, watched video of their verbal descriptions,…