Abstract
This research used “tests” and “flow map interviews” to test seventh grade students’ semantics understanding of algebra letters and surveyed the results consistently gathered from “tests” and “flow map interviews”. The testing documents and student interviews were the sources of data. The results of this study indicated that seventy-six students had stable understandings of “Letter evaluated”, but had unstable understandings on “Letters used as a specific unknown” and “Letters used as a generalized number”. However, seventy-six students had two mistakes in the “Letter evaluated” category, six mistakes in the “Letters used as a specific unknown” category, and four mistakes in the “Letters used as a generalized number” category. Finally, most of high-level students understood the “Letters used as a generalized number” category, some of mid-level students understood the “Letters used as a generalized number”, and some of them understood the “Letters used as a specific unknown”. Generally speaking, comparisons between “tests” and “flow map interviews”, indicated that students in different levels had same semantics understanding results about algebra letters.
| Keywords: | algebra learning; letters; semantics understanding |
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