In order for students to successfully advance in mathematics beyond arithmetic and basic number sense, they must learn how to efficiently attend to the important structure of math notations and expressions. While students, especially younger ones, might find developing a good sense of structure in math to be a challenging task, perceptual learning theory suggests that perceptual grouping mechanisms can be used as support in instructional materials to direct students’ attention and thus to impact their solution processes and performance while problem-solving. This Master's thesis aims to expand on previous findings in the field of perceptual learning by exploring the effects of superfluous brackets as a type of perceptual grouping mechanism to improve students' cognitive processing and performance through two empirical studies.

Creator

• Ngo, Vy

Contributeurs

• Ottmar, Erin R
• Shaw, Stacy

Degree

• MS

Unit

• Learning Sciences & Technologies

Publisher

• Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Identifier

• etd-63241

Mot-clé

• solution processes
• mathematical operations
• structure sense
• mathematical cognition
• perceptual learning
• brackets

Advisor

• Ottmar, Erin R

Defense date

• 2022-04-13

Year

• 2022

Date created

• 2022-04-22

Resource type

• Thesis

Rights statement

• In Copyright

Dernière modification

• 2022-12-23