O conceito de fração em seus diferentes significados: um estudo diagnóstico com alunos de 5ª e 6ª séries do Ensino Fundamental

Abstract

The aim of this work was to investigate the strategies students, from the 5 th and 6 th grades of Primary Education, use when facing problems involving fraction concepts, according to the theoretical classification proposed by Nunes et al (2003). The research intended to answer the following research question: Which strategies of resolution do 5 th and 6 th grade students use when facing problems involving the fraction concept, concerning the five different meanings of fraction: number, part-whole, quotient, measure, and multiplying operator? For this reason, a diagnostic analysis has been done with 120 students, 60 of them are in the 5 th grade and the other 60 are in the 6 th grade of the Primary Education in two State-public schools of São Paulo City. The field research was divided in two stages: first, a questionnaire, involving fraction concepts, was collectively applied to students who answered it individually; and second, clinical interviews were made with 12% of the sample students. The data has also been analyzed in two stages: first analyzing quantitatively and, secondly, qualitatively. As the general percentage of success of the students participating in the research of both grades was very low (below 25%), it was decided to analyze the strategies that resulted in error (failing). The obtained results confirmed that there wasn t, in neither grades, an equitable performance among the five meanings of fraction. When it comes to the strategies to solve the problems, there was no regularity. In other words, to the same meaning, different strategies of resolution were found. Based on these results, one can conclude that the approach given to the concept of fraction doesn t guarantee that the student builds the knowledge to this concept