CONCEPTUAL AND THEORETICAL ISSUES IN PROPORTIONAL REASONING

Resumo

This survey of literature on proportional reasoning (PR) focuses on PR studies conducted after a comprehensive review by Tourniaire and Pulos (1985). These connected studies help identify what it means for middle school students to be deemed proficient in PR skills. This paper first describes different existing interpretations of PR and examines a variety of PR problems. It then explores students’ development of PR thinking, from their initial acquisition of PR concepts to ways of solving PR problems, as well as their misconceptions about applying PR. The paper concludes by discussing ways to use this literature review to develop a PR assessment from a cognitive diagnostic model framework.