Brackets and the structure sense

• Brackets are essential structure elements in mathematics expressions. However, students have shown to have scattered understanding of the concept of brackets and how they are used in mathematical expressions. In this paper we present data that illustrate students’ perceptions of the word “brackets” and how these perceptions influence their use of brackets in numerical expressions. Based on our data we argue that the teaching of the concept of brackets also need to describe brackets as ordered pairs where each symbol has a unique counterpart and that insertion of brackets can, but does not have to, modify the structure of an expression.

Subject headings

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Utbildningsvetenskap -- Didaktik (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Educational Sciences -- Didactics (hsv//eng)

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

kon (subject category)