A cross-national comparison of reform curricula in Korea and the US in terms of cognitive complexity: the case of fraction addition and subtraction.

Autor/in	Son, Ji-Won
Titel	A cross-national comparison of reform curricula in Korea and the US in terms of cognitive complexity: the case of fraction addition and subtraction.
Quelle	In: ZDM : mathematics education, 44 (2012) 2, S. 161-174 PDF als Volltext Link als defekt meldenVerfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	online; gedruckt; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	1863-9690; 1863-9704
DOI	10.1007/s11858-012-0386-1
Schlagwörter	Vergleichsuntersuchung; Kognitive Komplexität; Lehrwerkanalyse; Semantik; Bruchrechnung; Mathematikunterricht; Textaufgabe; Aufgabe
Abstract	The overall level of conceptual understanding and mathematical proficiency of students has been a matter of increasing national interest in South Korea. Recently, a new edition of mathematics textbooks aligned with the amendment of the 7th national mathematics curriculum has become available for all elementary grade levels. To characterize the current reform efforts in South Korea, this study examined the quality of the mathematical problems in the current version of the Korean reform textbooks (KM 2) compared with the previous version (KM 1) and one representative US reform curriculum text (EM). N. L. Webb's [Research monograph No. 18: Alignment of science and mathematics standards and assessments in four states. Madison: National Institute for Science Education (1999)] depth of knowledge framework and J.-W. Son's and S. L. Senk's [Educ. Stud. Math. 74, No.2, 117-142 (2010; ME 2010f.00640)] cognitive expectation feature were employed to examine the kind and level of students' opportunities to learn along with the type of word problems presented in the three sets of materials. Analysis revealed that the KM 2 provided better opportunities for students to learn fraction addition and subtraction than the KM 1 in terms of the depth and breadth of cognitive complexity. However, there was little difference in addressing and developing the meaning of fraction addition and subtraction through word problems. Moreover, compared with the US reform curriculum materials, the KM 2 provided more problems requiring lower depth of knowledge levels than the US counterpart. Implications of these findings for curriculum developers, textbook and learning materials developers, teachers and future researchers are discussed.
Erfasst von	FIZ Karlsruhe - Leibniz-Institut für Informationsinfrastruktur
Update	2013/1