PROGRESS IN LEARNING ALGEBRA: TEMPORARY AND
PERSISTENT DIFFICULTIES
Mollie MacGregor & Kaye
Stacey
The research
reported in this paper is part of a large study[1] investigating the cognitive and linguistic
aspects of learning algebra in secondary school. Five of the 22 schools participating in the
study tested the same cohort of students on two or three occasions. Analysis of the data from these five schools
has shown that certain
initial difficulties are easily corrected for the majority of students, whereas
others are more persistent. Most
students by Years 9 and 10 had reached an understanding of algebraic letters as
unknown numbers, but their understanding of equations was less secure. Major persistent difficulties were the significance
of brackets and the notation for products and powers. A small proportion of students made very
little or no progress.
[1]The research was funded by a grant from the
Australian Research Council to Kaye Stacey for the project "The Cognitive
and Linguistic Aspects of Learning to Use Algebra". We wish to thank the teachers and students
who participated in the testing.