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Abstract
This article gives an account of Grade 9 learners’ understanding of the concept of the equal sign and how they move from an arithmetic to an algebraic equation. A case study, using a sequential mixed method research design, was conducted in a secondary school in Soshanguve, a township in Gauteng, South Africa. Out of the 49 learners who wrote a test on the concept of the equal sign, eight were selected for an interview. The study revealed that Grade 9 learners in this school interpreted the equal sign as a ‘do something’ and unidirectional (one-sided) sign, not as the concept that represents an equivalent (concept of keeping both sides of the equal sign equal) of two quantities. The researchers attributed misinterpretation of the equal sign to how learners had been taught the concept of number sentences in lower grades, where greater emphasis was placed on rules than on the meaning of a concept.
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This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Article Type: Research Article
EURASIA J Math Sci Tech Ed, Volume 13, Issue 11, November 2017, 7243-7255
https://doi.org/10.12973/ejmste/78017
Publication date: 30 Oct 2017
Online publication date: 05 Oct 2017
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