ProceduralandConceptualUnderstandingofRational.docVIP

Algebra Students and Rational Expressions  PAGE 19 PAGE  Running Head: ALGEBRA STUDENTS AND RATIONAL EXPRESSIONS Algebra Students’ Simplification of Rational Expressions Hanna Figueras, Lorraine Males and Samuel Otten Michigan State University Algebra Students’ Simplification of Rational Expressions Even algebra students who are adept at simplifying a variety of polynomial expressions often face a significant challenge when confronted with rational expressions—the quotient of two polynomials. There are many possible reasons for this. Perhaps students do not have a solid comprehension of rational numbers and so are unable to handle something that looks like a fraction with xs in it. Perhaps they are unsure of the order of operations since there may be operations both above and below the operation of division. Perhaps they have inadequate conceptual understanding of inverse operations and so inappropriately cancel terms. Or perhaps it is something else entirely. Nevertheless, this is important because errors in this domain, according to our experience, are frequent, and algebra students will likely see rational expressions again later in their algebraic career (and certainly if they go on to calculus). The purpose of this research was to examine how algebra students simplify rational expressions, thus contributing to the existing research on algebra learning. Although rational expressions have not been the direct focus of much research, the domain promises to provide a rich supply of data for several reasons. First, experience leads one to expect student errors to be plentiful. Second, the complexity of rational expressions suggests that the strategies students use to simplify them are likely to be diverse. Third, there are strong visual cues in many rational expressions as objects are placed in close vertical or diagonal proximity to one another. Fourth, rational expressions may be the first entity in algebra for which students are not given or are unab