Abstract

BERNABEU, Melania  and  LLINARES, Salvador. How do Six to Nine Year-old Children Understand Geometrical Shapes. Educ. mat. [online]. 2017, vol.29, n.2, pp.9-35.  Epub Feb 14, 2022. ISSN 2448-8089.  https://doi.org/10.24844/em2902.01.

This study examines developing concepts of geometric shapes in 6 to 9 years old children. We use the notions of Duval’s perceptual, operative and discursive apprehensions and Fischbein’s figural concept to analyse the students’ understanding of shapes and how they completed sorting tasks. We interviewed 30 children ages 6 to 9 and analysed how they recognized and associated figure attributes so as to classify them. Findings indicate that (a) There is a mismatch between the term used to name prototypical figures and the way in which they are understood; (b) That the recognition of attributes to classify figures is not a uniform process and depends on which attribute is considered (c) The prototypical figures condition the understanding of the notion of geometrical figure class. These findings give us new knowledge about how elementary school students establish relations between perceptual and conceptual approaches in understanding the progression of the geometrical shapes.

Keywords : Understanding of shapes; figural concept; clinical task-based interview; geometrical thinking; geometric shapes.