Date of Award

4-1-2025

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education (EdD)

Department

School of Education

First Advisor

Nicole M. Wessman-Enzinger, Ph.D.

Second Advisor

Debby Espinor, Ed.D.

Third Advisor

Sarah Kerrigan, Ph.D.

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine the changes that occurred in secondary students’ conceptual understanding of ratios and proportions after participating in number talks in their sixth-grade mathematics classroom. Proportional reasoning is a critical mathematical concept (e.g.., Beckmann & Izsák, 2015; Izzatin et al., 2021), yet many students struggle to understand the multiplicative relationships that are found within quantities (Lamon, 2007; Lobato et al., 2010). Number talks are an instructional routine that supports students in their development of underlying mathematical relationships through discourse with their peers (e.g., Gertenschlager & Strayer, 2019; Parker & Humphreys, 2018; Sun et al., 2018). However, limited research discusses the impact of number talks at the secondary level (Matney et al., 2020).

Qualitative data was collected and analyzed to understand the changes in students’ conceptual understanding and flexibility in their approaches to solving missing value proportions problems. Structured task-based interviews (Maher & Sigley, 2020) were conducted before and after the number talks to analyze the changes in participants’ conceptual understanding. A constant comparative method (Merriam, 1998) was employed to investigate further the discussions students had during each of the ten number talks. The findings suggest that number talks are an effective instructional routine as students in the study deepened their conceptual understanding and developed flexibility in their approach to solving for a missing value. This research has implications for classroom practice and mathematical scholars, impacting the literature on both proportional reasoning and number talks.

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