The 'Voice' of Absent Designers

Abstract

This empirical case study explores how the design of educational software co-determines students’ reasoning when solving mathematical problems. The results indicate that the students’ awareness of the design process behind the software became a resource for them when solving the task. The student’s actions were guided by their understanding of the intentions of the designers, i.e. by listening to the ‘voice’ of the absent designers.

Keywords

• Word problems
• problem solving
• educational software
• framing.