Students’ Concepts of the Trapezoid at the End of Lower Secondary Level Education

Abstract

Understanding basic geometric concepts is important for the development of students’ thinking and geometric imagination, both of which facilitate their progress in mathematics. Factors that may affect students’ understanding include the teacher of mathematics (in particular his/her teaching style) and the textbooks used in mathematics lessons. In our research, we focused on the conceptual understanding of trapezoids among Czech students at the end of the 2nd level of education (ISCED 2). As part of the framework for testing the understanding of geometrical concepts, we assigned a task in which students had to choose trapezoids from six figures (four trapezoids and two other quadrilaterals). In total, 437 students from the 9th grade of lower secondary schools and corresponding years of grammar schools participated in the test. The gathered data were subjected to a qualitative analysis. We found that less than half of the students commanded an adequate conceptual understanding of trapezoids. It turned out that some students did not recognise the non-model of a trapezoid, or vice versa, considering a trapezoid in an untypical position to be a non-model. Our research was supplemented by analysis of geometry textbooks usually used in the Czech Republic which revealed that the trapezoid is predominantly presented in a prototypical position. Moreover, we investigated how pre-service teachers define a trapezoid. Finally, we present some recommendations for mathematics teaching and pre-service teacher training that could help.

Keywords

• conceptual maps
• conceptual understanding
• hierarchy of quadrilaterals
• non-models
• trapezoid