Making sense of complex numbers

This research exemplifies a framework of mathematical thinking as proposed by Chin & Tall (2012) and Chin (2013) by showing the empirical evidence related to how a group of participants made sense of complex numbers. Humans make sense of new mathematics context by relating it to personal concept...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Elvent Taliban
Format: Thesis
Language:English
Published: 2019
Subjects:
Online Access:https://eprints.ums.edu.my/id/eprint/25237/1/Making%20sense%20of%20complex%20numbers.pdf
_version_ 1796910353221681152
author Elvent Taliban
author_facet Elvent Taliban
author_sort Elvent Taliban
collection UMS
description This research exemplifies a framework of mathematical thinking as proposed by Chin & Tall (2012) and Chin (2013) by showing the empirical evidence related to how a group of participants made sense of complex numbers. Humans make sense of new mathematics context by relating it to personal conceptions and experiences. This might not be a smooth process as it may involve conceptions that work in an old context but do not work in a new context. The researcher has chosen the topic of complex numbers as it is an extension of the real numbers system and it will be beneficial to explore how the conceptions of participants in the real numbers system affect their sense making of complex numbers. This study involves thirty undergraduate students majoring in mathematics from the faculty of Science and Natural Resources, Universiti Malaysia Sabah. After analysing the responses of the participants for the given mathematical task, a follow-up interview was conducted with five participants. The interview session was recorded and transcript were made of the interviews. The transcripts were then analysed. The results show that these participants have supportive and problematic conceptions in making sense of complex numbers and these conceptions are originated from the context of real numbers.
first_indexed 2024-03-06T03:03:12Z
format Thesis
id ums.eprints-25237
institution Universiti Malaysia Sabah
language English
last_indexed 2024-03-06T03:03:12Z
publishDate 2019
record_format dspace
spelling ums.eprints-252372020-03-12T08:39:23Z https://eprints.ums.edu.my/id/eprint/25237/ Making sense of complex numbers Elvent Taliban QA Mathematics This research exemplifies a framework of mathematical thinking as proposed by Chin & Tall (2012) and Chin (2013) by showing the empirical evidence related to how a group of participants made sense of complex numbers. Humans make sense of new mathematics context by relating it to personal conceptions and experiences. This might not be a smooth process as it may involve conceptions that work in an old context but do not work in a new context. The researcher has chosen the topic of complex numbers as it is an extension of the real numbers system and it will be beneficial to explore how the conceptions of participants in the real numbers system affect their sense making of complex numbers. This study involves thirty undergraduate students majoring in mathematics from the faculty of Science and Natural Resources, Universiti Malaysia Sabah. After analysing the responses of the participants for the given mathematical task, a follow-up interview was conducted with five participants. The interview session was recorded and transcript were made of the interviews. The transcripts were then analysed. The results show that these participants have supportive and problematic conceptions in making sense of complex numbers and these conceptions are originated from the context of real numbers. 2019 Thesis NonPeerReviewed text en https://eprints.ums.edu.my/id/eprint/25237/1/Making%20sense%20of%20complex%20numbers.pdf Elvent Taliban (2019) Making sense of complex numbers. Masters thesis, Universiti Malaysia Sabah.
spellingShingle QA Mathematics
Elvent Taliban
Making sense of complex numbers
title Making sense of complex numbers
title_full Making sense of complex numbers
title_fullStr Making sense of complex numbers
title_full_unstemmed Making sense of complex numbers
title_short Making sense of complex numbers
title_sort making sense of complex numbers
topic QA Mathematics
url https://eprints.ums.edu.my/id/eprint/25237/1/Making%20sense%20of%20complex%20numbers.pdf
work_keys_str_mv AT elventtaliban makingsenseofcomplexnumbers