| Abstract: | This study examines the mathematical processes used by students when solving physics tasks requiring proportional reasoning. The study investigates students' understanding and explanations of their mathematical processes. A qualitative and interpretive case study was conducted with 6 students from a coeducational urban high school for 5 months. Students were engaged with some high school physics tasks requiring proportional reasoning, during which a hermeneutic dialectic design was used to investigate their processes, understandings, and difficulties. Research techniques such as interviews, dialectical discourses, journal dialogue, and video and audio recordings were employed to generate, analyze, and interpret data. Results of the study indicate that the students employed mathematical proportional reasoning patterns and algorithms which they could not explain. Students also had difficulties translating physics tasks into mathematical statements, symbols, and relations. Students could not perform mathematical operations that were not directly obvious from the physics tasks, and some had difficulty with division. Students did not have adequate understanding of the mathematical processes involved in proportional reasoning. |
