Conjunction is more than just a grammatical resource: a comparative study of conjunctions in U.S. and Chinese mathematics lessons

Wang, Shuai

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/95360 Copy

Description

Title

Conjunction is more than just a grammatical resource: a comparative study of conjunctions in U.S. and Chinese mathematics lessons

Author(s)

Wang, Shuai

Issue Date

2016-11-29

Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)

Perry, Michelle

Doctoral Committee Chair(s)

Perry, Michelle

Committee Member(s)

• González, Gloriana
• Anderson, Carolyn
• Chang, Hua-Hua

Department of Study

Educational Psychology

Discipline

Educational Psychology

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Degree Level

Dissertation

Keyword(s)

• systemic functional linguistics
• classroom discourse
• conjunctions
• Chinese and U.S. mathematics education
• multi-level logistic regression

Abstract

Policy and research suggest that mathematical learning is supported when students speak clearly, coherently and logically. Conjunctions can be instrumental to support this in that they help connect different ideas and allow speakers to elaborate, extend, and enhance their mathematical statements. Borrowing from the systemic functional linguistics (SFL) perspective, conjunction analysis was conducted on 13 U.S. lessons and 17 Chinese lessons to examine differences in the frequency and use of conjunctions between U.S. and Chinese lessons. Findings indicated that students in the Chinese sample had a higher probability of producing conjunctions than their U.S. peers in both internal conjunctions, which connect large chunks of information, and external conjunctions, which connect small chunks of information. Both in the Chinese and U.S. sample, students had a higher likelihood to produce external conjunctions than internal conjunctions. In terms of logical relationships of conjunctions, Chinese students had a higher probability of producing conjunctions of comparison, consequence, and time logical relationships than U.S. students. Within the Chinese sample, consequence logical relationships were more frequently seen than other types of logical relationships, while within the U.S. sample, consequence and addition logical relationships occurred quite often. More importantly, across lessons and cultural samples, a strong negative relationship was found between teachers’ using internal conjunctions and students’ using internal conjunctions. The significance of these differences lies in their potential impact not only for constructing but also communicating mathematical ideas to others.

Graduation Semester

2016-12

Type of Resource

text

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http://hdl.handle.net/2142/95360

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2016 Shuai Wang

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