BUILDING A VERSATILE UNDERSTANDING OF

ALGEBRAIC VARIABLES WITH

A GRAPHIC CALCULATOR
ALAN T. GRAHAM and MICHAEL O.J. THOMAS

INTRODUCTION:
Algebra has been recognised for some time as a difcult topic for
many secondary school students.

Understanding of the concept of variable is fundamental to further
student progress in algebra.

In most areas of mathematics, conceptual entities present
themselves with two distinct but complementary faces. They may be
viewed as dynamic processes or as static objects, or in the words of
Sfard (1991), as an operational and structural duality.

The experience of teachers, and a wide range of empirical research,
inform us that children nd great difculty in understanding the
algebra of generalised arithmetic (e.g. Kchemann, 1981; Wagner,
Rachlin and Jensen, 1984).
Researchers suggested that the use of literal symbols to
generalise arithmetic relationships is too sophisticated to be
useful as an introduction to the idea of variable.

Clearly, students nd difculty with this more sophisticated
view of the role of symbols.

In other words, children need to see letters as capable of
representing numbers before they can begin to use letters to
generalise patterns of numbers.

Objectives:
using a module of work based on a graphic calculator which
provided an environment where students could experience
some aspects of variables and hence begin to build an
understanding of them.
combine these advantages with the principles and techniques
learned from research using the computer and apply them to
the graphic calculator.
describes their effective utilisation in the classroom to
improve student understanding of variable.
address the issue of student understanding of variable and
describe an experiment to investigate the inuence of
allowing students to experience variation and its
symbolisation using graphic calculators.

Literature reviews
There are a number of conceptual obstacles to progress in algebra
(see e.g. Tall and Thomas, 1991; Linchevski and Herscovics, 1996;
Stacey and MacGregor, 1997) and one of the most important of
these is the failure to understand the concept of variable.

Since the concept of variable is more sophisticated than we often
recognise and frequently turns out to be the concept that blocks
students success in algebra (Leitzel, 1989, p. 29), it is important
that students gain some understanding of it before other algebraic
concepts are introduced if they are to progress beyond basic
processes.
In essence, then, one reason that algebra is hard is the wide variety
of ways in which letters or literal symbols have been used in
algebra and the sophisticated and multifaceted nature of the
concept of variable (Schoenfeld and Arcavi, 1988; Wagner et al.,
1984).
The graphic calculator is now an available, portable and affordable
alternative option to the computer for many schools. The value of the
graphing capability of graphic calculators is well established and
research has shown that it can help build relationships with other
representations, such as symbolic forms, which can have a signicant
inuence on attainment (Ruthven, 1990; Penglase and Arnold, 1996).

Method
Tapping into Algebra was a classroom-based research project, using
an experimental design to compare the teaching of variable in
algebra with and without the use of the graphic calculator.

1. The algebra module
The basic premise of the overall module, which was designed to last
about three weeks, was to use the graphic calculators lettered
stores as a model of a variable. Each store is represented as a box in
which changing values of the variable come and go, and above
which sits its label. This model had been used successfully in the
research using the computer (Tall and Thomas, 1991), and was
fundamental to this study.
almost no students would have had previous experience of using
graphic calculators.


The rst section of the module comprised an introduction to
using them. For example, students were shown how to perform
simple calculations using the four operations, to edit key
sequences and to store and retrieve numbers using the letter
keys.

This sort of activity can help students begin to formulate theories
about the consistency with which any given language handles the
symbols, and to build an understanding of their purpose.
One of the novel teaching aspects of the module was the use of
screensnaps, where students were given a screen view and required to
reproduce it on their calculator screen.

These screensnaps have the advantage of encouraging beginning algebra
students to engage in reective thinking using variables.

Other topics covered included squares and square roots, sequences,
formulas, random numbers and function tables of values.
In a pilot study in ve United Kingdom schools using the TI-80
graphic calculator a relative improvement of the experimental
students was clearly seen, and on the basis of those results
concluded that the students who used the graphic calculators
could gain a better understanding of the use of letters as variables,
without a detrimental effect on their basic ability to manipulate
the symbols as encapsulated objects.
Teachers from six New Zealand schools volunteered to
take part in this controlled research project, agreeing to
use the algebra module provided with one of their
classes.
Five of the schools used the TI-82 graphic calculator and
the other (school C) used the Casio FX7700GH, giving an
opportunity to explore the variable of calculator type.
The control groups received corresponding algebra work to that
of the experimental group, but were taught using their normal
algebra teaching programme comprising primarily whole class,
skills-based instruction and assessment, with their usual teacher
and his/her presentation style. Hence the experimental and
control groups had different teachers.
Of the 147 experimental and 42 control students involved in the research project,
118 were from year 9 (age 13 years) and 71 from year 10 (age 14 years), and they
covered all ability groups.

The module was taught during terms one and two of 1996 by the classroom
teachers, and the researchers were not present in any of the classrooms while
the students were learning.

It was considered important not to prescribe the learning micro world that the
students worked in, but the teachers were encouraged to use their normal
teaching approach.
Each student was provided with a graphic calculator.

The classroom groups were given a pre-test and a post-test, based on
Kchemanns (1981) study, and comprising 68 questions.

Students were not given their papers or any answers to the
questions until after the post-test so that they were unable to obtain
coaching or to memorise answers etc.
Result and Discussion:
As Table I shows, the results in the two schools with control groups suggest a
signicantly better performance on the post-test for the students who had
used the graphic calculators, compared with no such difference at the pre-test
stage, conrming the pilot study results.


The use of the graphic calculators had signicantly improved understanding of
the way symbolic literals are used in elementary algebra. In every case,
understanding of the use of letters showed a strong improvement.
THE VIEW OF THE STUDENTS AND TEACHERS
Both the teachers and their students were asked to comment freely
on their experiences with the graphic calculator teaching module.
A formal qualitative analysis of the comments was not intended in
this experimental study.
Students Comments Teachers comments
The majority of students felt that
the experience of using the
graphics calculator was of benet in
improving understanding and
making the learning algebra more
interesting.
Generally, they also found the
worksheets clear and easy enough
to follow
The majority of the participating
pupils certainly enjoyed the
experience, particularly their
experience of the calculators

Overall the teachers comments
were very positive and they felt
that their pupils algebra did benet
as a result of working on the
calculator.
All the teachers felt that the pupils
enjoyed the work on the project,
especially the screensnaps.
Conclusion:
In elementary algebra the use of letters has often been poorly
understood. Yet an understanding of variable in mathematics seems to
underpin all advanced work and so it is important that students gain
condence at handling variables.
The evidence presented from this study shows that students can obtain
an improved understanding of the use of letters as specic unknown or
generalised number from a module of work based on the graphic
calculator.
Questions such as those requiring students to say when L+M+N=L+P+N
or A+B=B, are very difcult for the student who sees the letters as
concrete objects, since they will probably think that two different
objects can never be the same, or that adding an object necessarily
increases something.
However those who are thinking in a versatile way see the symbols as
procepts, encapsulated objects representing a range of values. Hence it
is possible for the values the letter represents to be sometimes the
same.
The graphic calculator helps to build such a versatile view of letters
because the physical experience of the students is that of tapping keys
to place different numbers into the calculator stores, changing the
values in those stores and retrieving values from them.