The investigation of Middle School Students’ Misconceptions about Algebra

Abstract

This qualitative study focused on the errors and misconceptions of the seventh grade students in their solutions for algebraic equations. For this aim, a question sheet including 17 algebraic expressions were implemented to 10 seventh grade middle school students in a middle school of Ankara. Semi-structured interviews were also conducted with two participants. After administering the question sheets, the answers of the students were categorized by coding the misconceptions of the students. Then the written and recorded answers were organized, coded, categorized and discussed. The results showed that, mostly observed misconceptions among the participants’ solutions for the algebraic expressions were (a) inability of making operations between the variables based on the lack of knowledge about arithmetical operations, (b) believing that the variables are used only for the natural numbers, and (c) ignoring the letters included in the algebraic expressions.