Faculty of Education

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Browsing Faculty of Education by Author "Amevor, Godfred"

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    Analysis of matlab instruction on rural-based pre-service teachers' spatial-visualisation skills and problem solving in vector calculus.
    (University of Zululand, 2019) Amevor, Godfred; Bayaga, A.; Bossé, M.
    Studies from interdisciplinary have noted positive correlation between spatial-visualization skills and mathematical problem solving. However, majority of these studies that interrogated this shared link between spatial-visualization and problem solving were carried in the urban settings only few interrogated rural settings. Also, studies have identified family social economic status (SES) which mainly described one’s geographical settlement to be one of the major effects on cognitive development. Thus, research finding from cognitive discipline revealed that students from poor SES background are less advantagous to cognitive activities (e.g., problem solving) compare to their counterpart. However, one of research achievements is providing evidence-based that cognitive skills can be enhanced through computer technology and spatial activities hence, the integration of several graphical tools such as: MATLAB, GeoGebra, and many other computer environments in mathematics education. These graphical tools are believed to enhance students’ conceptual and procedural knowledge in problem solving in mathematics areas such as: Euclidean geometry, multivariate calculus, and trigonometry which require more spatial skills in their problem solving. However, little has been researched on vector calculus even though vector calculus by its definition is accompanied by spatial reasoning. Students find it easy to evaluate a given vector integral using analytical techniques for integrations but struggle to visualize and transform it from one coordinate system to another. Objectives Based on the background, the current research employed the theoretical frameworks of Duval semiotic representation and the visual-analyser (VA) proposed by Zazkis et al., to analyse MATLAB instruction on rural-based pre-service teachers' spatial-visualisation skills and problem solving in vector calculus. The examination was guided by the analysis of the dynamic software MATLAB instruction on Spatial-Visualization, problem solving, and achievement in Vector Calculus. The three objectives were to 1) Analyse how rural-based v pre-service teachers apply their spatial-visualisation skills in problem solving in vector calculus. 2) To investigate the degree to which rural-based pre-service teachers’ spatial-visualisation skills correlate with their vector calculus achievement and 3) To assess how a dynamic software environment such as MATLAB influences rural-based pre-service teachers’ spatial-visualisation skills.
University of Zululand