The quali̇tati̇ve research on identifying the ideas of 8th grade students about mathematical modelling

The aim of this research is to identify the ideas of 8th grade students about mathematical modelling. This research was conducted with 20 students attending at Hürriyet Secondary School in Tunceli in 2014-2015 academic year. Mathematical modelling activities were practised for students in an attempt to explore their ideas about it. Mathematical modelling activities consist of three warm-up and tree modelling problems. The modelling activity was cited from the studies of Karalı (2013) and Doruk (2010), which were arranged taking account of the modelling activities that Lesh and Doerr (2013) used in their studies. In this work the qualitative state study was used following the mathematical modelling activities that were practised for students, the descriptive analysis was made by being practised a consructed consultation form. As a result of the analyses carried out, the students indicated that the mathematical modelling activities were different from those problems solved in classroom ; they were related to daily life and had such qualities as having more options, being more active and far from memorization, more subjective and suitable to learning by doing method. They also stated that, thanks to group work, different ideas emerged, they could exchange ideas with one another , they worked in co-operation and reached the result more quickly. They pointed out that mathematical modelling would be useful in terms of higher-level thinking, creative thinking, permanence and enabling social-communication. As for the difficulties during this process, having more options, different ideas and operational difficulties seemed the basic ones.