The investigation of mathematical thinking and knowledge construction processes of primary 6, 7 and 8th grade students who have different mathematical power

The aim of this research was to investigate mathematical thinking andknowledge construction processes of primary 6, 7 and 8th grade students who havedifferent mathematical power. Students who had low and high mathematical powerwere compared by means of their knowledge construction and mathematicalthinking. According to results what makes a student mathematically powerful wasdiscussed. Also discussed were some important mathematical skills which effectknowledge construction and mathematical thinking process.Quantitative and qualitative research methods were used together. 798students? data which were collected from 40 schools were searched forquantitatively. Mathematical power scale was used for data collection tool. Students?mathematical thinking and knowledge construction process was investigatedqualitatively. It was not aimed to generalize students? thinking processes, instead, toinvestigate the components of these processes deeply. Because of this reason casestudy was selected as a research strategy. Open ended problems were used as aqualitative data gathering tool.Findings showed that mathematical power of primary 6, 7 and 8th gradestudents? were low. The reasons were; students? reasoning based on their personalviews, students? communications not based on justifications and explanations, andstudents? lack of connecting knowledge structures while problem solving.It was found that there were some differences between students?mathematical thinking and knowledge construction process as means to theirmathematical power. According to case study it was observed that students who hadproblems while constructing knowledge. Students who had high mathematical powerwere good at recognizing, building with and constructing knowledge as well asreasoning, connecting and communicating.Key words: Mathematical power, knowledge construction, mathematical thinking,abstraction