Investigation of primary school first and second graders estimation skills: Measuring length

Estimation is one of the skills, which has an important place in mathematics education, is attempted to be acquired beginning in the first grade of elementary school, and included in curricula. This study aimed at examining the first and second grade elementary school children‟s estimation skills regarding length, one of the basic magnitudes. This study, is a situation determination study employing quantitative methodology for the purpose of investigation of primary school first and second graders estimation skills. The population of the study consists of the first and second grade students (36) volunteered to studying in two different village schools located in Giresun in Black Sea Region in the academic year 2015-2016. Student interview form was developed to determine students‟ estimation skills about length as a data collection tool. The form consisted of 12 items about non-standard units for the first graders and 16 items related to non-standard and standard items for the second graders. The items developed in this form were appropriate for the two different item types intended for the real situations and two-dimensional visuals. Since there is no grade evaluation in primary school, a teacher's opinion form has been prepared to get information about the students. The data were collected via interwiev technique. The data obtained were analysed and evaluated via content analysis. It was found that the first and second grade students‟ estimation skills were quite low and differed regarding their grades. It was revealed that using sub-section strategy which uses unit repetition strategy most frequently was not used in both grades. It was observed that the students used the most random estimates in their estimates and the error was too much in 100% value.