High school students' number senses regarding exponential expressions and square root expressions

The study aims to determine high school students' number sense regarding square root and exponential expressions, examine the relationship between them, and investigate how their number sense changes based on variables such as pre-school education, mother's education status, father's education status, gender and grade level. The sample of the study consisted of 143 students (58 male, 84 female) studying in three different high schools in one district of Manisa. A 12-question multiple-choice number sense test for exponential expressions and a 12-question multiple-choice number sense test for square root expressions were used as data collection instruments in the study. After piloting the number sense tests, the final version of the scales was administered to the students and their number sense status was determined. In the study, correlation analysis was used to examine the relationship between the students' scores on the number sense test for exponential expressions and the number sense test for square root expressions, and one-way analysis of variance and dependent groups t-test were used to determine whether the scores were significantly different according to the variables. According to the data obtained in the study, students' number sense scores for exponential expressions were significantly higher than their number sense scores for square root expressions. It was observed that students' number sense scores for exponential expressions and square root expressions were positively and moderately correlated. It was observed that students' number sense scores for exponential and square root expressions changed significantly according to their grade level. It was found that there was no significant difference between students' number sense in square root expressions and exponential expressions according to gender. It was found that students' number sense of exponential expressions and square root expressions did not show a significant difference according to the status of preschool education. The number sense of exponential expressions of students whose mother's educational status was high school and university was significantly higher than that of students whose mother's educational status was primary school. In square root expressions, the number sense of students whose mother's educational status was university was significantly higher than the number sense of students whose mother's educational status was primary school. Similarly, students whose fathers had a university education had a significantly higher number sense in both exponential and square root expressions.