Investigation of supporting mathematical literacy through systematic variation problems via teaching experiment

In this research, it was aimed to examine and support the ways of thinking in the process of problem solving and the "mathematical literacy" skills through the support of "problem solving" and "reasoning and argument" competencies of eighth grade students in a learning environment involving variation problems. For this purpose, teaching experiments were carried out from qualitative research methods. An open-ended data collection tool was implemented to 237 student to identify the participants' knowledge and competencies prior to the study. As a result of qualitative descriptive analysis of data collected through open-ended data collection, teaching experiments were conducted with seven students who were thought to be at different levels in terms of reasoning and argument competence. The results of the research show that students have difficulty in reflecting the high level of reasoning skills and do not trust their own reasoning. Nevertheless, it has been seen that students' ways of thinking in problem solving showed the development and change towards the more demanding ones, and math literacy performances improved. As a result of the research, even the weakest student was able to respond to mathematical literacy materials at the second level. Factors such as intellectual needs, mathematical knowledge, math beliefs and attitudes were found to influence students' ways of thinking and mathematical literacy performances.