An investigation of elemantary students' mathematical connection and metacognitive skills in the mathematical modeling process

One of the main objectives of mathematics education today is to give students the skills they need to relate mathematics to everyday life, come up with a variety of solutions to problems they encounter in real life, think critically and creatively, and express themselves using mathematical language through effective communication. Students must first build strong connection skills and use and develop their metacognitive skills in order to successfully learn and apply mathematics because mathematics has its own distinct vocabulary. In order to determine if the mathematical modeling process aids in the development of mathematical connection skills and metacognitive skills, it is important to look at how these skills are developed in students through mathematical modeling activities. The purpose of this study is to investigate how applying mathematical modeling impacts elementary school students' mathematical connection skills and metacognitive skills. The method of the research is case study, and the research's study group is made up of sixth-graders enrolled in a public school in Kayseri. The data used in the study was gathered through modeling activities, written answers given by students to modeling activities, audio recordings, a semi-structured interview form, and observation notes. Ten weeks of implementation include ten different mathematical modeling activities that had been published in the literature to the pupils. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with the students before and after each activity, and observation notes were taken by the researcher during the application. Content analysis was used in the analysis of the data, and the framework developed by Bingölbali and Coşkun (2016) was taken into account in the examination of mathematical connection skills, and the framework presented in the study of Çetinkaya (2020) in the examination of metacognitive skills. While metacognitive skills were examined in the dimensions of estimation, planning, monitoring and evaluation, mathematical connection skills were examined in the dimensions of connecting between concepts, connecting between different representations of the concept, connecting with real life and connecting with different disciplines. The analysis of the data revealed that each activity in the mathematical modeling process involved the use of metacognitive skills, which were developed in connection with one another. It has been observed that modeling activities improve connecting skills by giving students the chance to use connecting with different disciplines and between different representations of the concept, even though it is seen that the skills of connecting between concepts and associating with real life are mostly used among the mathematical connection skills. In the process, it was concluded that metacognitive skills and mathematical connection skills developed interactively with each other. The ability to connect between different representations of the concept and the planning skill; It has been seen that the development of the ability to relate to real life and the skills of estimation, monitoring and evaluation are interactive. According to the results of this study, which involved elementary school students, it was found that using mathematical modeling increased students' mathematical connection and metacognitive skills. Keywords: Mathematical connection skills, metacognitive skills, mathematical modeling