Teaching the equality symbol in the context of relational thinking to 7th grade secondary school students

This thesis aims to determine the meanings in which students use the equality symbol in the context of relational thinking and their thoughts about the equality symbol in the algebraic thinking processes at the 7th grade level of middle school, and also to determine the ways and methods that will facilitate the teaching of the equality symbol. The research, designed with the teaching experiment, which is one of the qualitative research methods, was carried out with a group of 24 students studying in the 7th grade of middle school for a period of 4 weeks. The pre-test and post-test questions applied during the teaching experiment process in the research, the worksheets used by the students during the teaching process, the advisor observer notes and the researcher diaries were used as data sources. The collected data were analyzed retrospectively and the teaching process was analyzed continuously (instantly). Within the scope of this study, it is evaluated that in the teaching of the equality symbol in the context of relational thinking, students were able to use the equality sign in a relational sense instead of a symbol that gives a result, and the teaching played a positive role in the development of relational thinking in students. In addition, it was determined that the detected errors were eliminated and the students showed development in algebraic thinking.