The effect of teaching functions with realistic mathematics education activities on secondary school students' conceptual and operational knowledge levels

In this study, the effect of teaching function with realistic mathematics education activities on the conceptual and procedural knowledge levels of secondary school students was examined. Exploratory sequential design, which is one of the mixed methods, was used in the study; the quantitative part was conducted with a quasi-experimental design and the qualitative part was conducted with a case study design. The study group consisted of 10th grade students in the experimental (31 students) and control (29 students) groups. Realistic mathematics education supported instruction was applied to the experimental group, while direct instruction and question-answer method was applied to the control group. Function pre-learning knowledge level test was used to measure students' prior knowledge about function, and function conceptual and procedural knowledge level tests were used after the application. Quantitative data were analyzed with SPSS program, independent groups t-test and Pearson correlation analysis were applied. Qualitative data were collected through semi-structured interviews and evaluated with descriptive analysis method. As a result of the quantitative analysis, a significant difference was found in favor of the experimental group in terms of conceptual knowledge level and the majority of the experimental group students reached the sufficient level. There was no significant difference between the groups in terms of procedural knowledge level and the majority of both groups did not reach the sufficient level. Correlation analysis showed that there was a positive, significant and high level relationship between conceptual and procedural knowledge levels. Student interviews showed that realistic mathematics education contributed positively to the development of both conceptual and procedural knowledge. Finally, the integrated results of the mixed-method research revealed that positive qualitative feedback was consistent with quantitative development in conceptual knowledge, but not in procedural knowledge.