Middle School Students' Perceptions of The Meaning of The Equal Sign: A Developmental Study

This study was carried out to examine the perceptions of grade 5-8 students toward the equal sign. The study was designed in the developmental research model, and the cross-sectional type was used. Eight volunteer students studying at an official public school in a province in eastern Turkey participated in the study. Two students are in the 5th, two are in the 6th, two are in the 7th, and two are in the 8th grade. The study's data were collected by clinical interview with the help of 10 open-ended questions, including arithmetic, pre-algebraic, proportional thinking, algebra, identity, and algebra problem. Descriptive analysis was performed on the collected data. For this, a framework for data analysis was created by examining previous studies on the equal sign, and the data were analyzed in line with this framework. The results obtained in the study indicated that students' perceptions of the equal sign were gathered in relational, balance/same, and arithmetic-specific meanings. The study results showed that although the students had relational and arithmetic-specific thinking in arithmetic, pre-algebraic, proportional relation, and algebra questions, they mainly focused on the meaning of balance/same. In the question of identity, it was determined that the students were distributed evenly to the relational and balance/same meaning specific to arithmetic. When the student's answers to the algebra problem were examined, it was seen that they never used the meaning of relational thinking but used the meanings of balance/same and arithmetic. The most original and essential result reached in the study is that although it was determined in previous studies that students saw the equal sign as write a result, in this study, which has the characteristics of a follow-up research, the students did not think of the equal sign as writing a result. Recent studies indicate that early algebraic thinking activities in primary and secondary schools may be the reason for this situation. In this context, it can be suggested that researchers conduct research on early algebraic thinking and that practitioners have early algebraic thinking activities in their classrooms.