An investigation on secondary school students' understanding of measuring and comparison of length

In this study, secondary school students' difficulties and understanding about measuring and comparison of length was investigated. Sample of the study consists of evenly distributed 352 students from 5, 6, 7 and 8th grade. A test, including open-ended question about measuring and comparison of length was used as data collection instruments. The data were analyzed descriptively. The problems in the test were divided into two categories as measuring and comparing of length. It has been seen that, students' reasoning about length was generally "measurement based" once measuring length; on the other hand their reasoning was both nonmeasurement and measurement based when comparing length. Further, as grade level increases, participants' nonmeasurement reasoning shade into measurement reasoning. Moreover, it is seen that the students feel the need to verify their appearance based responses by measuring. It is observed that, students could not make correct unit iteration, which is a fundamental skill for measuring length. The suggestions were made in accordance with findings. Keywords: Measure of length, comparison of length, learning trajectory