Chinese Eighth Graders’ Competencies in Mathematical Representation

Abstract

Mathematical representation as a core competency in mathematics has been the focus of research in mathematics education, and it is used by many international educational organizations and educators as an indicator of students’ mathematical ability. The intent of this study was to use literature analysis as the basis for an evaluation framework for the mathematical representation competencies of students at certain stages of compulsory education. A set of test questions was developed to test the mathematical representation competencies of 1197 eighth-grade students in eight regions of China, and the results showed the following: (1) the overall mathematical representational competencies of Chinese students were at the transition stage from the second level (connection) to the third level (reflection); (2) intra-system representations were better than inter-system representations, and these two were highly correlated; (3) the average level of mathematical representational competencies was lower for boys than for girls and varied considerably; and (4) there was greater variability in the performance of different regions on some items than on others.