Abstract
Based on an experiment carried out with 10- to 11-year-old pupils, this paper questions the place of imagination in a class activity using the history of mathematics. The study focuses on three groups of pupils who were offered three variants of the same activity based on base-60 counting (our time measurement system inherited from the Babylonians). To identify differences and similarities between the three scenarios, a quantitative analysis, using a Principal Component Analysis (PCA), was carried out on the basis of the pupils’ productions and a questionnaire. The approach remains exploratory, but it seems to indicate that imagination plays a relevant role in sessions using history of mathematics.
Highlights
In recent decades, the use of history in mathematics education has become a fruitful specific research field
It should be noted that the orthogonality of dimensions 1 and 2 could mean that the pupils’ experiences of the stories did not influence the activity
The graph of individuals in the Principal Component Analysis (PCA) shows the very weak separation of the two scenarios. This indistinction means that, for this experimentation, the authenticity of the historical content has no impact on the students’ experiences. How does this result inform us on the pedagogical function of history of mathematics? How does history of mathematics contribute to the way pupils enter the activity? The data are still too fragmentary to draw definite conclusions, but the lack of separation of scenarios 1 and 2, which both share a narrative part, suggests that one of the driving forces behind the functioning of some HPM approaches lies in their assumed anchorage in an imaginary universe
Summary
The use of history in mathematics education has become a fruitful specific research field. Unlike in most education fields (Hansson et al, 2020; Nawani et al, 2018; Staus et al, 2020), quantitative approaches are underutilized in research on the use of the history in mathematics education Such methods could be highly relevant (Gras, 1992) for assessing the effectiveness of using history in mathematics education, studying some aspects of this approach, and providing meaningful and generative answers (Schoenfeld, 2020). Guillemette (Fried et al, 2016) recently suggested that use of history in mathematics education allows for the reconstruction and reinterpretation of the past, enabling new possibilities and mathematical creation This point of view is similar to that in studies of history education (Hawkey, 2004) and science education (Hadzigeogiou et al, 2012), in which narratives have been identified as engines for learning. This paper tends to modestly contribute to this part of the research field
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