Third grade elementary school students’ conception of number line

Abstract

This article describes the conception of integers on a number line that a third grade elementary school student in Bengkulu City had. Although this student had not received a formal learning, he already had a conception of a number line. It was suspected that he learned informally from digital media and his surroundings. This was a qualitative research with a case study approach. The subject of this research was a student, who was detected, having an ability to draw a number line on his notebook. The student was given conceptual questions about integers on a number line. The questions were about1) the representation of a number line; 2) the existence of integers on a number line; 3) the distance between integers on a number line; 4) the meaning of a number line for the student; and 5) use of floor as number line. The results obtained were as follows: 1) the student was able to draw correctly a number line for integers; 2) the student knew that the infinity of many integers on a number line described by using words "many" and "uncountable"; 3) the student knew that the distance between numbers on a number line was the same; 4) the student was able to use a number line to compare two numbers by stating that the number to the right was a number that was more than the number to the left; and 5) the student was able to represent lines on the floor as a number line.