A Study on Students’ Ways of Thinking on Length Measurement and the Comparison of Different Lengths

In this study, students’ reasoning about measuring and comparing length was investigated. Sample of the study is consists evenly distributed 204 students from 4,5 and 6th grade. A test, including open-ended question about length was used as data collection instrument. In some questions, students asked to find the length of shapes, in others they asked to compare the length of given two shapes. Data was analyzed qualitatively. The results revealed that the majority of students use units when they measure length while they decide with appearance when comparing length. According to the findings obtained from the study, the frequencies of the participants seem to be low in the category of answers based on measurement. This indicates that the participants rather make visual-holistic assessment and do not make much use of mathematical iterations and individual comparison or recombination of the parts of the shapes. The number of responses that coded as incomprehensible or not justified was far high. Further, It has also been seen that as the class level increases, the number of answers that use mathematical basis in their explanations increases