Impact of context and representation on year 10 students\u27 expression of conceptions of rate

Abstract

Rate is an important, but difficult mathematical concept. More than twenty years of research, especially with calculus students, report difficulties with this concept. This paper reports on an alternative analysis, from the perspective of multiple representations and context, of interviews probing twenty Victorian Year 10 students’ conceptions of rate. This analysis shows that multiple representations of functions provide different rate-relatedinformation for different students. Understandings of rate in one representation or context are not necessarily transferred to another representation or context