Young Children's Conceptual Understanding of Triangle
Ümmühan Yeşil Dağlı 1 * , Erdoğan Halat 2
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1 Yildiz Technical University, TURKEY2 Afyon Kocatepe University, TURKEY* Corresponding Author

Abstract

This study explored 5-6 year-old children's conceptual understanding of one geometric shape, the triangle. It focused on whether children could draw a triangle from memory, and identify triangles of different types, sizes, and orientations. The data were collected from 82 children attending state preschool programs through a one-on-one interview, during which children completed five paper-pencil tasks. Findings showed that the majority of the children (93%-96%) successfully identified a prototyped triangle. Approximately half of the children experienced difficulties in identifying triangles of different sizes, types, and orientations. The most difficult area was identifying types of triangles, where an isosceles triangle and a right triangle were presented, followed by identifying triangles in different orientations, specifically flipped and rotated ones. Children appeared to identify and classify the triangle relying on the visual prototype. These findings provide support for the Prototyped Theory, van Hiele theory, and for works by Clement and colleagues.

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This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Article Type: Research Article

EURASIA J Math Sci Tech Ed, 2016, Volume 12, Issue 2, 189-202

https://doi.org/10.12973/eurasia.2016.1398a

Publication date: 17 Jun 2016

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