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Mousley, Judy 2005, What does mathematics understanding look like?, in Building
connections : research, theory and practice : proceedings of the annual conference held at
RMIT, Melbourne, 7th-9th July 2005, Merga, Pymble, N.S.W., pp. 553-560.
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Copyright : 2005, Mathematics Education Research Group of Australasia
What Does Mathematics Understanding Look Like?
Judith Mousley
Deakin University
<judith mousley@deakin edu au>
The concept of mathematical understanding is central to curriculum development,
classroom interaction, and the training of mathematics teachers In this paper, some models
of the growth of understanding that the literature presents are outlined Some results of a
study that documented four primary teachers’ mental models of, and beliefs about, different
forms of understanding are reported It is proposed that linear models may restrict ways that
these teachers plan lessons Questions for further research are raised
If you were asked to provide a metaphor for the development of understanding, how
would you describe it? How does your model fit with your practices of curriculum
planning or teaching and assessment of your own students? I wonder how many readers of
this paper have considered such questions or discuss them with student teachers
There is widespread rhetoric about the development of “mathematical understanding”,
and many teachers, teacher educators, and curriculum documents stress that it is vital to
develop it However, despite the fact that the meanings that people hold for the term
mathematical understanding help shape teaching and teacher education, the varied
meanings are rarely articulated This paper is an attempt to stimulate mathematics
educators at all levels to address this anomaly
Given the complexity of understanding itself, any model or metaphor is bound to be
inadequate (Pirie, 1988) However, it is useful to reflect on what people might mean when
they use the term “mathematical understanding” as they expound its importance as an
objective of school education One way to do this is to examine the models portrayed in
mathematics education literature and to see if such models are also held by teachers In this
paper, four teachers’ mental models of mathematical understanding are described and
tentative suggestions about how these may constrain planning and teaching are made
Models of Mathematical Understanding
The following summary of metaphors for mathematics understanding used by
researchers is organised into three general categories: understanding as structured progress,
understanding as forms of knowing, and understanding as process These are not the only
way to group models of understanding but were “emergent categories” (after Lincoln &
Guba, 1985) during a literature search in preparation for case studies of what teachers
believe about mathematical understanding and what they do to develop it
This paper focuses mainly on models that were initiated in the 1960s—a period when
how to develop students’ understanding was a key focus of mathematics education
research—with a resurgence of activity late in the 1980s In each category below,
representative models are presented (See Mousley, 2003, for a fuller exposition )
Understanding as Structured Progress
My first group of models depicts the development of understanding as structural
progression Use of “construction” models to describe the development of understanding
followed a trend in sociology, but in mathematics education the notion was grounded
mainly in psychology Terms such as “constructivism” clearly suggest a building process,
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but right from early development of such a notion, the idea of building from foundational
understandings to higher levels of knowledge has not been as predictable as the metaphor
suggests The process of fitting new knowledge with old has been portrayed as an active
and interactive one For instance, Piaget described the development of understanding as a
growing awareness of relationships, as inner experimentation, and as the internalisation of
possible courses of action with specific purposes in mind—all activities involving sensory-
motor activity aimed at the construction of objects (Piaget, 1950) Developing
understanding involved increasing ability to hold several relationships in mind, permitting
further abstraction and anticipation (Inhelder & Piaget, 1964)
Later, von Glasersfeld (1987) built on this work, portraying understanding as an
organisational process and emphasising that cognitive activity is aimed at bringing about
consistency:
The experiencing organism now turns into a builder of cognitive structures, intending to solve such
problems as the organism perceives or conceives … among which is the never ending problem of
consistent organizations (of such structures) that we call understanding (p 7)
Sinclair (1987) also drew on Piaget’s structural metaphor, noting that understanding of a
mathematical concept is laboriously constructed over time He described how particular
understandings serve as springboards for further learning, enabling progressive
understanding to be built However, he noted that some understanding becomes
backgrounded because there is a moment when a realisation becomes obvious, and the
mind is released for other things The learner finds it hard to believe that there had been a
time when a new idea was not present in the mind, so it can be difficult to go back to first
principles Hence both children and inexpert teachers may find it difficult to explain the
logical construction sequence that they themselves have used
This period also saw the emergence of Soviet psychology’s model of developmental
“zones” in western mathematics education theorising The contention is that teachers need
to create learning situations that demand thinking, skills, and knowledge development that
are just ahead their students’ current zones of understanding Coming to grips with a
concept sets up potential for movement into a further zone of development (e g Vygotsky,
1978)
Understanding as Forms of Knowing
Other researchers contrasted different forms of understanding An early example of this
is Maslow (1966), who identified two different types of understanding The first was
“scientific”, where rational thought is reduced to lawful explanation The second was
“suchness” understanding, which depends on contextual and qualitative experience,
developing knowledge that can be referred beyond direct experience
Skemp (1976) acknowledged the work of Maslow and discussed his concept with
Mellin-Olsen Skemp characterised two forms of understanding as different forms of
knowing, claiming that these lead to two distinct kinds of mathematics He originally
termed the two types of understanding “relational” and “instrumental” The former referred
to the “building up a conceptual structure … from which its possessor can … produce an
unlimited number of plans for getting from any starting point within his schema to any
finishing point” (p 23) The latter involved learning by rote, but Skemp noted that, “for
many pupils and their teachers the possession of … a rule, and ability to use it, was what
they meant by ‘understanding’” (p 20) He later identified two further forms of
understanding: “logical” and “symbolic” (see Skemp, 1982)
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Herscovics and Bergeron (1983) participated in debates of this time, later
distinguishing four levels of understanding “Intuition” involves global perceptual
awareness “Procedural” understanding involves a realisation of possibilities for
transformation “Logico-physical” abstraction involves coming aware of physical
invariants, of structure “Formalisation” involves generalisation to the use of mathematical
procedures, realisation of possibilities for transfer to new contexts, and abstraction to the
notational system However, they warned against thinking of these as sequential, noting
that the child evolves simultaneously at different levels Gray and Tall (1994) suggested
that such types of understanding are not easily placed on a linear framework because they
interact They claimed that combinations of categories are needed to describe certain forms
of cognitive development, particular understandings, behaviours, or outcomes of children’s
work Tall (1992) later suggested that a lattice should be used, with “concrete”, “iconic”,
and “symbolic” forms of understanding laced against “relational”, “instrumental” and
“logical” forms
Sierpinska (1994) further modelled the process of mathematical understanding as a
lattice, claiming that acts of understanding (e g explanations, validations) are interwoven
with knowledge of particular situations (e g concepts, theories and problems) She
distinguished between “acts of understanding” and “an understanding”, with the latter
being the potential to experience an act of understanding when necessary in specific
contexts She distilled four categorisations of acts of understanding: “identification”,
“discrimination”, “generalisation”, and “synthesis”
Some researchers have categorised different forms of knowing hierarchically For
example, van Heile and van Hiele-Geldof (1958) observed three forms of insight—pupils’
understanding of what they are doing, of why they are doing it, and of when to do it They
constructed a teaching sequence that can be used to move the students from very direct
instruction to independent understanding, through “inquiry”, “directed orientation”,
“explicating”, and “explanation”, to “free orientation” and finally “integration” Such work
laid conceptual foundations for later hierarchical models such as the SOLO taxonomy (see,
for example, Biggs & Collis, 1982)
Understanding as Process
Wittgenstein (1967) presented understanding as socio-linguistic activity He saw
crucial connections between understanding and enculturation, claiming that people develop
mathematical meaning through diverse “language games”, where understanding depends
on knowledge of conventional agreements He equated understanding with operating,
acknowledging that a multiplicity of understandings relate to different types of operations
Pirie and Kieren (1989) also presented a grounded model They questioned the idea of
categorising understanding because they believe that there is no such thing as
understanding in the abstract For these researchers, mathematical understanding is
described as “a process, grounded within a person, within a topic, within a particular
environment” (p 39) They argued that understanding is a “whole, dynamic, levelled but
non-linear, transcendentally recursive process” (Kieren & Pirie, 1991, p 78), “a continuing
process of organising one’s knowledge structures” (Pirie & Kieren, 1994, p 166) In this
body of writing, Pirie and Kieren modelled mathematical understanding as a recursive
phenomenon with thinking moving between levels of sophistication, each contained within
succeeding levels Even when new concepts no longer draw on previous understandings,
Pirie and Kieren identified a process of “folding back” to recapture what they call “inner-
level knowing” (Kieren, 1990, p 197)
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Methodology
In this paper I report on just a small part of case study research on teachers’ views of
“mathematical understanding”, ways they think they develop it, and what they do in
mathematics lessons to this end My focus here is on the results when four teachers who
were asked to describe their own models of understanding
About 4 weeks were being spent in each of 4 classrooms in a rural school “David” and
“Jan” were the teachers of the two Year 6 classes “Tracey” and “Robyn” taught the Year 2
classes All of these teachers were experienced practitioners, well respected by their
colleagues as well as their students Each teacher was interviewed several times, and their
mathematics lessons were videotaped The resulting audiotaped and videotaped data were
analysed in order to find examples of what the teachers believed and did in relation to the
development of their pupils’ mathematical understanding The full report of this research
(Mousley, 2003) is descriptive, with close reference to multimedia appendices
During interviews, these teachers were asked two questions relevant to the topic of this
paper: (a) “If you were asked to describe children’s development of mathematical
understanding, what model would you use—maybe a metaphor or a picture that you
imagine?” and (b) “Do you think there are different types of understanding?”
Metaphors for Understanding
When first asked about their images of mathematical understanding, three of the
teachers described a spiral While Jan and Tracey described a simple linear model, Jan
articulated this more clearly:
Jan: We use a spiral curriculum
Interviewer: What do you mean when you say that?
Jan: They learn to understand a series of things, and in the next grade they re-visit them and
build on them It’s a spiral, going up and up
Interviewer: Is that just your image? You said “We”
Jan: It’s “we” It’s a term we use often, and we plan that way It’s the way that the school
curriculum is set out
Interviewer: Is the CSF [curriculum document] structured that way?
Jan: Mainly It builds on each year, revising the topics Like groups, multiplying 2 numbers,
then double digit by one, then long multiplication It keeps coming round
Interviewer: Do you imagine a single line?
Jan: I have not thought … probably … yes, I do It has to be because they are only learning
one thing at a time
Interviewer: So is their understanding itself a single line—or the things they understand?
Jan: I am not sure what you mean (Paused) Understanding is the things they understand I
see what you mean—like understanding itself No, they are the same They
understanding a series of things so that is their understanding
Robyn described a detailed picture of a spiral of concepts and processes:
Robyn: I could not picture anything yesterday, but I thought about it It’s like building blocks,
where you stack one top of the other Not a straight line, (but) like a spiral because
somehow ideas get repeated at the higher level, round and up (I asked for an example )
I mean, they have to understand addition, not just be able to do it but to understand it
before they can manage the next block, subtraction, but they also have to understand
the addition when they do adding decimals later, and especially adding time—when it
is not base ten So it’s a stack of blocks, but you build on any idea revisiting it year
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after year It’s colorful, really, and I think of it with colors, like red blocks for addition
keep appearing above each other in the spiral
Interviewer: That sounds colorful So it’s blocks, building blocks? Are they blocks of
understanding?
Robyn: Yes, well blocks of things they can explain because they understand them
Interviewer: So they’re concepts—maths ideas?
Robyn: Yes, and the processes, and time, and measurements, and fractions, and so on All they
learn Things they can explain, ones they understand
David also used the spiral metaphor, but pictured more complexity:
David: … like a helix You know, DNA It’s got lots of elements all connected at any level,
but the levels develop in a long spiral
Interviewer: So is a level a grade level?
David: Perhaps, but not usually I think of them as smaller, much small, quite small; like
decimals and percentages are linked on the same level, and next week they come
together in money problems and that’s all on one level
Interviewer: So it’s quite a complex spiral—made of lots of linked ideas (David nodded ) More like
a network?
David: Yes, but in a spiral Do you know what I mean when I say a spiral curriculum?
Clearly the term “spiral curriculum” had influenced these teachers’ perceptions of both
teaching and learning in mathematics classrooms It is interesting that it was not used in
any subject areas, and that the teachers were surprised when I pointed this out
Tracey: You are right Yes We don’t have it Well, we do sometimes I can think of learning
ball skills and athletics and things in phys ed, but you are right, we don’t say that—
spiral curriculum In maths it is obvious though because that is the way you teach it
There are 3 particularly interesting commonalities in what these teachers said about
their images of spirals First, the teachers all described understanding as what is to be
understood—in Robyn’s words “things they can explain”—rather than a form of activity or
an abstract notion in its own right
Second, their structural models fit with the term “constructivism” that was commonly
used by them: e g , “We are constructivist teachers, mainly” (David) However, the
metaphor portrayed a sense of teacher-designed sequences of new ideas and skills rather
than the mental activity that authors such as Piaget and von Glasersfeld portrayed When I
realised this I understood better the teachers’ surprise at their own initial inability to talk
about what they thought mathematical understanding is, because while one does not
describe “understanding” as syllabus content, such content comprised the elements of the
models they described in later interviews All four commented that they had used the term
“mathematical understanding” many times, and believed that they taught “for
understanding” but had not previously considered the phenomenon itself
Third, and more important, is the fact that the term “spiral curriculum”, used in the
school only in relation to mathematics content, seemed to have become unproblematic
These teachers did not question the notion of the mathematics curriculum being fairly
linear yet relatively repetitious from year to year This assumption influenced their
planning and teaching as well as their expectations for student performance and future
learning For example, when asked about a grade 6 girl who obviously had not understood
what had just been taught in a lesson on multiplication, Jan declared, “… ideally she would
know it all now, but we just have to accept the idea that she will need to come back to this
work next year—and perhaps for several years”
557
Different Types of Understanding
When asked whether he knew about any different types of understanding, David
responded immediately:
David You mean, like abstract and concrete? … a lot of discussion that I had with [a Science
lecturer] was about that
Interviewee: What about any other types of understanding?
David There was an article in Common Denominator a couple of months ago, about some
others Relational was one I can’t remember the others, but it struck me that it’s
important, relational I mean, understanding the connections between ideas
Jan also mentioned “abstract” and “concrete” understanding several times during our
discussions, without prompting When I asked her if there seem to be different types of
understanding, she asked me what I meant I suggested that she already knew about
abstract and concrete understanding, and she said, “That covers it I think But then there’s
different types like understanding of graphs and equality and that sort of thing”
Robyn and Tracey frequently stressed the need for lots of experience with concrete
materials before children can learn the abstract ideas I challenged this idea when talking to
Tracey:
Interviewer: Jamie-Lee talked about infinity this morning That’s a really abstract idea
Tracey: Yes, but a lot of them know it
Interviewer: What do you think they know about it?
Tracey: Just the idea of numbers going on forever and ever
Interviewer: So you know how you said that they couldn’t understand any abstract ideas without
concrete experiences …
Tracey: Well, usually, I mean I am thinking more about maths ideas when I say that
Interviewer: Do you see abstract understanding as being quite different from concrete
understanding Or are they just understandings about two different things
Tracey: No, different types They can have one or the other, or both Say it’s measurement
They can understand how to measure centimetres, concrete, or what centimetres are as
abstract but that is harder But if it is infinity like with Jamie-Lee that is all abstract,
isn’t it?
Interviewer: Yes, it’s a very important abstract idea Are there other sorts of understanding— other
type besides concrete and abstract?
Tracey: Possibly What are they?
The teachers’ responses to my question about types of understanding were not
unexpected Discussions about possible types of understanding are not common in teacher
education courses let alone articles that teachers read It is interesting, though, that these
results conflicted markedly with academics’ responses during a pilot study for the research
project When the first question above was asked of 11 mathematics education lecturers,
three responded by saying “instrumental and relational”, while a further eight people listed
the following:
1 2 3 4
visual/spatial instrumental procedural mastery
logical relational conceptual ability to explain
numerical logical ability to use in context
inter-relational symbolic
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5 6 7 8
practical iconic rote thinking/explaining
theoretical symbolic concrete modelling/applying
relational conceptual patterning/generalising
factual abstract abstracting
conceptual handing ambiguity
analytical
It was clear that the academics had a wide field of ideas to draw from in their
reflection, discussion, and writing about mathematical understanding All four teachers’
lessons demonstrated opportunities for children to develop many of these forms of
understanding, so perhaps their not being to articulate different forms is not important to
their effectiveness as mathematics teachers It was surprising, though—given that the term
is used often in advice to mathematics teachers and trainees—that these teachers could not
describe a range of types of understanding that children might exhibit
Again, the teachers’ focus was on what is to be understood (e g , infinity) rather than
different types of understanding that they could aim to develop
Conclusion
One cannot generalise from four teachers to mathematics teachers in general, but this
component of the case study research suggests a need for further exploration Many
research questions could be identified; e g , Is the spiral model very common across
Victorian schools, and if so is it related to years of working with curriculum documents
that present content in a particular mode? Most importantly, if the model is widespread,
what effects does it seem to have on teachers’ planning and expectations? If the metaphor
is one that is held fairly commonly, does this change as the Victorian Curriculum and
Assessment Authority’s new framework of “essential learning” is introduced to all
Victorian schools? Has a focus on the “new basics” in Queensland schools led to a
comparatively wider variety of models of mathematical understanding in teachers’ minds,
and perhaps less structural ones?
In relation to forms of knowledge, we need to question whether, given that
mathematical understanding is thought to be a key to children’s success in our discipline, is
it important that teacher educators stimulate their students to explore different meanings
for this term Whether and how other models held by experienced teachers impact on their
practices of planning, teaching and evaluating mathematics lessons would also be worthy
of further study
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