Effects of an Intervention on Children’s Conceptions of Angle Measurement

Abstract

In this article, we report on the findings of a study investigating the effects of an intervention designed to provide students in Grades 3–5 with opportunities to work with dynamic and static models of angles in a dynamic geometry environment. We utilized the microgenetic method in this cross-sectional study to observe and document changes in participating students’ conceptions of angle. Our results indicate that the intervention had a positive effect on all of the students’ terminology, third graders’ estimations of angle measures, and third and fourth graders’ drawings of obtuse angles. Sliders to vary the ray length, angle orientation, angle location, and angle openness had a positive effect on half of the participants in our study who struggled with misconceptions related to what effects the measure of an angle.