A Systematic Literature Review on Proportionality

Abstract

In this article, we carry out a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) regarding the mathematical topic of proportionality. With this SLR, we seek to answer the following research questions: How are the studies on proportionality in Mathematics Education found in the literature review? What interactions emerge from the analyses carried out according to the tetrahedral model of the didactic situation? The survey was carried out considering 41 journals, and based on the search procedures and established filters, we found 58 articles. The analysis was carried out in two moments. At moment 1, to answer the first investigative question, we noticed that there is a predominance of some theoretical references that support the work. Still, there is, on the other hand, diversity in the contexts in which the research took place. At moment 2, to answer the second investigative question, we used the tetrahedral model of the didactic situation to analyze 22 of the 58 articles, as they carried out research involving elementary, middle, and high school students. We identified four types of interactions based on the tetrahedral model: student-content, student-teacher-content, student-content-artifact, and student-teacher-content-artifact. More than half of the articles (13 of 22) explore student-content interaction. Four articles explore the student-teacher-content-artifact interaction, with only one explaining the importance of this interaction to promote the compression of the notion of proportionality. We finalize the SLR by indicating possible paths for new research, especially those investigating the potential of student-teacher-content-artifact interaction for teaching proportionality and developing students' proportional reasoning.

Proportionality; Proportional Reasoning; Proportion; Tetrahedron model of the didactical situation; Systematic Literature Review