Engaging with online elaborated feedback as a mediation tool in the mathematical argumentation process

Abstract

Feedback may be more effective if students engage with its content. Almost no studies have examined the potential of online elaborated feedback to enhance students’ mathematical argumentation. We designed a set of tasks requiring argumentation that must be supported by constructing examples in an interactive diagram using automatic verbal characteristics suggested by the technological environment. We explored whether and how a 7th-grade student's engagement with the mediation tools supports her mathematical argumentation of claims on the topic of comparing fractions. Our data were derived from a task-based interview and automatic analyses that the technological environment provides. The results show that there was an improvement in the student's argumentation in response to the feedback process.