Students' coordination of geometric reasoning and measuring strategies on a fixed perimeter task: Developing mathematical understanding of linear measurement

This article examines students' development of levels of understanding for measurement by describing the coordination of geometric reasoning with measurement and numerical strategies. In analyzing the reasoning and argumentation of 38 Grade 2 through Grade 10 students on linear measure tasks, we found support for the application and elaboration of our previously established categorization of children's length measurement levels: (1) guessing of length values by naïve visual observation, (2) making inconsistent, uncoordinated reference to markers as units, and (3) using consistent and coordinated identification of units. We elaborated two of these categories. Observations supported sublevel distinctions between inconsistent identification (2a) and consistent yet only partially coordinated identification of units (2b). Evidence also supported a distinction between static (3a) and dynamic (3b) ways of coordinating length; we distinguish integrated abstraction (3b) from nonintegrated abstraction (3a) by examining whether students coordinate number and space schemes across multiple cases, or merely associate cases without coordinating schemes.