Investigation of Students’ Holistic and Analytical Thinking Styles in Learning Environments assisted with Dynamic Geometry Software

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the analytical and holistic thinking styles of 7th grade students who were taught polygons in a learning environment assisted with a dynamic geometry software (DGS) by using the Structure of the Observed Learning Outcome (SOLO) taxonomy. The study employed a qualitative action research design. The study group was composed of 16 seventh grade students. “The Problem-Solving Holistic and Analytical Thinking Scale” was administrated to determine whether students were analytical or holistic thinkers. In addition, the "Preliminary Level Assessment Examination" was administrated to reveal students’ levels of comprehension of polygons. A three-week implementation was put into practice with the activities developed for the computer environment created by using the Geogebra software for the sub-learning domain of polygons. Following the applications, the "Final Level Assessment Examination" was administrated. In addition, the diaries were collected to determine students’ opinions on this learning environment. Students’ diaries were analyzed by performing content analysis. The data obtained from the Preliminary and Final Level Assessment Examinations were analyzed based on the the SOLO taxonomy. The results of the study revealed that the learning environment assisted with DGS had a positive effect on the learning processes of both analytical and holistic thinkers. Although the learning environment assisted with DGS demonstrated that students of either thinking style had upper-level responses in the solo taxonomy analysis, it has been determined that this dynamic environment did not account for any variation among students’ thinking styles. It is recommended that such well-structured learning environments should be designed to provide students with different thinking styles and the ability to act in accordance with their own strategies.