Algebraic thinking obstacles of elementary school students: A Hermeneutics-phenomenology study

Abstract

The main purpose of this research is to explore learning obstacles on algebraic thinking that occurs in elementary school students. It is important to understand learning obstacles to anticipate a didactic teacher during learning process and conduct an innovation in developing new learning designs. Therefore, this study is conducted by utilizing a qualitative research with hermeneutics and phenomenology paradigms. The findings suggest that there are three types of obstacles are ontogenic obstacle, epistemological obstacle and didactical obstacle. This information is expected to be a material for developing didactic design of algebraic thinking. Furthermore, Algebraic thinking habit in elementary school is expected to reduce the difficulty when studying algebra formally.