Secondary School Students’ Misconceptions about Fractals

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to determine the secondary school students' misconceptions about fractals. Three dimensions of students' misconceptions are examined: misconceptions on the definition of fractals, misconceptions of the recognition of fractals and errors in drawing fractal shapes. The study was conducted with 100 secondary school students (grade 8 and grade 10) with the use of an open-ended test consisting three questions prepared through literature review and Turkish mathematics and geometry curriculums (grade 8 and grade 10). The findings showed that students hold misunderstandings about formal definition of fractal. They had some problems in the drawing fractals although students could recognize intuitively the given shape as fractal or not.