Chinese Eighth Graders’ Competencies in Mathematical Communication

This chapter examines students’ mathematical communication abilities and explores their performances in mathematics communication. In the study, a stratified sampling method was adopted to select 1192 eighth-grade students as a sample. Four tasks, which included seven items of mathematical communication, were developed and provided to students to solve them. After data analysis, the study found that eighth-grade students in China performed well in the mathematical communication tasks at level 1 and level 2. That is, students can understand the meaning of complicated mathematical texts, can express complicated mathematical understandings and can explain other people’s (correct or wrong) mathematical thoughts, but there is a lack in reflective thinking and obstacles in evaluating and correcting others’ opinions. The study showed that there is a gender difference in solving strategies of mathematical communication tasks. The boys tended to use concise and clear mathematical language, while the girls were good at using verbal expressions and mathematical symbols to express their own opinions.