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A cross-national comparison of reform curricula in Korea and the US in terms of cognitive complexity: the case of fraction addition and subtraction

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Abstract

The overall level of conceptual understanding and mathematical proficiency of students has been a matter of increasing national interest in South Korea. Recently, a new edition of mathematics textbooks aligned with the amendment of the 7th national mathematics curriculum has become available for all elementary grade levels. To characterize the current reform efforts in South Korea, this study examined the quality of the mathematical problems in the current version of the Korean reform textbooks (KM 2) compared with the previous version (KM 1) and one representative US reform curriculum text (EM). Webb’s (Research monograph No. 18: Alignment of science and mathematics standards and assessments in four states. National Institute for Science Education, Madison, 1999) depth of knowledge framework and Son and Senk’s (Educ Stud Math 74(2):117–142, 2010) cognitive expectation feature were employed to examine the kind and level of students’ opportunities to learn along with the type of word problems presented in the three sets of materials. Analysis revealed that the KM 2 provided better opportunities for students to learn fraction addition and subtraction than the KM 1 in terms of the depth and breadth of cognitive complexity. However, there was little difference in addressing and developing the meaning of fraction addition and subtraction through word problems. Moreover, compared with the US reform curriculum materials, the KM 2 provided more problems requiring lower depth of knowledge levels than the US counterpart. Implications of these findings for curriculum developers, textbook and learning materials developers, teachers and future researchers are discussed.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, USA

    Ji-Won Son

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  1. Ji-Won Son
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Correspondence to Ji-Won Son.

Appendix: Resources analyzed

Appendix: Resources analyzed

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Korean Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development (2002c). Mathematics fifth grade-Na. Seoul: DaeHan Printing and Publishing Co., Ltd.

Korean Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development (2002d). Mathematics workbook fourth grade-Ga. Seoul: DaeHan Printing and Publishing Co., Ltd.

Korean Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development (2002e). Mathematics workbook fourth grade-Na. Seoul: DaeHan Printing and Publishing Co., Ltd.

Korean Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development (2002f). Mathematics fifth grade-Ga teacher’s manual. Seoul: DaeHan Printing and Publishing Co., Ltd.

Korean Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology (2010a). Mathematics fourth grade-Na. Seoul: DaeHan Printing and Publishing Co., Ltd.

Korean Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology (2010b). Mathematics workbook fourth grade-Na. Seoul: DaeHan Printing and Publishing Co., Ltd.

Korean Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology (2011a). Mathematics fifth grade-Ga. Seoul: DaeHan Printing and Publishing Co., Ltd.

Korean Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology (2011b). Mathematics workbook fifth grade-Ga teacher’s manual. Seoul: DaeHan Printing and Publishing Co., Ltd.

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Son, JW. A cross-national comparison of reform curricula in Korea and the US in terms of cognitive complexity: the case of fraction addition and subtraction. ZDM Mathematics Education 44, 161–174 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11858-012-0386-1

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