The Effect of Visualization-Based Teaching Approach on Understanding the Concept of Limit and the Spatial Ability Amongst High School Students

An important part of students’ understanding and thinking of mathematics is shaped through visualization. The concept of "limit" has a special place in mathematics. Researches have shown that students face problems and challenges in understanding this concept. It seems that relying on the procedural approach in teaching could be one of the factors affecting it, considering that in this approach, algorithmic thinking is mostly advanced. This study examines the effects of teaching based on visualization on students’ understanding of the concept of "limit" and their spatial ability. This study enrolled 32 female high school students (11th grade) majoring in mathematics – physics from two cities in Kordestan. Since students were already assigned in 2 classes, random sampling was not administered. We considered semi-experimental pre-testpost- test control group for this study. Randomly one of the classes was selected as the control group and other one as the experimental group. The teaching method was the independent variable and understanding the concept of ‘limit’ and spatial ability were dependent variables. The Pre-test indicated that there was no significant difference between two groups with regard to the dependent variables before intervening with the independent variable. During the three weeks of instruction, concept of ‘limit’ was taught to both groups. The control group was taught with a traditional approach whereas the test group was treated by visual-based approach accompanied with visualization activities. MANOVA was used to analyze the data. Our findings revealed that using visual activities in teaching the concept of ‘limit’, improves students’ understanding of it and the difference between groups was statistically significant. This intervention however did not enhance the spatial ability of the students.