2025 Volume 66 Issue 1 Pages 3-22
The purpose of this study was twofold. The first objective was to examine the effectiveness of an instructional method in the third grade science lesson on “Force and Motion” in elementary schools, in which “a functional view and way of thinking” was put to work and the characteristics of the relationship between two quantities were discussed by relating tables, graphs, and equations to each other. The second objective was to verify the effect of the teaching method incorporating the concept of universal unit of measurement for area, as well as the concept of multiplication, on pupils’ ability to read the magnitude of distance traveled from the v-t diagram (graph of speed and time) and to understand the quantitative meaning of definite integral in “Force and Motion.” In order to achieve this objective, we conducted a qualitative analysis of the results of a survey question that measured the degree of understanding of the dimensional relationship between force and motion in a science class on this topic for third grade elementary school students. The results of the qualitative analysis revealed the following. (1) The repeated use of the “functional way of thinking” throughout the entire program was confirmed to be effective in deepening the pupils’ understanding of the dimensional relationship between force and motion. (2) It was clarified that the lesson program of “Developmental Graph Reading” has a certain effect on the students’ understanding of the quantitative meaning of definite integral.
