선우진 Sunwoo Jin
DOI: JANT Vol.22(No.3) 181-203, 2019
Even though the properties of operations in multiplication serve a fundamental basis of conceptual understanding the multiplication with whole numbers for elementary students, there has been lack of research in this field. Given this, the purpose of this study was to analyze instructional methods related to the properties of operations in multiplication (i.e., commutative property of multiplication, associative property of multiplication, distributive property of multiplication over addition) in a series of mathematics textbooks of Korea, Japan, and the US. The overall analysis was conducted in the following two aspects: (a) when and how to deal with the properties of multiplication in three instructional context (i.e., introduction, application, generalization), and (b) what models use to represent the properties of multiplication. The results of this showed that overall similarities in introducing the properties of multiplication .in (one digit) x (one digit) as well as emphasizing the divers representation. However, subtle but meaningful differences were analyzed in applying and generalizing the properties of multiplication. Based on these results, this paper closes with some implications on how to teach the properties of operations in multiplication properties in elementary mathematics.