초록/요약

This study aims to examine how information processing competency as one of the mathematical competencies has been interpreted and applied in mathematics education by analyzing tasks in middle school mathematics textbooks under the 2015 revised national curriculum. Based on the sub-elements of information processing competency organized by Park et al.(2015), we analyzed 191 tasks in 30 different middle school mathematics textbooks using descriptive statistics and ANOVA. Also, we investigated the meaning of information processing competency embedded in the tasks by distinguishing the characteristics of several different types of tasks. The results from this study showed that the number of tasks related to information processing competency in mathematics textbooks was too small and there was a huge difference across the textbooks in terms of the sub-elements. Even though there were four sub-elements of information processing competency, ‘the use of manipulative and technological tools’ was extremely dominant in the tasks in general. Even many of them used technology and manipulatives superficially. Furthermore, any textbook did not provide tasks dealing with all the four sub-elements. Such an unbalanced and fragmented approach to information processing competency could produce biased knowledge and insufficient experiences for information processing competency. It calls for further investigation and discussion about how to improve information processing competency in school mathematics.