A Comparative Study of Secondary School Mathematics Teaching Materials from the Perspective of Reasoning--Taking "Pythagorean Theorem" as an Example

Abstract

Education has always been a hot topic of discussion. From the results of junior high school mathematics assessments in recent years, there are differences in mathematical abilities between Eastern Europe and Europe and America. Since reasoning is crucial to understanding mathematics, we compare the "Pythagorean Theorem" in textbooks from China, the United States, and Singapore, examining the theorem's different types of reasoning and how it relates to previously acquired knowledge. The reasoning categories proposed by Shi Ningzhong, Harel, and Sowder serve as the fundamental basis for categorizing the varieties of reasoning in this research. The introduction of proofs for the hook and Pythagorean theorem is investigated for each edition of the textbook, and concerning the deductive reasoning ability, the People's Education Press edition (PEP) and Zhejiang Education edition (ZJE) editions are in the first tier, followed by Singaporean textbooks and American textbooks. In terms of the correlation between the Pythagorean theorem and what has been learned, the ZJE involves the most points of correlation. Finally, we discuss the implications of these results for teachers' explanations of the Pythagorean theorem: teachers can briefly introduce the geometric deductive proof process of the Pythagorean theorem to stimulate students' interest in learning mathematics.