CONCEPT DEFINITION AND CONCEPT IMAGE OF BASIC SPATIAL GEOMETRY CONCEPTS AMONG JUNIOR HIGH-SCHOOL PUPIL

The main goal of this study was to discover the effect of visual elements on the students' geometrical concept formation.This study focused on three topics: visual knowledge, concept definition, and concept image, and the inclusion property for spatial shapes among middle school students.Five research questions arose: (1) To what extent did the visual knowledge of spatial shapes exist?(2) What are the concept definitions of central spatial geometry shapes that middle school students gave?(3) What are the main concept images of spatial geometry?( 4) To what extent does the relation between the visual picture of spatial shapes and the definition of such shapes exist?( 5) To what extent did the inclusion property exist in spatial shape groups?The editors compiled three questionnaires and analyzed the data based on cognitive methods (Tall &Vinner, 1981).According to question (1), the data analysis showed that between 53.4%-95.5% of our sample knew visually the spatial shape (Triple Pyramid, Con, Box, Cylinder, respectively).According to question (2), it turns out that ONLY 46.1% of our sample correctly defines the concept "spatial body".Data analysis according to question (3) showed that the main concept images of "spatial body" were: a polyhedron, a beautiful shape, and a tangible body.According to question (4), the data analysis showed that the relation between the visual picture of a spatial shape and its definition was low to very low and depended on the shape: 21.2%-61.1% (Prism, Cube, Pyramid, Box, respectively).Such students recognize the shapes without any inclusion relationship to other groups of spatial shapes.According to the last question (5), it turned out that the inclusion property existed visually in spatial shapes, but in different percentages according to the shape (Box, Cube, Pyramid, and Prism).It is surprising that when the statements were given to the students verbally without a visual dimension, more students identified the inclusion relationships accurately and even knew how to explain them.In many cases, the visual properties affect the students' judgment and the classification they make.When the task is represented verbally, these properties are hidden, but when the task is represented visually these properties visually these properties become active.In summary, we have found that a low and even very low percentage of students know the formal definition of spatial shapes but do not make use of it when faced a visual presentation.