Concept of Ratio in South Korean, Japanese, and Singaporean Mathematics Textbooks

Concept of Ratio in South Korean, Japanese, and Singaporean Mathematics Textbooks

Understanding ratio and its related mathematical concepts are crucial in upper grade elementary school mathematics and in later learning mathematics as well as science. There might be no controversies about the importance of the ratio concept, however, there are many different ways of describing it. Among them, Beckmann and Izsák’s (2015) recent study of ratio provides insights for viewing ratio concept. This paper investigated how do textbooks of South Korea, Japan, and Singapore view the concept of ratio. English version of Japanese and Singaporean mathematics textbooks were collected and Korean mathematics textbook was translated into English. Textbook analysis was conducted in macro level and micro level. The textbook analysis shows each country introduces ratio differently and emphasizes different aspects. Implications for South Korean mathematics textbook were discussed at the end of the paper.