The Role of ChatGPT in Supporting Students’ Use of Representations: Insights from a Case Study on Calculus Concepts

Abstract

The aim of this case study was to determine whether ChatGPT supports students in building and transforming representations of calculus concepts and to examine whether this support differs according to students’ academic performance. We purposefully selected two university students studying in the Mathematics Education program and focused on the collective argumentation between ChatGPT and each student on a mathematical task involving calculus concepts. The performances of ChatGPT and students in building and transforming shared representations during collective argumentation were analyzed using Duval’s Theory of Registers of Semiotic Representation. The results showed that ChatGPT mainly built verbal and algebraic representations during collective argumentation and performed treatment and conversion. However, in some parts of the argumentation, the transformations performed by ChatGPT were faulty in mathematical context. In these parts of the argumentation, ChatGPT could not support the students in terms of building and transforming shared representations. Nevertheless, during the collective argumentation, ChatGPT made students’ mathematical thinking more observable, particularly in the context of their use of representations of mathematical concepts. ChatGPT can be used by teachers and researchers as a useful mediator to reveal the students’ mathematical thinking in the context of use of representations.

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