Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
Mathematical Thinking and Learning, 2026 (SSCI, Scopus)
This study presents an empirical analysis of 6th-grade students’ estimation-based thinking in two Fermi problems that are with different proximity to the problem context based on the following characteristics: (1) involving real-life elements within/beyond-direct-reach of students’ physical surroundings and (2) involving the size of the quantities within/beyond-direct-reach of students’ reference tools for estimation. Twelve turkish 6th-grade students worked in pairs on the Fermi problems. The findings indicated that the proximity of the problem context shaped students’ model-based estimation on Fermi problems by affording processes characterized as sensemaking-facilitator, estimation–referent identifier, and strategy-promoter. Students’ model-based estimation indicated that the closer proximity of the context helped students to make sense of the problem and initiate an estimation relying on within-direct-reach reference tools. However, the lack of physical closeness and the larger size of the quantity created a challenge in developing a model-based estimation, which encouraged students to develop a strategy.