Students' Reasoning about Multivariational Structures

Covariation and covariational reasoning are key themes in mathematics education research. Recently, these ideas have been expanded to include cases where more than two variables relate to each other, in what is termed multivariation. Building on the theoretical work that has identified different types of multivariation structures, this study explores students' reasoning about these structures. Our initial assumption that multivariational reasoning would be built on covariational reasoning appeared validated, and there were also several other aspects of reasoning employed in making sense of these structures. There were important similarities in reasoning about the different types of multivariation, as well as some nuances between them. [For the complete proceedings, see ED629884.]