Abstraction in Context, Combining Constructions, Justification and Enlightenment

The nested epistemic actions model of abstraction in context has been used to analyse a solitary learner’s process of justification. In previous work, we have shown that this process gave rise to the phenomenon of parallel interacting constructing actions. In this paper, we analyse the interaction pattern of combining constructions, and show that combining constructions indicate an enlightenment of the learner. This adds an analytic dimension to the nested epistemic actions model of abstraction in context. Introduction and Background Abstraction has been a central issue in mathematics and science education for many years. The classic work by Piaget, Davydov, Skemp and others has in recent years been succeeded by research fora, symposia and discussion groups at various conferences, as well as several special issues of research journals, most recently the Mathematics Education Research Journal (Mitchelmore & White, 2007)