A snap-shot of middle years of schooling students' (fouth - ninth graders) proportional reasoning across mathematics and science topics

Many topics within the school mathematics and science curriculum require knowledge and understanding of ratio and proportion and the ability to reason proportionally (e.g., scale drawing, surface area, density, probability, molarity, fractions). Proportional reasoning, according to Lamon (2005) is fundamental to both mathematics and science. However, research has consistently highlighted students' difficulties with proportion and proportion related tasks and applications (e.g, Behr, Harel, Post & Lesh, 1992), which means that, as a result, many students will struggle with topics in the middle years (fourth-ninth grades) in both mathematics and science