In search of structure - reconstructing algebraic thinking in case studies

Mathematics likes to describe itself as the science of patterns and structures. This is against the background that mathematical work is essentially characterized by dealing with patterns. Therefore, the ability to recognize patterns and structures plays a central role when dealing with mathematical content. Against this background, various studies have already investigated this ability in order to better understand its connection to other cognitive abilities, processing strategies and the handling of materials. These studies are usually based on products, actions or verbal utterances in order to draw conclusions about pattern and structure recognition. However, these methods are limited: Material actions are only suitable for patterns with spatial structure to a limited extent, and verbal utterances are influenced by children's metacognitive and linguistic abilities. Recent research with eye tracking suggests that this method is particularly suitable for capturing the process character of pattern and structure recognition more precisely. In the presentation, a study will be presented that specifically focuses on this potential by using a method triangulation to relate eye movement data to verbal data in the evaluation in order to reconstruct individual pattern and structure recognition processes. The results show that eye tracking can provide deeper and more detailed insights into the processes of pattern and structure recognition.