Semiotic Conflicts in the Learning of Proportionality: Analysis of a Teaching Experience in Primary Education

In this paper, we analyse the results of an experience designed and implemented to evaluate the epistemic and cognitive conflicts identified in the study of proportionality, carried out by a group of 21 students in their last year of primary education. Initially the students exhibit difficulties to recognize situations where proportionality can be applied, to distinguish magnitudes, quantities and proportionality tables, and to identify procedures to solve proportionality problems other than the rule of three. Nevertheless, in the group discussion session, oriented to develop the dialogue and collective justification of the assessment tasks solutions, they are able to justify the methods employed, linking the rule of three with the equivalence of fractions and the proportionality relation.