MOHAN CHINNAPPAN SCHEMAS AND MENTAL MODELS IN GEOMETRY PROBLEM SOLVING ABSTRACT. Recent investigations of mathematical problem solving have focused on an ue that concerns students” ability at accessing and making flexible use of previously learnt knowledge. I report here a study that takes up this issue by examining potential links between mental models constructed by students, the organisational quality of students’ prior geometric knowledge, and the use of that knowledge during problem solving, Struc- tural analysis of the results suggest that the quality of geometric knowledge that students develop could have a powerful effect on their mental models and subsequ knowledge. use of that 1. INTRODUCTION Recent research on mathematical problem solving has focused on the e: amination of quality of knowledge that students bring to the solution process (Byers and Erlwanger, 1985; Lester, 1994). Results of this stream of re- search are beginning to reveal that the type of links that students are able to establish between the various components of mathematical knowledge would have a significant effect on the progress made during solution at- tempt. Studies of this nature that target knowledge building and application in mathematics are essential if we are to understand the problem of student failure to apply previously learnt mathematical knowledge to the solution of new problems (Board of Senior Secondary Studies, 1995). A major challenge for mathematics educators is thus to improve present levels of understanding about why students fail to apply the knowledge and skills that teachers take great care to share with them. Indeed, this issue has been given considerable attention in the agenda of major curricular documents (National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, 1989; Australian Education Council, 1990), Clearly, one could advance a number of reasons to account for the prevalence of the above problem in school mathematics, such as lack of student interest in the subject of mathematics and/or low levels of dent participation in classroom learning activities. Among these potenti causes, one area that has received a great deal of interest among the math- ematics education community concerns the study of knowledge structures that students actually construct as a consequence of teacher and other in- terventions, and what effect, if any, this would have in helping students u- Educational Studies in Mathematics 36: 201-217, 1998. © 1998 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.202 MOHAN CHINNAPPAN apply prior knowledge during task performance. A significant part of re- search in this area is beginning to indicate that student failure to activate and apply prior knowledge can be largely attributed to the poor quality of their mathematical knowledge base (Resnick and Ford, 1981). Despite this recent interest in knowledge-related factors that influence problem solving activity, less effort has been invested in exploiting advances made in this area in the investigation of difficulties experienced by students in applying previous mathematical knowledge. GEOMETRY SCHEMAS AND PROBLEM SOLVING In addressing quality of the knowledge base, most investigators are inter- ested in examining how well disparate items of mathematical information are connected into useful and meaningful wholes or structures. There is an emerging consensus that a well-organised or integrated domain knowledge base not only facilitates the accessing of relevant information, but also determines how that information is deployed in the search for a problem solution (Prawat, 1989; Alexander and Judy, 1988; Lawson and Chin- nappan, 1994). According to this view, the organisational quality of the knowledge that resides in the long-term memory could either enhance or impede the activation of that knowledge during performance. If we ap- ply this analysis of information processing and retrieval to the domain of geometry, the way our students assemble the multitude of geometric information in their memory could be argued to have a strong influence ‘on when or whether that information is activated, Research on geometry problem solving should, therefore, direct its focus on the quality of the geometric knowledge structures that students bring to a problem situation, the extent to which they utilise these during the solution process, and the effectiveness with which they do so. This study addresses these issues by examining problem-solving episodes of high-school students. Research in the area of mathematical problem solving (Mayer, 1975: Kintsch and Greeno, 1985, Halford, 1993) has generated a number of useful frameworks for addressing the question of the nature and the role of knowledge in students’ problem solving efforts. In particular, the no- tions of schema and mental models serve as powerful constructs in our investigation of students’ geometry knowledge base that drives the so- lution process. The notion of schema has been variously defined in the literature (Rumelhart and Ortony, 1977). However, for the purposes of the present study, I use the term schema to refer to a cluster of knowledge that contains information about core concepts, the relations between these concepts and knowledge about how and when to use these concepts. AsSCHEMAS AND MENTAL MODELS IN GEOMETRY PROBLEM SOLVING — 203 organised knowledge structures, schemas guide both information accep- tance and retrieval, and their subsequent use. From this perspective, when students acquire mathematical concepts, principles, and procedures they organise these into schemas which provide the knowledge base for further mathematical activity such as problem exploration and classification. Nesher and Herschkovitz (1994) used the term scheme in a similar sense in their examination of student performances with word problems. As students reflect upon and experiment with what they have learnt, they modify their mathematical schemas through a process of construction and reconstruction. It has been argued that the degree of sophistication of these schemas have a strong influence on how students categorise and solve a given set of problems (Sweller, 1989). As in other areas of mathematics, schemas provide an important theo- retical tool with which to study the organisation of geometric knowledge. A useful way to visualise geometric schemas is to look for key concepts that anchor other concepts. Within the field of Euclidean geometry, dia- grams play a central role around which other knowledge such as axioms are built. Hence, it would seem that a geometric schema could evolve around a particular shape. One could talk about, say, the right-angled tri- angle schema (RTS). The central feature in this schema is a right-angled triangle around which other relations, concepts and procedural and condi- tional knowledge are built. The Pythagoras’ theorem, for instance, can be considered to be part of the RTS as it describes the relationship between the lengths of the three sides of the triangle. One could also talk about symmetry of an isosceles right-angled triangle where the base angles equal forty-five degrees each. This information about the properties of a special right-angled triangle could also become a component of RTS. Students’ experiences also help them develop and store knowledge about how to work with problems that contain right-angled triangles. This knowledge involving the procedural and conditional aspects of dealing with right- angled triangles also becomes a part of the RTS network. This type of analysis about RTS can be applied to other schemas involving geome- try or related topics. Two characteristics are important to understanding geometric schemas: organisation and spread. Organisation refers to the establishment of connections between ideas, whereas spread refers to the extent of those connections. A geometric schema is said to be sophisticated or complex when it has a high degree of organisation and spread. Although schemas provide a useful theoretical framework for discus- sions about the construction of meaningful links between items of geomet- rical knowledge, they have limited value in helping the researcher visualise the global picture about the orchestration of schemas in producing or at-204 MOHAN CHINNAPPAN tempting to produce solution to a given problem. One way to examine how students integrate geometric schemas during the search for a solution is to examine their mental model(s) about the problem at hand. Mental models act as ‘windows’ through which the researcher is able to observe the integration of schemas in attempting to arrive at the problem goal. In this sense, mental models help us sce the big picture concerning stu- dents’ application of mathematical knowledge during problem representa- tion (Glaser, 1984). The term, mental models has been used extensively in the psychological literature to describe the cognitive representations that individuals construct during various learning situations (English, 1997; Halford, 1993; Johnson-Laird, 1983; Rouse and Morris, 1986). The notion of mental model adopted in this study follows that of Hal- ford (1993), who described mental models as representations that are ac- tive while a student attempts to solve a particular problem. According to this view, mental models constrain a series of cognitive actions including inferencing and decision making about what schemas to activate, and how to deploy this knowledge during the search for the solution to a problem. These cognitive representations are thus considered to be the workspace of thinking and problem understanding, and they must have a high de- gree of correspondence to the problem environment that they represent. The significance of mental models for mathematics learning and problem solving lies in their relational structure. The mental models that we try to help our students construct are those in which the essential relations be- tween previously-learnt mathematical schemas and components in a given problem are clearly represented (English and Halford, 1995). | applied the dual constructs of schemas and mental models to examine knowledge access and use as students attempted to solve a plane Euclidean geometry problem. The aim of the study was (a) to identify the geometric schemas that students bring to a problem-solving task, (b) determine the frequency with which these are activated, and (c) generate a description about the nature of the mental models students utilise and/or construct during the course of problem solution. Of particular interest to this study was to examine how these knowledge components differed between low- and high-achieving students. I hypothesised that the high-achievers would be more likely to activate more sophisticated geometric schemas, acces these more frequently, and would probably generate mental models which indicate a high degree of structural understanding of the given problem than students from the low-achiSCHEMAS AND MENTAL MODELS IN GEOMETRY PROBLEM SOLVING — 205 3. METHOD 3.1. Participants Thirty students from five Year 10 mathematics classes in a middle-class suburban high school volunteered to participate in the study. The school has a reputation for high academic standards and innovative teaching prac- tices in the Brisbane Metropolitan area. The mathematics classes at this school were ranked on the basis of students’ mathematics performance in the previous years, Class rankings were relevant to the purposes of the present study because they provided a useful way to identify students with different levels of geometry knowledge schemas the assumption being that students from the top-ranked class would have developed more elabo- rate and sophisticated schemas that those from the lower-ranked classes. The high-achieving group comprising fifteen students came from the top- ranked year 10 class, while the fifteen low-achievers came from the bottom two year 10 classes. Discussions with the teachers showed that all students had completed the topic of geometry three weeks before the commence- ment of the study. In addition, most of the knowledge required for the solution of the target problem had been covered in the previous two years of students’ high school work. 3.2. Materials and procedure The students were interviewed individually during which they were asked to attempt to solve the plane geometry problem shown in Figure 1. The problem was presented on a 21 cm x 13 cm card, and students were en- couraged to talk aloud as much as possible. After the first attempt, each student was prompted to try the problem again by adopting different ap- proaches. This procedure was expected to yield more data about the range of geometry knowledge schemas built up by the students. The total inter- view time was approximately 50 minutes. The interviews were held during class time, and conducted in our research van which was parked within the school area. All students’ responses were video recorded and transcribed. The target problem consisted of three commonly encountered geomet- ric forms: circle, tangent, and triangle. However, the problem was made more complex by having these forms integrated in a manner which de- manded that the solver recognise a component as serving more than one function. For example, side AE needs to be identified as (a) a straight line, (b) a tangent to the circle, and (c) the hypotenuse of the right-angled triangle ACE. This recognition of one part of the figure as playing multiple roles constitutes an important prerequisite in the modelling process before students could activate appropriate theorems and formulae in order to gen-206 MOHAN CHINNAPPAN AE is a tangent to the circle, centre B C. AC is perpendicular to CE, and the angle DCE has a measure of 300. The radius of the circle is equal to 5 D cm. Find AB. Figure 1. Problem presented to students. erate new information. For instance, the recognition that AE is a tangent could help students infer that angle CDA is a right angle (radius-tangent theorem). Furthermore, the identification of segment AE as the hypotenuse of the right-angled triangle ACE, could result in using the Pythagoras’ formulae on the triangle ACE, In order to develop a list of geometric schemas that students could have activated during the solution of the problem the investigator invited people with different levels of experience with the subject of geometry to attempt to solve the problem. Accordingly, the following participants were asked to solve the problem: a professional mathematician, two senior teachers of high school mathematics and two high school students from another school. The participants’ different experiences with geometry were also expected to generate a greater range of schemas that one could associate with the problem in question. Analysis of the solution transcripts and responses to interview questions from these participants generated a total of 17 geometric schemas. These are shown in Table 1. Although one could not claim to have exhausted all the schemas that were necessary for the solution of the problem, the solution and interview responses from the above participants, as expected, did provide a broad base from which to generate schemas relevant to the target problem. 4. RESULTS The investigator and an experienced research assistant, both of whom had considerable experience in teaching geometry at the high school level, examined the transcripts of students’ solution attempts and their talk in-SCHEMAS AND MENTAL MODELS IN GEOMETRY PROBLEM SOLVING — 207 TABLE | Solution schemas activated, Geometry Schemas Low- Hig achievers achievers Isosceles triangle Right-angled triangle Equilateral triangle Similarity of triang! Cosine ratio for a right-angled triangle Sine ratio for a right-angled triangle Tangent ratio for a right-angled triangle Tangent-radius theorem Pythagoras’ rule ‘Sum of angles in a triangle theorem Perpendicularity rule Difference between segments Radii for a given circle are equal in length Ratio of sides of triangles Congruency of triangles Exterior angle theorem Complementarity rule Supplementarity of angles dependently. This exercise focused on determining the type and frequency of use of geometric schemas by the students. The results of this analysis ap- pear in Table I. A geometric schema was considered to have been activated if a student mentioned it and/or used it in his or her solution attempt A schema, such as ‘right-angled triangle,’ was considered to have been activated if a student explicitly mentioned it or used a trigonometric ratio indirectly within a right-angled triangle that was either given in the figure or created by the student. There was a high degree of agreement (90%) be- tween the codings produced by the investigator and the research assistant. A particular schema was considered to have been activated more than once if that schema was used during a second occasion to generate further new information or in the exploration of an alternative path to the solution. As shown in Table 1, the high-achieving students not only activated a greater variety of geometric schemas than the low-achievers, but they208 MOHAN CHINNAPPAN also activated more than four times the number of schemas as their peers. The tangent-radius theorem and perpendicularity rule were the most often used schemas by both the groups. The low-achievers did not activate seven of the 17 schemas that could have been accessed. This is in contrast to the high-achievers who activated all but three of the schemas that could have been used in the solution process. These results suggest that the low achievers either did not ‘have’ this information or did in fact possess the information but could not see its relevance to the solution of the given problem. While the above method of data analysis was useful for examining discrete geometric schemas, it did not provide us with much informa- tion regarding how or in what sequence the schemas were accessed, and the potential relationships that might have been established among these schemas prior to or during the solution attempt. In particular, the data did not throw much light on the possible links between these schemas and the information embedded in the problem, and the effect such connections might have on schema access. In order to explore these issues, we re- examined students’ solution attempts but on this occasion with a focus on their approaches to solution. It was decided that an approach to the given problem would be defined in terms of a clearly observable solution path. The researcher drew upon the responses of the reference group mentioned earlier (i.e., the professional mathematician, senior teachers and two stu- dents) in order to develop these solution paths. This analysis produced the following four solution approaches or solution paths: 1. Trigonometry This approach involves the use of trigonometric ratios (cosine, sine or tan- gent), properties of circles, complementarity of angles and theorem about the sum of angles in a triangle to generate the required length of the right- angled triangle ADC. Having determined the angle ACD from information given in the problem, one or more of these ratios could be applied to the triangle ADC to generate the length of AC. The required length of AB is then found by subtracting the length the radius BC from AC. 2. Equilateral/lsosceles triangles This approach involves the construction of the line joining points B and D, a move that helps students infer that triangle BCD is equilateral, and that ABD is an isosceles triangle. By using a series of deductive reasoning processes involving theorems about sum of angles in a triangle, properties of isosceles triangle and properties about radii of the circle, the solver isSCHEMAS AND MENTAL MODELS IN GEOMETRY PROBLEM SOLVING — 209. able to infer that BD is equal in length to the radius of the circle (5 cm), and that AB is equal in length to BD. 3. Trigonometry/Pythagoras’ theorem In this approach, students determine the magnitude of angle ACD (60 de- grees), and set up a equation that involves the tangent ratio of this angle in the right-angled triangle ACD. Solution of this equation would enable students determine the length of AD. By using AD and the length of CD students could apply the Pythagoras’ theorem to triangle ADC in order to generate the length of AC. The length of BC is subsequently subtracted from AC to work out the length of AB. 4. Similar triangles/Trigonometry This method incorporates trigonometric ratios and the Pythagoras’ the- orem in the solution attempt. In this approach the solver works out the lengths of one or more sides of the right-angled triangles CDE, ACD and ACE. The solver then recognises the similarity between these triangles. This move is used to set up an equation showing ratios between the cor- responding sides of the triangles. The equation is then solved to find the length of AD. The length of AC is then determined by the application of trigonometric ratios to triangle ADC. Finally, AB is found by the same moves described in the first approach. Any solution attempt which did not show a clear path or link between the given information and the correct solution outcome (AB = 10 cm) was jed as a non-discernible approach. The number of students in each achievement group who demonstrated each of the above approaches is shown in Table 2. The major concern here was the identification of stu- dents’ activation and sequencing of schemas during the solution process rather than the correct solution outcome. Also, this data have direct rele- vance for the characterisation of models constructed by the students during their solution attempts. As can be seen in Table 2, nine of the low-achieving students did not use a clearly observable solution approach. This was in contrast to the high- achieving students’ solution attempts all of which indicating a clear path or approach. Not surprisingly, none of the low-achieving students produced the correct solution outcome, whereas 11 of the high-achieving students were able to do so. These findings suggest that the low-achieving stu- dents adopted a problem-solving approach in which their limited available geometric schemas were not applied or applied at random without a clear direction or plan to get from the given information to the problem goal. For example, a student might have recognised that the line AE was a tangent,MOHAN CHINNAPPAN TABLE II Frequency of use of each solution approach by students in each achievement group. Solution approach Low- — High- achievers. achievers Trigonometry 3 12 Equilateral/Isosceles triangles 0 Trigonometry/Pythagoras’ 1 Similar triangles/Trigonometry 2 Not discemnib! 0 Total 15 and that the line CD was a radius. On the basis of previous experience with the tangent and radius, the student generates a new information that the angle CDE is a right angle. Although this constitutes a correct move, it is of little assistance if that angle is not used to find the length of AB. In contrast, students in the high-achieving group could make use of these two sets of information and an appropriate trigonometric ratio to find the length of AC which in turn enables them to find the length of AB. This latter move involving trigonometric approach that is adopted by the high- achievers suggest that they are able to establish the required connections between significant components of the problem. The Trigonometry approach was used most frequently by both groups of students, with the high-achievers favouring this over all other approaches. The Trigonometry/Pythagoras’ , Similar triangles/Trigonometry, and Equi- lateral/Isosceles approaches were the least favoured of the approaches by both groups of students. The dominance of the trigonometric approach over all others suggests that the mental models students constructed dur- ing problem solution largely comprised trigonometric knowledge and as- sociated information such as the properties of right-angled triangles and circle. The identification of students’ geometric schemas and solution approaches provided information about the connections that students appeared to make between features of the problem and their existing knowledge of trigonom- etry and geometry. In order to examine these connections further, we analysed each of the students’ solution transcripts with a view to determining the extent of these connections and their relationship to goal attainment. This information was expected to provide added insight into the nature of theSCHEMAS AND MENTAL MODELS IN GEOMETRY PROBLEM SOLVING — 211 mental models students constructed during the course of their solution attempt Figure 2 shows the solution approaches adopted by a high-achieving student (Michael) and a low-achieving student (David). Both students ap- peared to have activated a number of schemas such as the tangent-radius theorem, perpendicularity, complementarity, and the properties of the right- angled triangle. Michael, however, was able to infer that CB is equal in length to CD, that is, the radius of the circle also formed part of the length of one side of the right-angled triangle. He then linked this information to the cosine ratio to work out the length of the required segment, AB. David generated the magnitude of angle ACD but did not exploit this information in any purposeful way. He then attempted to use the sine ratio on triangle ACD, a move that did not help, and ultimately led him to abandon the solution attempt. It is possible that David could have restarted his solution attempt, however, he did not do so. It could be inferred that the mental models that Michael employed during problem solution drew upon a greater range of geometric schemas than those of David. Equally, these generated models had an extended chain of reasoning- and knowledge-generation actions which ultimately Jed to the solution of the problem. In contrast, the models constructed by the low-achieving student had fewer bits of information, and while these information had the potential to lead to the solution it was not exploited appropriately and hence, the goal was not achieved. 5. DiscUSSsION ‘The purpose of the present study was to examine potential links between schemas and mental models generated by high school students. I have attempted to analyse the geometric schemas activated by a group of high- and low-achieving students as they worked through a geometry problem. In characterising these solution approaches, I focused on the type and frequency of geometric schemas that were activated and used by the two groups. The results of this analysis suggest that the problem-solving ap- proaches adopted by the high-achieving students involved the use of a greater range of geometric schemas than the low-achieving students. The second feature of the students’ solution attempts was that the high-achieving students tended to activate the available schemas more often than their low-achieving peers. A further analysis of students’ solution transcripts revealed that students who were classified as high-achievers accessed geo- metric schemas that were more sophisticated and varied than those acti- vated by their low-achieving counterparts. These results, in general, pro-MOHAN CHINNAPPAN, Information Schema Information Schema Production Activation Production Activation Angle CDA=90° ‘Tongent-radins Angle CDA=90° Tangent-radius theorem ‘Angle ACE=90° ‘Angle ACE-909 Perpendicuarity ‘Angle ACD=60° Complementarity ' ' Angle ACD=60° ‘Complementarity Angle CAD=309 ‘Sum of angles in a triangle theorem CDA is a right- Right-angled Right-angled angled triangle ttiangle triangle ' Difference between Sine ratio segments ' Cosine 609 = Cosine ratio SIAB#S ! AB=Scm Michael David Figure 2. Solution paths for high- and low-achieving students vided support for the hypotheses that high-achievers would not only access geometrical knowledge in the form of schemas more frequently that their low-achieving peers, but also that such knowledge structures would be qualitatively superior than those used by the low-achieving students. Further, it was predicted that students from both the ability group- ings would construct mental models or representations of the problem by using geometric schemas that they were able to access during the solu- tion attempt. In order to investigate the mental models, students’ solution approaches to the problem were analysed. This analysis revealed two im- portant characteristics about the nature of the mental models that were con- structed by the two groups. Firstly, all the students in the high-achieving group showed a tendency to analyse the problem methodically by adoptingSCHEMAS AND MENTAL MODELS IN GEOMETRY PROBLEM SOLVING — 213 a clear path. This was in contrast to the low-achievers’ efforts where about 60 percent of their solutions indicated a lack of direction in the way they went about tackling the problem. A second feature of their solution was that, two of the high-achievers adopted a novel approach involving the use of similar triangle schemas which was not the case with the low-achieving group. The difference in the activation and use of geometric schemas between the two groups could be given the following explanation. The high-achieving students attended to the structural features of the problem and were thus able to form meaningful, integrated mental representations which showed the link between the givens and the problem goal. Having established this relationship, these students were then able to search their memory for the relevant geometric schemas that would enable them to bridge the gap between the two. The low-achievers, in contrast, tended to focus on the superficial aspects and hence did not see the connections among the important features of the problem and their own schemas of geometry. According to English (1997) and Gentner (1983), an important aspect of the modelling process is the identification of salient features of the given problem, and aligning these with components of their existing knowledge. The ‘aligning’ that Gentner refers to constitutes an active process that in- volves the establishment of relationships that are relevant, indeed critical to the problem solution. It appears that, during the course of the solution attempt, high-achievers were more skilful in establishing these relation- ships, and thus build models of the problem that would lead to the solution than the low-achievers. The construction of relationships between available schemas and infor- mation presented in the problem during the modelling process could also throw some light on the question of ‘inert’ knowledge raised by Bereiter and Scardamalia (1985) where students who have the necessary mathe- matical schemas do not use them or use them inappropriately during the search for the solution. From the mental modelling point of view the failure of students to use available knowledge can be explained by the fact that these students do not build models of the problem which draw out the links between their prior schematised knowledge and elements embedded in the problem. Both Michael and David were able to identify the right-angled trian- gle ACD. However, Michael could notice the relevance of this triangle in determining the length of the segment AC, which he subsequently used to find the length of segment AB. David, on the other hand, could not identify the link between these two pieces of geometric information. He went on to find the length of segment AD but gave up at this point. The critical214 MOHAN CHINNAPPAN move in representing the given problem is to link the various information located in the problem in order to find the length of segment AC, David's activity in generating and using his schemas suggests that he did not ‘see’ this important link. It could be argued that Michael had built up a richer network of geometric schemas which he accessed and manipulated during the construction of more elaborate or sophisticated mental models than that produced by David. In other words, Michael’s mental models could be seen as comprisi tructural elements (Halford, 1993) which show the correspondence between components of the problem and the activated geometric schemas. Furthermore, Michael appeared to be more active and persistent in con- structing an appropriate model which focused on determining the seg- ment AC, and he exhibited a tendency to be more purposeful in applying previously-learnt geometric schemas during the solution process. This lat- ter behaviour could be interpreted as suggesting monitoring of the solution process by Michael. Such behaviour of a high-achieving student is consis- tent with previous findings that good problem solvers constantly attend to and evaluate the progress of their efforts (Lester, 1988) and keep track of the consequences of their actions (Glaser, 1984). Overall, results of the present study support the argument that the ac- cessing and use of geometric knowledge during problem-solving is in- fluenced by the organisational quality of that knowledge. It appears that students who structure their prior geometrical knowledge into chunks or schemas also develop an understanding of when and how to deploy that knowledge productively during problem solving. Such an understanding is exhibited by the models they generate during solution attempts. Dur- ing the modelling process, students have to establish connections between lable but isolated schemas in ways that would help them arrive at the problem goal, In this sense, modelling of the problem by the high- and low- achievers reported in the present study is in accordance with other stud- ies on experU/novice problem representation (Chi, Glaser and Rees, 1982: Chiesi, Spilich and Voss, 1979; De Jong and Ferguson-Hessler, 1986; Schoen- feld, 1985). Although the data I have generated in the present study provide only a partial picture about possible interactions between the state of organisation of available geometric knowledge and the accessing of that knowledge dur- ing problem solving, it does show that attention to the qualitative aspects of knowledge development and utilisation has the potential to improve cur- rent levels of understandings about why some mathematics students expe- rience difficulties in applying previously learnt knowledge. In the present study, [ have provided explanations about the above interaction betweenSCHEMAS AND MENTAL MODELS IN GEOMETRY PROBLEM SOLVING — 215, knowledge access and its quality from the perspective of mental models. However, more work is needed in this important area involving mental models or representations and the accessing of available knowledge in the domain of geometry if we are to characterise students’ patterns of use of geometric knowledge with a greater degree of accuracy and confidence One methodological limitation in this study is that I have used a problem- solving activity to gain insight into the type of geometric schemas that students were able to access during the modelling process. Solving one problem may not provide the best context in which all students could display their modelling activity. As one of the reviewers suggested, it is possible that other tasks could have been given to the students, partic- ularly to those in the low-achieving group. The use of these alternative tasks could provide better opportunities for the low-achievers to exhibit their schemas and thus provide a more complete picture about not only the models they construct but also the knowledge segments they negotiate during the modelling process. For instance, asking students to explain their solution to others in the class could also help generate data relevant to the issue of schemas and modelling. In addition to the quality of the knowledge base, there are other fac- tors that could have had an effect on the degree of schema access that was exhibited by the students of during the construction of models. For example, it is possible that the accessing of geometric schemas was facil- itated not only by the organisation of schemas but also by the activation of general strategies of problem solving (Alexander and Judy, 1988). Fu- ture studies need to address this issue of the relationship between general problem-solving strategies and schema use during the modelling process While it is too early to draw implications for classroom instruction, it appears that attention to the development of a range of geometric schemas could be beneficial in helping students make progress during problem solv- ing. Schoenfeld (1987) made the important point that the development of organised knowledge clusters such as schemas could play a significant role in understanding a problem and tackling the problem in different ways. The results of this study seem to support the above view. 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