Shared drawings in a mathematical modelling activity: An exploratory study

Recently, scholars have argued that drawings have a crucial role in the students’ modelling performance. Nevertheless, such a correlation cannot be extended to complex modelling problems. In this work, we consider the students’ drawing activities when dealing with a complex geometry problem. In particular, this paper reports an exploratory study from 11-grade students exposed to a realistic scenario from the sport context on which they have worked for 4 hours. The analysed data, which focus on one of the class discussions, show that drawings help students in going throughout the modelling process and that even shared inaccurate drawings play a crucial role in this sense.