Research!?

Research before we did our initial study;

Background Research:

We have found a couple of sources of people mentioning that they noticed and questioned why some people might be better at one math class than the other. However, as we searched for legitimate research online, we couldn’t find anything specific to our study. Most of the websites we found had much recognition that there was definitely an inverse relationship between how well someone did in geometry as opposed to algebra. On the other hand, we did find research that specified that there is an association with left-brain and right-brain functions that excel in key characteristics of algebra or geometry. For example, the site dyslexiavitoriaonline.com explains that the left side of the brain thinks in abstract letters, numbers, written words and formulas. This is typically associated with algebra. Then it goes on to explain that the right side of the brain sees, thinks and processes information in whole, concrete images, which means that the right brain is better at understanding visuals and shapes. The right side of the brain can project the position of objects. Since the two sides of the brain operate cooperatively, it is possible that someone can be good at both, they just have to have strong visual and written assessment. Other than that, we could not find any specific statistics on our study. First we searched for any research about algebra and geometry by using keywords like ‘algebra vs. geometry’ and ‘what makes you better at algebra or geometry’. Most of the results we found were comments and quick responses of people stating if they were better at one or the other. Then we tried to search for less specific ideas pertaining to our study. For example we tried ‘algebra studies’ and ‘geometry studies’. We couldn't find any concrete research that pertained to our study in the ways we were looking for. Once we realized that there was a relationship between the connection of right side of the brain with geometry and the left side of the brain and algebra, we searched ‘research on left brain and right brain connecting algebra and geometry’ we didn't find anything that we could use with specific research. We only found people’s personal opinions and experiences of dealing with being left-brain dominant or right-brain dominant and how it affected their lives with math classes.