Participatory and Anticipatory Stages of Mathematical Concept Learning: Further Empirical and Theoretical Development

Tzur and Simon (2004) postulated 2 stages of development in learning a mathematical concept: participatory and anticipatory. In this article, we discuss the affordances for research of this stage distinction related to data analysis, task design, and assessment as demonstrated in a 2-year teaching experiment. We describe our modifications to and further explicate and exemplify the theoretical underpinnings of these stage constructs. We introduce a representation scheme and use it to trace the development of a concept from initial activity, through the participatory stage, and to the anticipatory stage.