Comment analyser le fonctionnement représentationnel des tableaux et leur diversité ?

Abstract

Tables seem the easiest way of organising and communicating information. They are become one pedagogic medium which is widely used in education, since primary school. Nevertheless they are misleading. Any comparison between the tables used in different subjects is enough to notice all the tables do not work, and therefore cannot be read, in the same way. The aim of this paper is to analyse the variety of possible kinds of tables, the cognitive functions they fulfil and the educational problems that their use arises. In regard to table organisation, we show that the basic unit of table is a list and not a square, that every list have not the same status within a table, that the means of processing change depending on whether the possibility of an empty square is given or excluded. Then a classification of the various kinds of tables can be developed. In regard to table understanding, there are two levels of grasp : one focuses on the squares of the interior of tables and the other on the way margins are selected and arranged. At last we take up some issues about learning. In order to make students aware of the different kinds of table, reading or filling squares are not relevant activity. Tasks of organisation of data into table, and also tasks of reorganisation of tables in relation to others kinds of representation, are required.