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This paper investigates South African 12th Grade students’ conceptual challenges with mathematical symbolization and instructional strategies that teachers use to mitigate mathematical symbolization. The study is motivated by the students’ failure to connect representations between symbolic and mathematical ideas to understand concepts and procedures. The study attempts to gain insight into mathematical symbols as potential barriers to students’ understanding of mathematical concepts and processes. The study consists of 120 randomly selected 12th Grade students and 15 purposefully selected mathematics teachers from Sekhukhune district of Limpopo Province, South Africa. Data was collected through questionnaires and focus group interviews. A mixed-method sequential explanatory design was employed. An SPSS cluster analysis of data produced three (3) clusters consisting of 50 (41.6%), 47 (39.3%) and 23 (19.1%) students with severe, mild, and minor challenges with mathematical symbols. Two themes emerged from the students’ difficulties with mathematical symbols. Firstly, students lack symbol sense for mathematical concepts and algebraic insight for problem-solving. Secondly, students disregard conceptual and contextual uses of symbols. The study therefore suggests that students’ negotiation of discourse between the mathematical symbol and the mathematical concept or procedure is crucial developing symbolic meaning. Therefore, teachers need to use appropriate strategies to engage students in processes that allow them to make meanings of mathematical symbols. The study recommends that concepts should be understood before symbolised.

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