Abstract
An earlier study analysed responses by 70 young children to a variety of multiplication and division word problems at four interview stages in a 2-year longitudinal study (Mulligan, 1992). 75% of the children were able to solve the problems using a wide variety of counting, grouping and modelling strategies and these mantic structure of the problem strongly influenced solution process. A follow up study was conducted with the same sample (n=45) in Grade 6, prior to entry to secondary school. Identical problem structures were used including problems involving decimals. A similar pattern of performance to the longitudinal study revealed a 60-85% success rate except for Sub-division, and poorer results for decimal problems. Informal methods used by children in the. early stages of the study dominated their understanding of multiplicative structures in Grade 6. Evidence of children's lack of conceptual understanding of multiplication and division was revealed.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Proceedings of the 16th annual conference of the Mathematics Education Research Group of Australasia |
| Editors | B. Atweh, C. Kanes, M. Carss, G. Booker |
| Place of Publication | Brisbane, QUT |
| Publisher | MERGA |
| Pages | 423-431 |
| Number of pages | 7 |
| Publication status | Published - 1993 |