Connecting Symbolic Fractions to Their Underlying Proportions Using Iterative Partitioning

Autor/inn/en	Hurst, Michelle A.; Butts, Jacob R.; Levine, Susan C.
Titel	Connecting Symbolic Fractions to Their Underlying Proportions Using Iterative Partitioning
Quelle	In: Developmental Psychology, 58 (2022) 9, S.1702-1715 (14 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Zusatzinformation	ORCID (Hurst, Michelle A.) ORCID (Butts, Jacob R.) ORCID (Levine, Susan C.)
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0012-1649
DOI	10.1037/dev0001384
Schlagwörter	Elementary School Students; Grade 1; Grade 2; Mathematics Skills; Fractions; Elementary School Mathematics; Mathematics Instruction; Educational Games; Difficulty Level; Logical Thinking + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? School year 01; 1. Schuljahr; Schuljahr 01; School year 02; 2. Schuljahr; Schuljahr 02; Mathmatics achievement; Mathematics ability; Mathematische Kompetenz; Bruchrechnung; Elementare Mathematik; Schulmathematik; Mathematics lessons; Mathematikunterricht; Educational game; Lernspiel; Schwierigkeitsgrad
Abstract	Fractions are a challenging mathematics topic for many elementary and middle school students, and even for adults. However, a growing body of developmental research suggests that young children can reason about visually presented proportions, well before fraction instruction, providing insight into how fractions might be introduced to improve learning. We designed a card game to teach first and second grade children (N = 195, including a racially and economically diverse sample from the United States) about fractions in one of three ways. In the Actively Divided condition we iteratively divided an area model into equal-sized units, in the Predivided condition we used an area model with the end-state of the Actively Divided condition, and in the Nondivided condition we used a continuous representation of the fraction magnitude that was not divided into unit-sized parts. Children in the actively divided condition demonstrated larger improvements matching symbolic fractions and visual fractions (i.e., pie charts) than children in the other two conditions. Posthoc analyses of children's gameplay revealed that the actively divided condition may have provided a more optimal level of difficulty for young children than the predivided condition, which was particularly difficult, and the nondivided condition, which was trivially easy. These differences in gameplay performance provide insights into possible mechanisms for our results. We discuss open research questions highlighted by this work and implications of these findings for both the development of proportional reasoning and fraction learning. (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2024/1/01