The primary objective of this study was to provide an experimental model of children's representations of addition and subtraction concepts viewed as constructed schemes. How children with different counting schemes differ in their addition and subtraction concepts and how the types of problems children solve correlate with the addition and…

Over the past few years a substantial body of research has yielded evidence that the semantic structure of elementary arithmetic word problems influences children's strategies to solve them. The study reported in this document considered three other task characteristics in addition to semantic structure: (1) the order of presentation of the two…

The purpose of this study was to relate children's cognitive processing capabilities and their grade level to their performance and to the strategies they used when working addition and subtraction problems. From two sets of data which assessed memory capacity and cognitive processing capacities, six groups of children with different cognitive…

Presented are four interpretive reports and a list of current publications of the Mathematics Work Group at the Wisconsin R&D Center. The first interpretive report gives a brief overview of their work. Reports two through four are concerned with individual interviews, carried out during a longitudinal study, in which primary children are asked to…

To ascertain if children's use of manipulatives and/or the teacher's presentation of the problem in parts (chunking) affect children's ability to model and/or solve addition and/or subtraction problems, 146 first-grade subjects were administered the Houston Addition and Subtraction Problem-Solving Test which provided accuracy and modeling scores…

This study compared the error patterns of third- and fourth-grade children on addition, subtraction, and multiplication exercises in horizontal and vertical formats. The research design used parallel eight-item tests for each operation; the only difference between items on parallel forms was the formal (horizontal or vertical) of the computational…

This study documented the spontaneously derived strategies that children use which may play a key role in the transition from counting to recall of number facts. For these strategies, the child uses a small set of known number facts to derive the solution to unknown number facts. How training in the use of derived strategies influences the…

Three factors associated with arithmetical processes (sequence skills, arithmetical strategies, and information processing capacity) were measured in individual interviews with 35 first-grade pupils, aged 7.6 to 8.6, in one Finnish school. Mathematics achievement was determined from information supplied by teachers. Attitudes were assessed twice,…

The study investigated children's ability to write number sentences for simple addition and subtraction word problems. The results suggest that open number sentences may provide mathematical symbolism that allows young children to build on informal strategies for presenting and solving simple word problems. (Author/PK)

Describes a study designed to investigate the relationship between students' learning of the standard double-digit addition algorithm and basic fact mastery or numeration concepts. Results suggest basic fact mastery and knowledge of numeration concepts may not be as necessary as previously assumed to learning multidigit addition. (PK)

The basic scope of this study is to investigate the learning of mathematical concepts by primary grade students whose native language is other than English (Spanish). The efforts of the investigators in the study and the analysis of students' behaviors are to be concentrated in the areas of addition and subtraction operations, concept of number,…

Three studies on the development of number concepts (counting, addition, subtraction, and place value) in seven- to nine-year-olds considered low attainers in mathematics were conducted. The search for a descriptive framework, the development of a diagnostic assessment instrument, and a longitudinal study are reported. (MNS)

In the foreword to this book, Inhelder states that its essential contribution is that "it transposed to actual reality Piaget's central epistemological thesis according to which mathematical thought is, from its most elementary manifestations, the product of the subject's activity that he characterized by the term 'reflective…

The object of this study was to specify the relationship between logical and numerical structures by examining the processes used by operational and preoperational children in solving simple addition and subtraction problems. (MP)

An editorial and abstracts for 12 research reports are contained in this issue. The editorial by Robert E. Reys focuses on the dangers of publishing poor research. The abstracts, each with a critique, concern research on a game for logical reasoning, wait-time and sex differences, vocabulary instruction on ratio and proportion, male-female…