Introducing the distributivity property of multiplication over addition is a well-known challenge in mathematics education, especially in primary school. As a contribution, this paper presents the results of a cycle of design research that focuses on the design, implementation and evaluation of a modelling activity in which 2nd-grade students are…

Seventy-three children between 6 and 7 years of age were presented with a problem having ambiguous subgoal ordering. Performance in this task showed reliable fingerprints: (a) a non-monotonic dependence of performance as a function of the distance between the beginning and the end-states of the problem, (b) very high levels of performance when the…

Distinguishing between sources of variability in mathematics performance may contribute to a more comprehensive theory of mathematics skills. Research has examined student differences based upon scores on achievement tests, which provide overall proficiency, but may not provide the detailed information for identifying and remediating difficulties.…