This article reports on a study in which researchers asked children to "make up as story and a picture about marbles for this number sentence: 3 x 5 = 15." Students in this study came from pre - dominantly low- to average-income families living in three distinct geographical areas within the United States. A similar division task was…

This study explored the potential of a rich assessment task to reveal students' multiplicative thinking in respect to a hypothetical learning trajectory. Thirty pairs of students in grades 5 and 6 attempted the task. Twenty-two pairs applied multiplicative structure to find the number of items in arrays. However counting and computational errors…

The purpose of this study is to explore Grade 9 learners' understanding of ratio and proportion. The sample consists of a group of 30 mathematics learners from a rural school in the province of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Data were generated from their responses to two missing value items, adapted from the Concepts in Secondary Mathematics and…

This study aims to explain the thinking process of students in solving combination problems considered from assimilation and accommodation frameworks. This research used a case study approach by classifying students into three categories of capabilities namely high, medium and low capabilities. From each of the ability categories, one student was…

A first application of multilevel latent class analysis (MLCA) to educational large-scale assessment data is demonstrated. This statistical technique addresses several of the challenges that assessment data offers. Importantly, MLCA allows modeling of the often ignored teacher effects and of the joint influence of teacher and student variables.…

We used event-related potentials (ERPs) to determine the time course of mechanisms underlying strategy selection. Participants had to select the better strategy on multiplication problems (i.e., 51 × 27) to find approximate products. They could choose between rounding up and rounding down both operands to their nearest decades. Two types of…

In this article, the authors discuss a special type of multiplication-and-division-of-fractions problem that elementary school teachers can use to promote children's understanding of fractional quantities and their relationships. These problems are accessible to students working at different levels of fraction understanding, and they can be solved…

The Smarties-Box Challenge encourages students to apply several different mathematical capabilities and concepts--such as, estimation, multiplication, and the notion of being systematic--to solve a complex, multistep problem. To effectively engage in the Smarties-Box Challenge, students are required to demonstrate aspects of all four proficiency…

This analytical study analyzed the performance in Basic Mathematics of the indigenous students, the Aeta students (Grade 6) of Sta. Juliana Elementary School, Capas, Tarlac, and the APC students of Malaybalay City, Bukidnon. Results were compared with regular students in rural, urban, private, and public schools to analyze indigenous students'…

In this case study, we examine the usage of language -- how teachers used and regulated their language when teaching English language learners (ELLs) with learning disabilities (LD) how to solve mathematics multiplication problems. We focus on types of scaffolds used by teachers to identify how scaffolding helps ELLs with LD build better…

We investigated a new phenomenon that sheds light on age-related differences in strategy selection: the strategy repetition phenomenon (i.e., tendency to repeat the same strategy over consecutive items). Young and older adults had to provide the best estimates of multiplication problems like 47 × 86. They had to select the best of 2 rounding…

This qualitative research, drawing on the theoretical frameworks by Even (1990, 1993) and Sfard (2007), investigated five high school mathematics teachers' geometric interpretations of complex number multiplication along with the roots of unity. The main finding was that mathematics teachers constructed the modulus, the argument, and the conjugate…

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.…

This research aims to analyze ways of understanding of students with mathematics learning disabilities when learning fraction. The research was conducted in an Inclusive Junior High School in the West Java Province, Indonesia. This study is qualitative, with the single-case (holistic) designs. The case will focus on three students who suspected of…

Proficiency in mathematics across the United States has become an area of concern as performance on state accountability tests continues to demonstrate that less than 50% of students in 4th and 8th grade are proficient in mathematics (NCES, 2013). With such large numbers of students lacking proficiency in mathematics, systematic interventions that…