The purpose of this study was to assess children's and adults' quantitative understanding of fractions in a new and potentially definitive way, and to determine whether this understanding was related to fraction computational skill. Thirty-seven seventh graders and 32 adults (college students) participated in the study. A computation task was used…

Described is the mathematics achievement of 391 elementary education majors at the University of Arizona. Students were administered two subtests of the California Achievement Test: the Mathematics Computation Subtest and the Mathematics Concepts and Application Subtest. The CAT was administered in a non-standard manner. Students were allowed…

Research on the use of calculators in mathematics classes is reviewed. It is noted that calculators were initially too high-priced and of too low an availability to be viewed in terms of widespread use in classrooms. Technological and manufacturing advances have since made wide use possible. Proponents of calculator use see this technology as a…

Success in performing the medical calculations required of nurses demands a competency in basic mathematical skills. This competency cannot be assumed of a number of college students and the nursing student is not an exception to this trend. A test was designed to assess basic mathematical competency and administered to two groups of sophomore…

This teacher's manual accompanies a mathematics textbook for second graders, written in Portuguese. Developed from objectives set forth by the National Portuguese Materials Development Center, it follows closely the objectives and methodology of major curricula used in schools of the United States. Consideration was given to the Portuguese child's…

Abstracts of 12 mathematics education research reports and critical comments (by the abstractors) about the reports are provided in this issue of Investigations in Mathematics Education. The reports are: "More Precisely Defining and Measuring the Order-Irrelevance Principle" (Arthur Baroody); "Children's Relative Number Judgments:…

Using construed data, it is demonstrated that the commonly-used method of showing mean salary by sex or mean salary by rank by sex can be misleading, and that a more realistic picture can be obtained using multiple regression analysis. Faculty staffing patterns were designed for two simulated institutions and is presented showing means and…

This study addressed: (1) what difference, if any, would calculators make on a typical mathematics assessment instrument; (2) what might occur if students were allowed to use, but were not furnished with, calculators for testing; and (3) what implications do answers to these questions have for future statewide assessment. Eighth-grade students…

The instruction of finger counting and finger calculation, also known as Chisanbop, is promoted as a natural method of introducing and teaching the basic processes of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division to children, particularly to those who are mentally and physically handicapped. The sequential process for teaching finger…

When changes occur in the number of credit hours demanded of a teaching unit, understanding of the sources of change is valuable policy making. Acceptable methods of determining sources of variance are not intuitively obvious, nor are the limitations of the simplest approaches. Sources of variance, not their causes, are discussed. Identification…

Fourteen research reports related to mathematics education are abstracted and analyzed. Five of the reports deal with various student characteristics, four with teaching techniques, two with calculators, and one each with placement, open education, and teacher education. Research related to mathematics education which was reported in RIE and CIJE…

A new diagnostic modeling system for automatically synthesizing a deep structure model of a student's misconceptions or bugs in his/her basic mathematics skills provides a mechanism for explaining why a student is making a mistake as opposed to simply identifying the mistake. This report consists of four sections. The first provides examples of…

This is one of a series of reports summarizing the results of the second mathematics assessment conducted by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Nine, 13- and 17-year-olds were assessed during the 1977-78 school year. The assessment measured achievement in various content areas at four levels of cognitive processes (knowledge,…

A survey was conducted to determine: (1) secondary school mathematics teachers' attitudes toward calculator usage in mathematics classes; (2) teacher practices in allowing and/or encouraging the use of calculators; and (3) teachers' perceptions of their schools' policies regarding calculators in the mathematics classroom. The results indicated…

This paper, presented at the 1979 meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) in San Francisco, discusses the effects of calculator availability on the elementary school mathematics curriculum. The rationale for a shift from a computationally based curriculum to a conceptually oriented curriculum utilizing the calculator as an…