We report the validity of a test instrument that assesses the arithmetic ability of primary students by (a) describing the theoretical model of arithmetic ability assessment using Wilson's (2004) four building blocks of constructing measures and (b) providing empirical evidence for the validation study. The instrument consists of 21…

This study aimed to examine the diagrammatic representation skills and problem-solving performances of students according to their problem-solving representations. A cross-sectional survey design using quantitative methods was used in this study. The sample consisted of 31 second-grade and 41 third-grade students from a public primary school in…

Research studies are abundant in pointing at how the transition from additive to multiplicative thinking acts as a core challenge for students' understanding of proportionality. This said, we have yet to understand how this transition can be supported, and there remains significant questions to address about how students experience it. Recent work…

Many U.S. students possess only a weak knowledge of fraction arithmetic. I hypothesize that textbooks are a critical reason for students' poor performance on fraction arithmetic. This is not because of what textbooks contain but rather because of what they lack. Distributions of fraction arithmetic problems in textbooks are imbalanced, with…

Students' understanding of the meaning of the equal sign develops slowly over the primary grades. In addition to updating their representations of equations to recognize that the equal sign represents an equivalence relation rather than signaling an operation, students need to move beyond full computation to efficiently solve equivalence problems.…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of the concrete-representational-abstract--integrated (CRA-I) sequence on students with learning disabilities' performance when learning fraction and decimal concepts. Three elementary-level students in Grades 4 and 6 participated in a single-case multiple probe across behaviors study. The…

This study investigates how the approximate number system (ANS) and young children's symbolic skills jointly develop and interact. Specifically, the study aims at disentangling the directionality of the association between ANS acuity and a wide range of symbolic skills that reflect 4- to 5-year-olds' symbolic quantitative knowledge (enumeration…

Decimals and the related areas of ratio and proportion are recognised as one of the most challenging and complex areas of mathematics for young children to learn. In this study, four dynamic digital representations were used by Year 4 (9-10 years old) students in a set of video-recorded, individual task-based interviews to explore key concepts of…

The aim of this paper is to describe and analyze how a group of prospective teachers create problems to develop proportional reasoning either freely or from a given situation across different contexts, and the difficulties they encounter. Additionally, it identifies their beliefs about what constitutes a good problem and assesses whether these…

Mathematical skills significantly predict students' educational paths. Mathematical achievement varies depending on the student's socioeconomic status (SES). However, the extent of the SES gap for specific mathematical skills remains unclear. In this cross-sectional study, we examined age variations by SES in three mathematical skills, applied…

This article explores the educational and philosophical contributions of Nikolai V. Bugaev, a prominent 19th-century Russian mathematician and founder of the Moscow philosophical-mathematical school. The study specifically focuses on Bugaev's textbook, "Arithmetic of Whole Numbers," analyzing Bugaev's pedagogical approaches within the…

In this paper, we detail the outcomes of a small-scale intervention study that aimed to support the mathematising processes of Grade 2 South African learners when working with additive relations problems. We report on the mathematising shifts that were evident in pre- and post-test responses prior to and after a sequence of 13 intervention…

For several decades, digital formative assessment tools and platforms have been promoted as promising for supporting adaptive teaching. For learning goals such as procedural fluency, this promise has been held across a range of subject-matter topics. For conceptual learning goals, however, the available digital formative assessment tools are much…

The usage of digital media, especially tablet apps, is currently a major concern in educational settings. A controversial discussion is also taking place in relation to mathematics education at primary schools. While on the one hand there are empirical findings on helpful isolated examples and related subject-didactic potentials of digital media,…

This research arises as a necessity to solve deficiencies in basic mathematics in university students. The objective was to determine the effect on academic achievement when implementing a didactic strategy for learning arithmetic. The study design is pre-experimental with pretest and post-test. The participants of the experiment are freshman year…