Abstract

The bi-directional multiplicative relationship between place-value positions is what makes the decimal number system powerful and efficient. However, Baturo's (1998) study found that only the top 3.9% of 329 Years 5 and 6 students had constructed this relationship. Other high to medium performing students saw the relationship in one direction only (unidirectional) or as additive, whilst the lower-performing students saw no relationship at all (they had incomplete knowledge of the place-value positions and impoverished understanding of the part/whole notion of fractions). Intervention involving concrete materials, appropriate language, and calculators (symbolic representations) was successful (and almost instantaneous) for the unidirectional and additive students but not for the low performing students. This paper will elaborate on the assessment tasks and the intervention episodes undertaken, discuss the causes of low performance, and will draw implications for learning the decimal number system.

Bionote

Dr Annette Baturo is a lecturer in mathematics education with prior experience as a primary teacher and curriculum writer. She has been involved in major research projects studying children's acquisition of and access to decimal number knowledge and evaluating the classroom use of computers for learning mathematics.

Presentation Type
30 min. Paper

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Country
Australia