Stability and change in children’s division strategies

• Published in: Journal of experimental child psychology 2006-03, Vol.93 (3), p.224-238
• Main Authors: Robinson, Katherine M., Arbuthnott, Katherine D., Rose, Danica, McCarron, Michelle C., Globa, Carin A., Phonexay, Sylvia D.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Age Differences; Age Factors; Arithmetic; Association Learning; Biological and medical sciences; Child; Child development; Child psychology; Concept Formation; Developmental psychology; Division; Elementary school students; Experimental psychology; Female; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Grade 4; Grade 5; Grade 6; Grade 7; Humans; Intermediate Grades; Knowledge; Male; Mathematical Concepts; Mathematics; Mathematics education; Mental Computation; Mental Recall; Middle school students; Problem Sets; Problem Solving; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Reaction Time; Retention (Psychology); Strategies
• ISSN: 0022-0965; 1096-0457
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2005.09.002

Age-related changes in children’s performance on simple division problems (e.g., 6 ÷ 2, 72 ÷ 9) were investigated by asking children in Grades 4 through 7 to solve 32 simple division problems. Differences in performance were found across grade, with younger children performing more slowly and less accurately than older children. Problem size effects were also found in that children were faster and more accurate on small problems than on large problems. Two strategies changed across age, with children in Grade 4 relying heavily on the strategy of “addition” (adding the divisor until the dividend was reached) to solve the problems and children in Grades 5 through 7 relying primarily on the strategy of “multiplication” (recasting the division problem as a multiplication problem) to solve the problems. Surprisingly, the frequency of direct retrieval (retrieving the answer directly from memory) did not increase across grade and never became the dominant strategy of choice. Reasons for why retrieval use remains infrequent and age invariant are discussed. Overall, the results suggest that division is a unique operation and that the continued study of division may have implications for further understanding of how procedural and conceptual knowledge of arithmetic develops.