Elementary School Students' Mental Representation of Fractions

Abstract

Based on psychological approaches that evoke mental representations through verbal and visual cues, this paper investigates the different kinds of mental representations projected by 8 to 11 year old children of identified arithmetical achievement when responding to verbal and visual stimuli associated with fractions. It examines how the visual and verbal cues may affect the kind of mental representations the students' project. The paper traces the way these mental representations may change from an immediate "first" response to a "30 seconds" response. The study reveals that different formats of the stimuli and the elapse of time not only evoke different kinds of mental representation but that these different kinds may be strongly associated with the level of mathematical achievement. For complete proceedings, see ED489597.]