Abstract

LAUTERT, Síntria Labres  and  SPINILLO, Alina Galvão. Children's representation of division: from oral language to other kinds of representation. Temas psicol. [online]. 1999, vol.7, n.1, pp. 23-36. ISSN 1413-389X.

This study investigated the way children with different educational leveis represent division in graphic situations (with pencil and paper) and using concrete material (tokens). Eighty children (5-8) have individually read two divisions and asked to represent them using paper and pencil or tokens. Children's representations were analyzed according to the graphic signs they used and according to the explicitness of their procedures to solve the divisions. It has been seen that most of the children used mathematical symbols. Instruction affected only the explicitness of the procedures adopted to solve the divisions. It was also seen that children made more elaborated representations when using paper and pencil than when using concrete material. The main conclusion has been that mathematical knowledge and the assessment situation have an impact on the way children represent their knowledge and also on the way their knowledge is affected by the representations they use.

Keywords : representation; division; development.

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