Kindergartners' understanding of additive commutativity within the context of word problems.
Baroody and Gannon (1984) proposed that children's understanding of additive commutativity progresses through several levels of understanding based on a unary view of addition (change meaning) before developing a "true" level of understanding based on a binary conception (part-whole meaning). Resnick (1992) implied that children have both a unary and a binary conception of additive commutativity from the earliest stages of development. Fifty-three 5- and 6-year-old (M = 6-0) kindergartners' unary and binary understanding of additive commutativity was investigated using performance on tasks involving change-add-to and part-part-whole word problems, respectively. The data were inconsistent with the predictions of both models and suggest three alternate theoretical explanations. Moreover, the data indicate that success on a task involving change-add-to problems may be a more rigorous test of understanding of additive commutativity than that involving part-part-whole problems.
Wilkins
J L
JL
Department of Teaching and Learning, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg 24061, USA.
Baroody
A J
AJ
Tiilikainen
S
S
D000704:Analysis of Variance; D002648:Child; D002657:Child Development; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003210:Concept Formation; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008433:Mathematics; D008960:Models, Psychological; D011340:Problem Solving