AN EXPRESSION OF MATHEMATICAL CONNECTIONS IN MULTIPLICATION-RELATED THINKING IN THIRD AND FOURTH GRADES OF PRIMARY SCHOOL

Abstract

Mathematical comprehension is closely related to a cognition of mathematical connections. A multiplication is a mathematical operation characterized by complex mathematical connections. Students are early introduced with the multiplication. Therefore, in primary school, not so developed cognition of mathematical connections may become a reason for difficulties in Maths. A functionality of concept is based on a view to a multiplication. The analysis scientific literature revealed that a thinking of multiplication can be either additive or multiplicative. Additionally, the multiplication learning has a variety of additive and multiplicative explanations. Because they use different specificity of visualization, the models are not equally suitable for teaching children about different properties of multiplication. Based on research, in Math classes, students are only introduced with few of the models, not covering a whole variety of them. In the research, a paper and pencil type of survey consisted of 157 participants from 3rd and 4th Grades, eight different classes from four different schools. The students had to fill the table explaining multiplication of 5 x 12 in a form of writing and drawing. The quantitative analysis of results has showed that in Grades 3 to 4, the additive view to multiplication is much more prevalent, in comparison to the multiplicative reasoning. The array model is used often but not in an extensive way. The students do not know other types of multiplicative type models. In conclusion, the results showed that students of Grades 3rd and 4th knew not enough about the mathematical connections. Therefore, teachers should pay more attention to teaching students various ways of visualizing, for children, to obtain a comprehensive understanding of the multiplication process. Acknowledgement. This work was supported by a grant (No. 09.2.1-ESFA-K-728-01-0040) from the ESFA. Keywords: additive reasoning, multiplication learning, multiplicative reasoning, primary mathematics education.