The solving of simple arithmetic story problems

Abstract

Soon after their introduction to formal arithmetic, children are confronted with simple arithmetic story problems. The main question of this article is: how do children develop skill in the solving of these simple problems. And furthermore: is it possible to construct simulation models that adequately describe the varied behavior of children at different levels of skill. One of the main problems with the models presented thus far is that they are only capable of describing a limited part of children's behavior that can be observed in daily life. The models presented in this study are an attempt to overcome this difficulty. Use has been made of the notion of “repair” to enhance the range of performance patterns of the different models. The output of five models has been compared to data gathered in an empirical study with 5-, 6-, 7-, and 8-year-olds. The results indicate that the five models do give a fairly adequate description of the behavior under study. The repair notion has been found to be useful in enlarging the scale of possible performance patterns and, consequently, the models are capable of describing a wide variety of empirical data.