Elementary Students and Early Fraction Learning: A Closer Analysis of the Qualitative Reasoning Displayed by First Graders

• Sophia Surdovel, Psychology, University of Delaware

• Nancy Jordan, School of Education, University of Delaware

Early fraction learning is a task that comes with great difficulty for young learners, specifically with elementary students. Prior to fraction learning, students focus mainly on whole number acquisition, learning the values of whole numbers, how to order them on a number line, and recognizing which number is larger or smaller. Such solidified understanding of whole numbers makes fraction learning especially difficult due to whole number bias, “the assumption that properties of whole numbers are properties of all numbers” (Siegler et al., 2013). In the current study, a qualitative analysis of fraction comparison responses from 45 first-grade students was conducted to see how their reasoning was influenced by whole number bias and if this reasoning evolved when tested again. Data was collected as part of a larger study focused on examining the effects of playful fraction training. First grade students were pre- and posttested on early fraction concepts, and this analysis will focus on the data from two fraction magnitude comparison questions (i.e., ½ compared to ¼). A coding scheme was created to see what types of whole number biases students were displaying, in which they either added the denominator to the numerator, compared the values of the denominators, or combined the numerator and denominator (i.e., ½ = 12). Coding revealed  that over 70% of the students’ responses for both questions were influenced by whole number bias, with comparison of denominators being most common. With such results, it can be seen that whole number bias plays a part in the way elementary students understand and learn about fractions, taking their knowledge of whole number rules and applying them to fractions. This suggests introducing fractions earlier and utilizing whole number bias as a way of adapting their knowledge of magnitudes and comparisons and translating it to knowledge about fractions.