Recognising the difference between additive and multiplicative thinking in young children

Jacob, L. and Willis, S. (2001) Recognising the difference between additive and multiplicative thinking in young children. In: 24th Annual Conference of the Mathematics Education Research Group of Australasia, 30 June - 4 July 2001, University of Sydney, N.S.W..

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Abstract

Multiplicative thinking cannot be generalised in any simple way from additive thinking. A premise of this paper is that teachers need to recognise the difference between additive and multiplicative thinking if they are to help children develop the latter. This paper describes an empirical study that investigated the potential of a set of tasks to distinguish between additive and multiplicative thinkers, and illustrates the results through the responses of two children.