| Abstract: | Arithmetic word problems with an unknown reference set, such as "John has 7 eggs. He has 4 eggs fewer [more] than Peter. How many eggs does Peter have?" are considerably more difficult for children than problems with an unknown compare set (2nd sentence: "Peter has 4 eggs more [fewer] than John"). Six experiments with 1st graders and kindergartners investigated reasons for this finding. Exps 1–4 revealed that neither difficulties in processing the personal pronoun nor the use of key word strategies could explain the difficulty differences. Exp 5 showed that most 1st graders were not aware that the difference between 2 sets can be expressed by either "In Set x there are n more objects than in Set y" or "In Set y there are n fewer objects than in Set x." Exp 6 indicated that this lack of access to flexible language use is what makes compare problems with an unknown reference so difficult. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved) |
