Psychological Development and Education ›› 2012, Vol. 28 ›› Issue (2): 210-217.

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Conceptual Understanding of Equivalent Fractions

HAN Yu-lei1, XIN Zi-qiang2, HU Qing-fen1   

  1. 1. Institute of Developmental Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875;
    2. Department of Psychology at School of Social Development, Central University of Finance and Economics, Beijing 100081
  • Online:2012-03-15 Published:2012-03-15

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Abstract: Equivalent fractions are fractions with the same numerical value,which is constructed on the basis of a certain proportional relationship between two quantities.Previous literature has shown that before receiving formal education,children have had informal knowledge for equivalent fractions.However,they still have trouble in understanding the concept.For this phenomenon,two reasons have been proposed:first,children are limited by the developmental level of operational thinking,because children have not reached multiplicative thinking and conservation concept;second,they lack complete understanding for the different semantic meanings of equivalent fractions.In the future,it is necessary to further explore the developmental path from informal knowledge to the formal concept,and try to conduct teaching experiments of equivalent fractions in children's early ages,and combine a variety of semantic contexts to examine children's concept development level.

Key words: equivalent fraction, multiplicative thinking, conservation, semantic meaning

CLC Number: 

  • B844
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