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College developmental math students’ knowledge of the equal sign

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Abstract

Decades of research have documented young students’ misinterpretations of the equal sign and the impediments these present for children’s mathematical development. Much less is known about individual differences in adults’ knowledge of the equal sign. We assessed 182 college students from developmental math courses and present analyses from a subset of items on a previously validated assessment of mathematical equality. College students exhibited variability in their interpretations of the equal sign, and these individual differences were related both to their solutions for open equations with variables and to their interpretations of an algebraic expression. Students who provided a relational interpretation of the equal sign were most successful on target algebra problems and students who only provided an operational interpretation of the equal sign were least successful. These results show that misinterpretations of the equal sign can persist well beyond elementary school and can provide a critical indicator of broader mathematical reasoning among college students.

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Funding

Parts of this research were conducted while Fyfe was financially supported by Institute of Education Sciences, U. S. Department of Education, training grant R305B130007 as part of the Wisconsin Center for Education Research Postdoctoral Training Program.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University, 1101 E. 10th Street, Bloomington, IN, 47405, USA

    Emily R. Fyfe

  2. Department of Educational Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA

    Percival G. Matthews

  3. Department of Psychology, Weber State University, Ogden, UT, USA

    Eric Amsel

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  1. Emily R. Fyfe
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  2. Percival G. Matthews
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  3. Eric Amsel
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Correspondence to Emily R. Fyfe.

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Fyfe, E.R., Matthews, P.G. & Amsel, E. College developmental math students’ knowledge of the equal sign. Educ Stud Math 104, 65–85 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10649-020-09947-2

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