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6 février 2019
- ISIDORE Id: 10670/1.45d130...
- hal: hal-02400975
info:eu-repo/semantics/OpenAccess
Mots-clés
Arithmetic Order of operations Precedence rulesSujets proches
School life Students--Education Pupils Student life and customsCiter ce document
Robert Gunnarsson et al., « Pairing numbers: An unconventional way of evaluating arithmetic expressions », HAL SHS (Sciences de l’Homme et de la Société), ID : 10670/1.45d130...
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Résumé
We have analyzed the written solutions to four arithmetic expressions comprising addition/subtraction and multiplication of 4 to 7 numbers from 235 students (112 in Greece and 123 in Sweden, 11-12 years old). Beside the order-of-operations and sequential (left-to-right) calculations, several students seem to calculate in an unconventional way by pairing numbers. That is, there are students who combine the numbers two-and-two, seemingly regardless of the operations, and then operate on these pairs when evaluating an expression. In our data, pairing seems to be as frequent as sequential calculations. We identify the characteristics of three qualitatively different ways of pairing. The different ways seem to be applied independent of the length of the numerical expression.
