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Related Experiment Video

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Multimedia Battery for Assessment of Cognitive and Basic Skills in Mathematics (BM-PROMA)

Multimedia Battery for Assessment of Cognitive and Basic Skills in Mathematics (BM-PROMA)

Published on: August 28, 2021

Children's early mental number line: logarithmic or decomposed linear?

Korbinian Moeller¹, Silvia Pixner, Liane Kaufmann

¹Department of Psychology, Eberhard Karls University, Tuebingen, Germany. korbinian.moeller@uni-tuebingen.de

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology

|March 31, 2009

Summary

Children's number line understanding may involve two separate linear models for one- and two-digit numbers, not a logarithmic-to-linear shift. Improved integration of number components explains performance differences in young learners.

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Area of Science:

Cognitive Development
Educational Psychology
Number Representation

Background:

Children's mental number line development is typically viewed as a transition from logarithmic to linear representations.
This traditional view suggests age and experience drive the transformation in number line estimation.

Purpose of the Study:

To propose and test an alternative model for children's mental number line performance.
To investigate whether young children utilize separate linear representations for different number magnitudes.

Main Methods:

A number line task was administered to over 120 first-grade students.
The study analyzed performance data using both traditional logarithmic/linear models and a proposed two-linear model.

Main Results:

The two-linear model provided a consistently better fit to the data than traditional models.
This suggests young children may initially represent one- and two-digit numbers using distinct linear scales.

Conclusions:

Children's number line performance differences may stem from developing integration of number components within the place value system.
An alternative explanation to the logarithmic-to-linear transition is the mastery of integrating tens and units in the Arabic number system.