Misconception on addition and subtraction of fractions in seventh-grade middle school students

Adeeb M. Jarrah; Yousef Wardat; Serigne Gningue

doi:10.29333/ejmste/12070

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Adeeb M. Jarrah ¹ , Yousef Wardat ² ^* , Serigne Gningue ¹

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¹ Emirates College for Advanced Education, Abu Dhabi, UAE² Higher Colleges of Technology, United Arab Emirates University, Alain, UAE^* Corresponding Author

Abstract

As national and international assessments continue to show students struggle with rational concepts, which are seen as a major stumbling block for future career in STEM fields, we used the certainty of response index (CRI) as a method of analysis to investigate a group of 40 United Arab Emirates (UAE) seventh grade students’ understanding of basic fraction concepts. The types of errors and misconceptions displayed by students show that over 60% of all participants assumed that adding fractions procedurally is the same as adding whole numbers with many not being able to distinguish a numerator from a denominator. The results lead us to believe that the manner in which students were taught did not ensure the necessary transitional shift from learning whole numbers to learning rational numbers. Applying the theories of Dienes (1960) and Bruner (1966), we propose a method of teaching addition and subtraction of fractions that will allow students to build their own understanding of the rules using the graphing calculator as the medium for concept formation.

Keywords

addition
subtraction
fraction
certainty response index (CRI)
United Arab Emirates (UAE)

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This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Article Type: Research Article

EURASIA J Math Sci Tech Ed, Volume 18, Issue 6, June 2022, Article No: em2115

https://doi.org/10.29333/ejmste/12070

Publication date: 07 May 2022

Article Views: 3847

Article Downloads: 4889

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Declaration of Conflict of Interest: No conflict of interest is declared by author(s).

Data sharing statement: Data supporting the findings and conclusions are available upon request from the corresponding author(s).

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How to cite this article

APA

Jarrah, A. M., Wardat, Y., & Gningue, S. (2022). Misconception on addition and subtraction of fractions in seventh-grade middle school students. Eurasia Journal of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education, 18(6), em2115. https://doi.org/10.29333/ejmste/12070

Vancouver

Jarrah AM, Wardat Y, Gningue S. Misconception on addition and subtraction of fractions in seventh-grade middle school students. EURASIA J Math Sci Tech Ed. 2022;18(6):em2115. https://doi.org/10.29333/ejmste/12070

AMA

Jarrah AM, Wardat Y, Gningue S. Misconception on addition and subtraction of fractions in seventh-grade middle school students. EURASIA J Math Sci Tech Ed. 2022;18(6), em2115. https://doi.org/10.29333/ejmste/12070

Chicago

Jarrah, Adeeb M., Yousef Wardat, and Serigne Gningue. "Misconception on addition and subtraction of fractions in seventh-grade middle school students". Eurasia Journal of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education 2022 18 no. 6 (2022): em2115. https://doi.org/10.29333/ejmste/12070

Harvard

Jarrah, A. M., Wardat, Y., and Gningue, S. (2022). Misconception on addition and subtraction of fractions in seventh-grade middle school students. Eurasia Journal of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education, 18(6), em2115. https://doi.org/10.29333/ejmste/12070

MLA

Jarrah, Adeeb M. et al. "Misconception on addition and subtraction of fractions in seventh-grade middle school students". Eurasia Journal of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education, vol. 18, no. 6, 2022, em2115. https://doi.org/10.29333/ejmste/12070