Abc

Developmental Science 5:4 (2002), pp 452466
Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2002, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX

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Blackwell Publishers Ltd

PAPER

From sharing to dividing

From sharing to dividing: young childrens understanding
of division

Sarah Squire and Peter Bryant

Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, UK

Abstract

Children have particular difculty with division problems, as compared to sharing problems. An inability to discriminate between
the dividend, divisor and quotient might contribute to their difculty with division. This study investigates whether young children
(59 years) were able to discriminate between the divisor and quotient in simple division problems that were modeled for them.
Children were presented with partitive and quotitive division problems in which the dividend was grouped either by the divisor
or by the quotient. The children showed a very different pattern of results in the partitive and quotitive problems; they found it
easier to identify the answer (quotient) when the dividend was grouped by the divisor in partitive problems and by the quotient
in quotitive problems. It is argued that children rely on a schema of action of creating portions when they rst learn about
division, and that the portions produced by sharing are different in partitive and quotitive problems. We discuss this nding in
terms of the importance of problem representation, childrens schemas of action and mental models.

In the study of childrens mathematical reasoning, there
is increasing interest in the way in which children ini-
tially approach mathematical problems. This includes
the way in which young children may use their informal
experiences in solving mathematical problems (e.g. Car-
penter & Lehrer, 1999), the way in which children may
initially model mathematical problems using concrete
materials or drawings (e.g. Carpenter, Ansell, Franke,
Fennema & Weisbeck, 1993; Carpenter & Moser, 1982;
Murray, Olivier & Human, 1992) and the mental models
that young children may have for solving mathematical
problems (e.g. Huttenlocher, Jordan & Levine, 1994).
There are several reasons for the interest in childrens
initial knowledge and informal strategies. One is that
informal knowledge may be a key basis for learning
formal knowledge (Baroody, Gannon, Berent & Ginsburg,
1984; Carpenter, Fennema & Franke, 1996; Hughes,
1986) and it is important that children make connections
between informal and formal reasoning (e.g. Nunes,
Schliemann & Carraher, 1993; Schoenfeld, 1991). By
studying childrens informal strategies, we may establish
important links between conceptual and procedural
knowledge (e.g. Carpenter, Franke, Jacobs, Fennema &
Empson, 1997; Hiebert, 1986; Hiebert & Carpenter,
1992; Rittle-Johnson & Siegler, 1998) and between
childrens informal knowledge and the meaning of math-
ematical symbols (e.g. Mack, 1995). This research is also
of central importance to the development of teaching
strategies. It has been argued that children who use
invented strategies based on their informal knowledge,
and children who are encouraged to provide explana-
tions for mathematical problems prior to learning stand-
ard algorithms are generally better at extending their
knowledge to new situations than students who initially
learn standard algorithms (Carpenter

et al.

, 1997). Con-
sequently, an important part of mathematics learning
and teaching is to build on childrens intuitive strategies
(e.g. De Abreu, Bishop & Pompeu, 1997; De Corte,
Greer & Verschaffel, 1996; Fennema, Carpenter, Franke,
Levi, Jacobs & Empson, 1996) and to mediate between
childrens concrete representations and abstract math-
ematical problems (Gravemeijer, 1997). In general, very
little is known about the connection between childrens
early informal experiences in mathematics and their learn-
ing of mathematics in school (Bryant, 1997), whereas we
know much more about the connections between childrens
early experiences and their success in learning to read
(e.g. Bradley & Bryant, 1985).
Most of the research in young childrens mathematics
has concentrated on childrens approaches to addition

Address for correspondence: Sarah Squire, Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3UD,
UK; e-mail: sarah.squire@psy.ox.ac.uk

DESC_385.fm Page 452 Monday, October 7, 2002 4:25 PM

From sharing to dividing 453

Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2002

and subtraction problems. There is evidence that children
can construct methods for some addition and subtraction
problems without explicit instruction (e.g. Carpenter &
Fennema, 1992; Carpenter & Moser, 1982; Carraher,
Carraher & Schliemann, 1987) but that they are quite
sensitive to the context in which these problems are posed
(e.g. Hughes, 1986; Riley, Greeno & Heller, 1983). Such
research has led to the proposal that children develop
mental models of situations which allow them to solve
non-verbal addition and subtraction tasks before they
acquire the conventional symbols for arithmetic and
mathematical problems (Huttenlocher

et al.

, 1994; Levine,
Jordan & Huttenlocher, 1992). In all of this research,
children demonstrate more understanding than one might
observe if one were merely to present them with formal
additive problems in which a calculation was required.
However, despite this progress in understanding
childrens additive reasoning, far less attention has been
paid to childrens initial understanding of multiplicative
reasoning, especially division. Although multiplicative
reasoning might require a qualitative change in thinking
from additive reasoning (Confrey, 1994; Piaget, 2001/
1977; Steffe, 1994), it would not be surprising if children
also had some informal understanding of multiplicat-
ive reasoning and demonstrated informal knowledge
and effects of context similar to those that have been
observed in addition and subtraction.
We have some evidence that children as young as 4
years of age might have some understanding of fraction
concepts if the use of conventional symbols is avoided
(Goswami, 1989) and if they are given non-verbal tasks
(Mix, Levine & Huttenlocher, 1999). This research is
clearly relevant to childrens understanding of division
because concepts such as multiplication, division, frac-
tions and ratios all fall within the

Multiplicative Concep-
tual Field

a set of problems and situations for the
treatment of which concepts, procedures and repres-
entations of different but narrowly interconnected types
are necessary (Vergnaud, 1983, p. 127). However, we
have much more information about older childrens and
adults understanding of division problems (e.g. Lago,
Rodriguez, Zamora & Madrono, 1999; Silver, Shapiro &
Deutsch, 1993; Simon, 1993; Tirosh, 2000) than we have
about the rst stages of the problem-solving processes in
multiplication and division word problems (Vershaffel &
de Corte, 1997).
Childrens

early

understanding of division is poten-
tially a very interesting topic for two reasons. The rst is
that there is an informal, everyday activity sharing that
may be important in childrens initial understanding of
division. Sharing is dividing, in the sense that to share a
quantity successfully is to divide a dividend into equal
quotients. Teachers usually introduce division as a form
of sharing and this approach to teaching division can be
justied because children are able to share quite pro-
ciently. Even children in the Reception class (5-year-olds)
are quite familiar with the phrase share out (although,
in the UK, the phrases divide, divided by and divided
into are not introduced until Year 2, i.e. around 7 years;
see Department for Education and Employment, 1999).
A number of studies have demonstrated that most 4-
and 5-year-old children know how to share out quanti-
ties in a distributive (one for A, one for B) manner, and
that by 5 years they tend to understand quite a lot about
the basis of this procedure (e.g. Desforges & Desforges,
1980; Frydman & Bryant, 1988; Miller, 1984). In addition
to childrens ability to share, it has been shown that young
children are able to model division problems using con-
crete materials well before they have been formally taught
about division (Carpenter

et al.

, 1993; Correa, 1994) and
that childrens initial strategies tend to reect the action
described in the problem (e.g. Marton & Neuman, 1996).
Childrens prociency with sharing means that this activ-
ity is a good candidate for the schema of action (Piaget,
1972/1947) from which an understanding of division might
develop.
The second reason why childrens understanding of
division is interesting is that the division problems that
children encounter at school are very difcult for them.
They nd division much harder than addition or sub-
traction, even when quite small numbers are involved
(e.g. Brown, 1981). The reason for the apparent contrast
between childrens success in sharing and their difculties
with division problems at school must lie in differences
between what children have to do when they share and
when they divide. The purpose of a division problem is
to work out the quotient; somebody trying to solve a
division problem must understand that s/he has to
divide the dividend by the divisor to produce the quo-
tient. This does not, of course, have to imply an under-
standing of the

terms

dividend, divisor and quotient.
Correa, Nunes and Bryant (1998) have argued that in
order to have some understanding of division, children
should demonstrate an understanding of the inverse
relation between the divisor and the quotient. They
investigated whether children aged between 5 and 7
years had any understanding of this relation by present-
ing them with problems in which food had to be shared
at two parties a red party and a blue party. There was
the same given quantity of food at each party but there
was a different number of recipients in each case (e.g. 12
sweets at each party, but three recipients at the blue
party compared with four recipients at the red party).
The children had to make a judgment about the relative
size of the portions in each case. In order to be success-
ful in these tasks, children had to understand that the


454 Sarah Squire and Peter Bryant


more

recipients there were, the

less

food each recipient
would receive. Correct answers thus reected some
understanding of the inverse relation between the divisor
and the quotient. It was found that 5-year-olds had an
imperfect understanding of the inverse relation between
divisor and quotient (only 30% performed better than
chance) but that the 7-year-olds performed reasonably
well. Other studies, using slightly different tasks, have also
documented similar improvements with age (Kornilaki,
1999; Sophian, Garyantes & Chang, 1997).
Although these studies provide important information
about childrens understanding of the inverse relation,
they also raise other questions that require further
research. One question is: Are young children able to
distinguish between, and recognize the role of, different
terms in division problems? This is a key aspect of
understanding the meaning of an arithmetical operation:
It is important that students understand what each
number in a multiplication or division expression rep-
resents (National Council for Teachers of Mathematics
(NCTM), 2000). Children may be successful in distin-
guishing between the dividend, divisor and quotient and
recognizing the role of each in the division problem even
though (like the children in both Correa

et al

.s (1998)
and Sophian

et al

.s (1997) studies) they are unfamiliar
with the terms dividend, divisor and quotient and are
unable to compute the answer to the division problem
when it is posed in a conventional way. We suggest that
the ability to distinguish these three terms (dividend,
divisor and quotient) from each other, and to recognize
the role of each in the division problem, is an important
starting point in understanding division.
It is quite easy to test childrens awareness of the
distinction between these terms. The most direct way to
do this is to model a division problem with concrete
materials and to ask the child to identify the quotient.
For example, one could model the division problem 12

4
by having 12 sweets and 4 recipients (e.g. 4 children). Here
the dividend is the 12 sweets and the divisor is the
number of recipients of the sweets. This dividend (12)
could then be broken up into groups of sweets in one of
two ways. Either the sweets could be grouped by the
divisor (the recipients) so that there is one group of
sweets for each recipient, or they could be grouped by
the quotient so that in each group there is one sweet for
each recipient. In the rst case, the sweets are formed
into 4 groups of 3 (grouping by divisor); the fact that
there is one group of sweets for each recipient means
that it is similar to the end-point of sharing. In the sec-
ond case (grouping by quotient), the sweets are formed
into 3 groups of 4; there is one sweet in each group for
each recipient and each group of sweets is like a round
of sharing. In both cases the quotient is represented in
the model; the quotient is the number of sweets

in

each
group in the rst case (grouping by divisor) and the
number of

groups

of sweets in the second case (grouping
by quotient). If a child understands the operation of
division s/he should be able, when asked about the quo-
tient, to identify it correctly in both cases.

1

The need to identify the quotient and to discriminate
it from the divisor becomes clear when division problems
are set in a specic context. This context can take one of
two forms. The context for the problem that we have
just described (and the context of Correa

et al

.s prob-
lem described earlier) is

partitive

. In partitive problems,
a dividend is shared equally among a certain number of
recipients and the size of the portion (the quotient)
depends on the number of recipients (the divisor). For
example, if there are 12 sweets and there are 4 recipients
(divisor) then the size of each portion (quotient) must
be 3 sweets. The other context is

quotitive

. Here the
dividend is divided into xed portions (divisor) and the
number of recipients (quotient) depends on the size of
the portion. Here, if there are 12 sweets and they are
distributed in bags of 4 (the divisor), then there can only
be 3 recipients (the quotient).
Of course, the problems do not have to be about shar-
ing sweets; the same problem (12

4) could be presented
as both a partitive and a quotitive division problem
concerning children sitting around tables. The partitive
problem (for 12

4) would be: There are 12 girls and 4
tables. If the girls have to sit around the tables so that
there is the same number of girls around each table, how
many girls will there be on each table? The quotitive
problem for 12

4 would be: There are 12 girls and they
have to sit so that there are 4 girls on each table. If all of
the children sit down, how many tables will we need? In
the partitive problem, the divisor is the number of recip-
ients (tables) and the quotient is the size of the portion
(number of children on each table). The groups coincide
with the nal equal portions (the end-point of sharing)
when the dividend is grouped by the

divisor

(i.e. in the
example above, when there are

4

equal sized groups of
girls, one for each table). By contrast, in the quotitive
problem, the divisor is the size of the xed portion
(number of children on each table), and the quotient is
the number of recipients (tables). In this case, the groups
coincide with the nal portions when they are grouped by
the

quotient

(i.e. in the example above, when the girls are
arranged into

3

groups, with

4

girls in each group).
This leads to a clear prediction about a young child
who can share perfectly but has an imperfect grasp of

1

Again, it should be emphasized that we are not interested in whether
the child actually knows the terms quotient, divisor and dividend
(indeed, we do not anticipate that young children would understand
these terms).




the role of the divisor and quotient in a division prob-
lem. If one were to give such a child the kind of concrete
model of a division problem that we have described, and
ask him/her to identify the quotient, that child would
manage much better when the objects were grouped
into the nal equal portions (the end-point of sharing)
than when they were not. It should be apparent from
the examples described that the role of the size of the
portion and of the number of recipients actually reverses
in partitive and quotitive problems. The child has to
recognize that the signicance of these two variables
changes with the context in order to be able to identify
the quotient in the concrete model.
The change in context is one reason why the distinction
between partitive and quotitive division is of interest.
Although the underlying mathematical structure is the
same for partitive and quotitive problems, it is possible
that partitive and quotitive division problems may differ
in difculty (the evidence for this to date is very mixed,
e.g. Bourgeois & Nelson, 1977; Correa

et al.

, 1998;
Fischbein, Deri, Nello & Marino, 1985; Gunderson, 1955;
Zweng, 1964). The idea that the same problem may vary
in difculty depending on the context in which it is
posed ties in to extensive research in cognitive psycho-
logy on isomorphic problems and the role of problem
representation in accounting for problem difculty and
expertnovice differences (e.g. Kotovsky, Hayes &
Simon, 1985; Kotovsky & Simon, 1990; Novick, 1988;
Reed, Ernst & Banerji, 1974). The distinction between
partitive and quotitive problems is also of interest be-
cause it is possible that the two types of division relate
differently to sharing. We will return to these issues in
the Discussion.
To our knowledge, there is no evidence on childrens
ability to detect the quotient and to distinguish it from
the divisor. It is an interesting way to study childrens
understanding at an age where they are able to model
problems by manipulating concrete materials (Carpenter

et al.

, 1993) and are beginning to understand something
about the inverse relation between divisor and quotient
(Correa

et al.

, 1998; Sophian

et al.

, 1997), but are as yet
unable to compute the answers to the problems, because
it provides insight into the conceptual structures that
children might be using without requiring them to have
knowledge of formal algorithms. Although the children
are not required to carry out an arithmetical computation
in these tasks, such problems are mathematical in the
sense that they require the child to manipulate numbers,
recognize the relevant variable and think about the link
between the division word problem and the concrete
material with which they are presented. Fennema, Sowder
and Carpenter (1999) state that included in the denition
of school mathematics is also the way students think
about it, understand it, and manifest their understanding
(p. 186) and we would argue that the types of modeling
problems that we have described begin to investigate
these aspects of division.
The aim of our experiment was therefore to use
models of division problems to investigate childrens
understanding of division and to test the prediction that
young children nd it easier to identify the quotient
when the portions are grouped by the divisor in partitive
problems and by the quotient in quotitive problems.

Method

Participants

One hundred and eighteen children from two state
schools (with mixed socioeconomic status) took part in
this study. There were 29 children (13 male and 16
female) in Year 1, 31 (15 male and 16 female) in Year 2,
30 (18 male and 12 female) in Year 3 and 28 children (11
male and 17 female) in Year 4. The mean age of the
children in Year 1 was 5 years 7 months (ages ranged
from 5 years 2 months to 6 years 2 months), the mean
age of the children in Year 2 was 6 years 8 months (ages
ranged from 6 years 2 months to 7 years 1 month), the
mean age of the children in Year 3 was 7 years 9 months
(ages ranged from 7 years 3 months to 8 years 2 months)
and the mean age of the children in Year 4 was 8 years
11 months (ages ranged from 8 years 3 months to 9
years 7 months). A further child, who failed the pre-test,
was excluded from the study.

Design

Each child was seen individually in two testing sessions;
the second session took place within a week of the rst
session. In the rst testing session, the child was given a
sharing pre-test, which s/he had to pass in order to take
part in the main study. The child was then given eight
baseline trials, which included both partitive and quotit-
ive division problems. The scores in these baseline trials
were used to match children into two experimental
groups. In the second session, one experimental group
received partitive division problems and the other group
received quotitive division problems.

Materials and procedure

Pre-test

All children received a pre-test. This pre-test was loosely
based on that used by Correa

et al

. (1998) and was




designed to ensure that the children who participated in
the study were able to share and had some understand-
ing of numerical equivalence. An A4 sized card was pre-
sented, on which there was a picture of four identical
girls (7 cm in height) in a line at the top of the page. The
child was also given eight red circular pieces of card,
measuring 11 mm in diameter, which were the pretend
sweets to be shared. The child was asked to share the
sweets out fairly between the girls. The pre-test was
the only task in which the child was able to manipulate
the materials. The experimenter asked the child how
many sweets had been given to the rst girl, then covered
and removed the sweets and asked how many had been
given to the other girls (numerical equivalence).

Baseline trials

Children who passed the pre-test were then given eight

baseline

trials in the same session. Figure 1a shows the
type of picture that the child was presented with in a

partitive baseline trial

for the problem 12

4. An A4
sized card was presented with pictures of girls (in blue)
positioned randomly on the page and pictures of tables
at the top of the page. Each picture of a girl measured
2.4

1 cm and each picture of a table measured 4.3

2.5
cm. The number of girls depended on the dividend and the
number of tables depended on the divisor in the problem.
Round tables were used to avoid childrens answers being
inuenced by the number of sides that the table had. In
each partitive baseline trial, the child was presented with
the picture for a particular problem and told how many
girls and how many tables there were in the picture. The
child was then asked how many girls s/he thought there
would be on each table, if the girls sat down at the tables
so that there was the same number on each table.
Figure 1b shows the type of picture that the child was
presented with in a

quotitive baseline trial

for the sum
12

4. The pictures of the girls and of the tables were the
same size as in the partitive baseline trials. An A4 sized
card was presented with pictures of girls (in blue) positioned
randomly on the page and a picture of one table at the top
of the page, with a certain number of girls sitting around
it. The total number of blue girls depended on the divi-
dend and the number of girls around the table depended
on the divisor in the problem. The girls around the table
were dressed in red rather than blue, so that they could
be distinguished from the pictures of girls waiting to sit
down (but note that the red and blue colors are not
shown in Figure 1b). It was explained to the child that
the blue class had to sit at the tables in the same way as
the red class (e.g. with three girls at each table). On each
quotitive trial, the child was presented with the picture
for a particular problem and told how many girls there
were, and how many girls had to be seated on each table.
The child was then asked how many tables would be
needed for all of the girls in the blue class to sit down.
The eight problems presented in the baseline trials
were: 12

2, 12

3, 12

4, 12

6, 15

3, 15

5, 20

4
and 20

5. Four of these problems (12

2, 12

4, 15

5
and 20

4) were partitive trials and the other four prob-
lems (12

3, 12

6, 15

3 and 20

5) were quotitive
trials. The problems were presented in the same random
order for each child. Half the children received the par-
titive tasks rst and the remainder received the quotitive
tasks rst.
A time limit of approximately 25 s was imposed on
each baseline trial. After this time, the child was
prompted, and if s/ he still failed to answer the experi-
menter proceeded to the next trial. No feedback was
given about the correctness of the response. The scores
achieved in the baseline trials were used to match the
Figure 1 Schematic representation of (a) a baseline partitive
division problem for the problem 12 4. (b) and the equivalent
baseline quotitive division problem for the problem 12 4.
Note that the girls around the table in (b) were a different color
from the other girls.




children to each of the two types of division problems
(partitive and quotitive) in the experimental trials.

Experimental trials

The experimental trials were presented in the second
session. Each child received only one type of division
problem partitive or quotitive in the experimental
trials. The key difference between the baseline trials and
the experimental trials was that in the baseline trials
the girls were not grouped whereas in the experimental
trials the girls were grouped either by the divisor (the
Grouping-by-Divisor condition), or by the quotient (the
Grouping-by-Quotient condition). Each child received
four problems in each condition. In summary, the
between-subjects factors in the experimental tasks were
Year (1, 2, 3 or 4) and Type of division (partitive vs.
quotitive) and the within-subject factor was Condition
(Grouping-by-Divisor vs. Grouping-by-Quotient).
Figure 2 illustrates the type of picture presented in the
Grouping-by-Divisor and Grouping-by-Quotient condition
of a

partitive experimental trial

. Figure 3 illustrates the
type of picture presented in the Grouping-by-Divisor
and Grouping-by-Quotient condition of a

quotitive
experimental trial

. Note that, in a particular trial, there
was only ever

one

vertical line of girls, positioned down
the centre of the page. The pictures of the girls and the
tables were the same size as in the baseline trials but this
time the pictures of the girls were positioned in small
equal sized groups in a vertical line, with a 2 cm space
between each group. This required larger sheets of card,
measuring approximately 29

64 cm. In the Grouping-
by-Divisor condition, the number of groups was the same
as the value of the divisor and the number

in

each group
(b) Grouping
-by-
Quotient
(a) Grouping
-by-
Divisor
Figure 2 Schematic representation of a partitive division
problem (12 4) in (a) the Grouping-by-Divisor, and (b)
Grouping-by-Quotient condition.
(b) Grouping
-by-
Quotient
(a) Grouping
-by-
Divisor
Figure 3 Schematic representation of a quotitive division
problem (12 4) in (a) the Grouping-by-Divisor, and (b)
Grouping-by-Quotient condition. The girls around the table in
(b) were a different color from the other girls.




was the same as the value of the quotient. In the Grouping-
by-Quotient condition, the number of groups was the
same as the quotient and the number of girls

in

each
group was the same as the value of the divisor.
The experimental tasks were conducted in one corner
of the classroom. The child sat beside the experimenter
and the materials were clipped onto a large board placed
in front of them. At the beginning of each session, the
experimenter reminded the child about the problems
that s/he had solved in the previous session concerning
children sitting around tables. The experimenter then
explained that the child was going to solve some similar
problems again, but that this time the girls were in
groups, ready to sit down for dinner.
The experimenter began a particular trial by placing
the relevant picture for that trial onto the board facing
the child. She told the child how many girls there were,
and either how many tables there were (partitive), or
how many girls had to sit around each table (quotitive).
The experimenter then asked the child two questions:
(i) How many groups of girls are there?
(ii) How many girls are there in each group?
The order of asking these questions was counterbalanced
across children and across conditions.
The experimenter then summarized the information
by saying: So, there are

x

groups and there are

y

girls in
each group [in the case of the order (i), (ii) ] and reminded
the child about how many tables there were (partitive) or
how many girls had to be placed on each table (quotitive).
The child was then asked the crucial question, which
was how many girls would be seated at each table (in the
partitive tasks) or how many tables were needed (in the
quotitive tasks). As in the baseline trials, the color cues
in the quotitive task helped children to realize that they
were being asked about how many tables were required
for the blue class to sit down. If the child seemed to be
including the table shown at the top of the page, s/he was
reminded that the experimenter only needed to know
how many

more

tables were required, for the blue class.
Each child received the same eight problems as had
been presented as baseline trials. Half the problems
were assigned to the Grouping-by-Divisor condition and
half to the Grouping-by-Quotient condition. The cor-
rect answer was equally often larger than the divisor as
it was smaller than the divisor. Counterbalancing occurred
across children such that the problems assigned to the
Grouping-by-Divisor condition in half of the children were
assigned to the Grouping-by-Quotient condition in the
other children and vice versa. The child was not given
any feedback regarding whether or not s/he had answered
correctly.

Results

Baseline trials

Each child was given a score of 1 for each baseline trial
that was correct and a score of 0 for each incorrect trial.
Table 1 presents the baseline scores. An analysis of variance
(ANOVA) was carried out on these scores; the two
between-subjects factors in the analysis were Type of
division in the experimental tasks (partitive vs. quotitive)
and Year (1, 2, 3 or 4) and there were repeated measures
on Baseline scores (partitive vs. quotitive). An alpha level
of 0.05 was used for all statistical tests. The only signif-
icant effect was that of Year [

F

(3, 110)

=

29.4,

p

< 0.001],
indicating that the older children achieved higher base-
line scores. The main effect of Type of division in the ex-
perimental tasks was not signicant [

F

(1, 110)

=

0.070],
which showed that it was not possible to ascribe any
differences between the groups in the experimental tasks
to initial differences between the two groups of children.
The ANOVA also demonstrated that the partitive and
quotitive problems were of comparable difculty when
presented in the baseline tasks because there was no sig-
nicant effect of Baseline scores [

F

(1, 110)

=

0.437].

Experimental tasks

Each child was given a score of 1 for each experimental
trial that was correct and a score of 0 for each incorrect
trial. The maximum possible score in each condition was
4. Table 2 presents the mean scores.
The most interesting result was that differences were
found between the mean scores achieved in the Grouping-
Table 1 Mean scores in the baseline trials according to year
(maximum score = 4)
Year
Type of division
N Partitive Quotitive
Year 1 29
Mean 0.52 0.55
Standard Deviation 0.74 1.02
Year 2 31
Mean 1.52 1.39
Year 3 30
Mean 2.17 2.13
Year 4 28
Mean 2.79 3.21




by-Divisor and Grouping-by-Quotient conditions, depend-
ing on the type of division problem. Figure 4 shows that
in the partitive tasks the Grouping-by-Divisor condition
was much easier than the Grouping-by-Quotient con-
dition. In the quotitive tasks, the reverse pattern was
found; the Grouping-by-Quotient condition was much
easier than the Grouping-by-Divisor condition. This
pattern occurred in all years.
The between-subjects factors in the ANOVA of these
results were Year (1, 2, 3 or 4) and Type of division
(partitive vs. quotitive), and there were repeated meas-
ures on Condition (Grouping-by-Divisor vs. Grouping-
by-Quotient). The only signicant main effect was of
Year [

F

(3, 110)

=

25.1,

p

< 0.001]. This conrmed that
the childrens performance in the experimental tasks
improved with age. There was no main effect of type of
division.
There was a signicant Type of division

Condition
interaction [

F

(1, 110)

=

62.1,

p

< 0.001]. Post-hoc analysis
(Bonferroni

t

-tests) revealed that there was a signic-
ant difference between the mean scores achieved in the
Grouping-by-Divisor and the Grouping-by-Quotient con-
ditions in both types of division problem. However, in
the partitive tasks the higher score was achieved in the
Grouping-by-Divisor condition and in the quotitive tasks
the higher score was achieved in the Grouping-by-Quotient
condition. This conrmed that the Grouping-by-Divisor
condition was the easy condition in the partitive tasks
whereas the Grouping-by-Quotient condition was the
easy condition in the quotitive tasks.
The childrens age (the variable of Year) did not inter-
act with any of the other variables. We will comment on
the implications of the absence of a signicant Year

Type of Division

Condition interaction in the Discussion.
The general improvement with age, demonstrated by
the signicant Year term in the analysis, could be
explained in two ways. One is that there is a growing
understanding with age of the mathematical relation-
ships in division, and particularly of the relations
between divisor and quotient. The other is that older
children have more knowledge of the number facts (e.g.
are more likely to know that 12

4

=

3) and are there-
fore more successful in all types of division problem.
Figure 4 Mean scores (+95% condence intervals) obtained
in each condition in the partitive and quotitive division
problems.
Table 2 Mean score in each condition of the experimental tasks (maximum score is 4)
Year
Type of division
Partitive Quotitive
n
Grouping
-by-
Divisor
Grouping
-by-
Quotient n
Grouping
-by-
Divisor
Grouping
-by-
Quotient
Year 1 14 15
Mean 1.71 0.43 0.87 1.93
Standard Deviation 1.64 0.65 1.25 1.53
Year 2 15 16
Mean 2.47 1.33 1.75 2.50
Year 3 15 15
Mean 2.47 2.07 1.87 3.53
Year 4 14 14
Mean 3.93 2.86 3.21 3.86




Our hypothesis is that the rst alternative is the correct
one, and in order to investigate this we carried out an
analysis of co-variance. In this analysis the main terms
were the same as in the analysis that we have just
described, and the co-variate was the childrens scores
in the baseline trials. We used the baseline scores as the
co-variate because, in our opinion, they provided a
reasonably good measure of the childrens ability to carry
out simple numerical divisions.

2

If the improvement with
age in the experimental problems was merely a matter
of their knowledge of simple division facts, the year
difference should no longer be signicant when the base-
line problems are entered as a co-variate. In fact, the
results of the analysis of co-variance were very similar
to those of the previous analysis. The main term of
Year [

F

(3, 109)

=

3.33,

p

< 0.05] and the Type of division

condition interaction [

F

(1, 109)

=

61.53,

p

< 0.001] were
again signicant.

How did childrens performance in the experimental
tasks compare with their performance in the
baseline tasks?

Comparison of Tables 2 and 3 suggests that there is very
little difference between childrens mean scores in the
baseline tasks and their mean scores in the difcult
experimental tasks. However, it appears that their mean
scores in the easy experimental tasks were much higher
than their mean scores in the baseline tasks. In order to
investigate this, four further ANOVAs were performed.
In these analyses, childrens scores in either the partitive
or quotitive baseline tasks were compared with the two
conditions in the experimental tasks. In other words, in
these ANOVAs Year was the between-subjects factor
and there were repeated measures on Task (baseline vs.
one experimental condition).
Two ANOVAs were carried out on the data from
children who received the partitive experimental tasks.
In the rst ANOVA, the between-subjects factor was Year
and there were repeated measures on Task (partitive base-
line vs. Grouping-by-Divisor [easy] experimental). There
were signicant main effects of Year [

F

(3, 54)

=

12.2,

p

< 0.001] and Task [

F

(1, 54)

=

26.8,

p

< 0.001], showing
that childrens scores in the easy partitive experimental
trials were better than their scores in the partitive base-
line trials. In the second ANOVA, the between-subjects
factor was Year and there were repeated measures on
Task (partitive baseline vs. Grouping-by-Quotient [dif-
cult] experimental). There was a signicant main effect
of Year [

F

(3, 54)

=

28.9,

p

< 0.001], but no signicant
effect of Task [

F

=

0.734]. This shows that childrens scores
in the difcult experimental condition in the partitive
tasks were no better than those achieved in the baseline
trials.
Two similar ANOVAs were carried out on the data
from children who received the quotitive experimental
tasks. In the rst ANOVA, Year was the between-subjects
factor and there were repeated measures on Task (baseline
quotitive vs. Grouping-by-Quotient [easy] experimental).
The ANOVA revealed signicant main effects of Year
[F(3, 56) = 15.4, p < 0.001] and Task [F(1, 56) = 39.9,
p < 0.001], showing that childrens scores in the easy
quotitive experimental trials were better than their scores
in the quotitive baseline scores. The nal ANOVA, with
the between-subjects factor of Year and repeated measures
on Task (baseline quotitive vs. Grouping-by-Divisor
[difcult] experimental), revealed only a signicant
effect of Year [F(3, 56) = 16.8, p < 0.001] and no main
effect of Task [F = 0.004]. None of the above analyses
revealed a signicant Year Task interaction.
Together, these analyses show that childrens scores in
the difcult experimental condition were no better than
their scores in the baseline trials, but that their scores in
the easy experimental trials were signicantly better
than their scores in the baseline tasks.
Childrens errors
We also looked at the kind of errors that children made.
When the children got the quotient wrong they could
give one of the other two terms in the problem the
dividend or the divisor as the answer. Alternatively,
they could give an answer that represented none of these
three terms (other).
3
Table 3 shows the proportion of
these different types of error that children made.
It is apparent from Table 3 that divisor errors were not
proportionally more frequent in the difcult conditions
2
Ideally, we would have had a direct measure of childrens knowledge
of division facts. However, we wanted the control trials to be as similar
as possible to the experimental trials in terms of the materials pre-
sented and that is why we chose to give the children baseline trials in
which the same problems and materials were presented and where the
only difference was that the items were not grouped. Although we
cannot be sure that children used knowledge of division facts in the
baseline trials, they were unable to manipulate the materials and so
could not have used a simple strategy such as sharing, or direct mani-
pulation or grouping of the items to be shared. Also, there was an
improvement in the baseline scores with age and we think that the
most likely explanation for this is associated with an increase in know-
ledge of division facts or multiplication tables.
3
Approximately 13% of the other errors were null responses. Most
of the other errors were arbitrary numbers, but these numbers were
almost always smaller then the dividend (i.e. the other number that
the child gave as the answer tended to fall between 1 and 20). Quite
often the child gave a number that was close in size to either the
quotient or the divisor, but which did not correspond to either of these
numbers.
than the easy conditions in either the partitive or the
quotitive tasks; therefore, the kind of error made does
not tell us much about the reasons for the pattern of
performance in the experimental trials. However, one
noticeable pattern observed from Table 3 is that divisor
errors and dividend errors accounted for a greater
proportion of the total errors in both conditions of the
quotitive tasks than in both conditions in the partitive
tasks. Sign tests
4
showed that in both conditions in the
quotitive tasks, there was no difference between the
number of children who made more divisor errors than
other errors, and the number of children who showed
the reverse pattern. By contrast, a sign test showed that
the number of children who made more other errors
than divisor errors in the Grouping-by-Quotient condi-
tion of the partitive tasks was greater than the number
of children who showed the reverse pattern (z = 4.07,
p < 0.0001). In the Grouping-by-Divisor condition of the
partitive tasks the same pattern was observed, although
it did not reach signicance.
Why might a greater proportion of divisor errors have
occurred in quotitive tasks than in the partitive tasks?
There are several possible explanations, all related to the
differences between the partitive and quotitive tasks.
In the partitive task, the children answered a question
about how many girls there would be around each table.
It is possible that the children were more inclined to
give arbitrary numbers in this task (e.g. based on their
knowledge of how many children sit on each table in
their classroom, at dinner or at home) than when asked
about the number of tables in the quotitive tasks. Thus,
children may have been more likely to give an arbitrary
number in the partitive tasks and a number that they
had heard in the question in the quotitive tasks.
Another possible explanation could be that in the
partitive tasks the child was able to see the number of
tables (divisor). In the quotitive tasks, the number of
girls on each table represented the divisor but there was
no explicit representation of the tables (as the number
of tables was the quotient in these problems). It may
therefore have been more difcult for children to have
imagined allocating groups of girls to each table. This
did not result in an overall difference in difculty
between partitive and quotitive tasks, but it might ex-
plain why there were different patterns of errors. In the
partitive tasks, it might have been fairly easy to detect a
mismatch between the number of tables and the
number of groups of girls in the difcult condition; if
this happened, the child probably realized that the
correct answer could not be the number of girls in each
group (the divisor) and may instead have given an
arbitrary numerical response. In cases where children
were not sure about the answer in the quotitive tasks,
it may have been more difcult for them to have noticed
a mismatch between the number of children in each
group and the number of children which had to be
put on each table. In other words, the size of the divisor
may have been less salient in the quotitive tasks (there
was always a picture of one table at the top of the page
and it was the number of girls around it that varied).
Children who made errors in the quotitive tasks may
have experienced difculty in deciding whether the girls
in the picture were grouped by the divisor or by the
quotient. This could have caused confusion between the
divisor and the quotient and resulted in a greater pro-
portion of divisor errors overall in the quotitive tasks.
It is worth commenting on the fact that, in both types
of division, very few dividend errors were made. This sug-
gests that children realized that the answer was smaller
than the dividend, and were more likely to confuse the
quotient with the divisor than with the dividend (this is
consistent with other research, e.g. Squire & Bryant, 2002).
Discussion
The main result from this experiment is that, in both
the partitive and the quotitive tasks, one condition was
much easier for children than the other. However, there
was a striking difference between the partitive and quot-
itive tasks in terms of which condition children found
easier. In the partitive task, the easy condition was the
Grouping-by-Divisor condition and the difcult one
was the Grouping-by-Quotient condition. In the quotit-
ive task, the reverse was true; the Grouping by-Quotient
condition was easy and the Grouping-by-Divisor condi-
tion was difcult.
Table 3 The proportion of different types of error made in
each type of division problem and in each condition
Division problem and
condition
Type of error
Divisor Dividend Other
Partitive
Grouping-by-Divisor 29.1 3.80 67.1
Grouping-by-Quotient 27.4 0.74 71.9
Quotitive
Grouping-by-Divisor 48.4 9.52 42.1
Grouping-by-Quotient 40.6 15.6 43.8
4
Note that Chi-square tests could not be used because the data are
not independent; the same children made more than one type of error.
Also, it was of little use to consider the actual numbers of errors made
because it has already been established that, overall, more errors were
made in one condition than the other (depending on the type of division).
Non-mathematical factors must be involved because
in mathematical terms there is no difference between the
two conditions; the divisor and the quotient are repres-
ented in both conditions (via the number of sets and the
number of girls in each set). In our view, the most
convincing reason for this difference between the two
conditions in each type of division problem is a psy-
chological one. The easy condition coincided with the
portions and therefore the child could use a strategy of
portion allocation, whereas this strategy would not be
successful in the difcult condition. The child may have
had a mental model (Johnson-Laird, 1983) of the prob-
lem in which the dividend was grouped into portions
and where the easy model coincided with these portions
whereas the difcult condition did not.
Johnson-Laird argues that although some models may
be highly articial and acquired only by cultural training
(e.g. in pure mathematics), others are presumably ac-
quired without explicit instruction, and used by everyone
in the course of such universal processes as inference and
language comprehension (Johnson-Laird, 1983, p. 11).
According to this approach, it is quite plausible that informal
experience could contribute to the formation of a mental
model of a concept and hence that children could begin
to acquire a mental model of division through sharing,
which provides such experience. In other words, sharing
might be the schema of action
5
(Nunes & Bryant, 1996;
Piaget, 1972/1947) from which an understanding of divi-
sion develops. The pattern of results that we have des-
cribed ts well with this notion because we already have
evidence that children might have different schemas of
action for partitive and quotitive division. When given
concrete materials, children often model partitive problems
by grouping by the divisor and quotitive problems by
grouping by the quotient (e.g. Carpenter et al., 1993;
Correa, 1994; Murray et al., 1992). The easy condition
in both our partitive and quotitive problems was the
one in which the model presented to the children coin-
cided with the model of the problem that they would
probably have created themselves. This suggests that
young childrens mental models of division may be the result
of their experience of sharing and of creating portions.
The theory of schemas of action is a developmental
one. It includes the claim that children start from these
schemas and progress, as they grow older, to a more
abstract understanding of the mathematical concept in
question. If correct, one would expect that the differ-
ences that we found between the easy and the difcult
conditions in the two types of division would diminish
with age. Yet, this did not happen. In our study, older
children found the same tasks easy and difcult as the
younger ones did, and in our analysis of the results the
interaction which would have shown a diminution of
the pattern of differences (the Year Type of division
Condition interaction) was not signicant.
One possible explanation for this is that the older
children were more familiar with the division facts and
used these more often than the younger children did.
However, our analysis of co-variance suggests that it is
not this simple, because when the childrens baseline
scores were added as a co-variate in the analysis of our
results, there was still a signicant effect of Year. This
means that the older childrens better performance is
unlikely to simply be due to their greater knowledge of
division facts. An alternative explanation for the age
differences is that children become more able to concen-
trate on the abstract relations between the mathematical
terms in these problems as they grow older. In other words,
one condition continues to coincide better with childrens
mental model of the problem (built up from their schema
of action) than the other, possibly explaining why the dif-
ference between the easy and the difcult conditions in
our study did not diminish with age. Older children may
achieve higher scores in both conditions because they
can also use their understanding of the relations between
the variables in division problems such as the inter-
changeability between the divisor and quotient (e.g. if
12 4 = 3, 12 3 = 4) to nd solutions. This should help
them in all the problems, and not just in the more dif-
cult ones. One reason why this explanation is a plausible
one is because of the evidence that childrens under-
standing of the inverse relation between the divisor and
the quotient improves signicantly across the age range
that we studied (Correa et al., 1998; Sophian et al., 1997).
An interesting question for future research is whether
the difference between the two conditions would dimin-
ish if even older children or adults were studied. Older
children might be expected to have a greater understand-
ing of the concept of interchangeability and to also have
better working memory, making it easier for them to
transform the model that they are presented with into
a model that coincides with their mental model (e.g. to
imagine re-grouping three groups of four into four
groups of three). Alternatively, it is possible that the dif-
ference in difculty between the two conditions might
also exist with older participants; the easy condition
may still coincide better with their mental model of the
problem and therefore remain easier to solve. Also,
an improvement in the understanding of the relations
between terms in division problems might continue
to improve performance in both conditions. Further
5
Schemas of action are familiar actions that might provide a rst
understanding of arithmetic operations, because the logical require-
ments and relationships that must be kept constant in arithmetical
operations also have to be invariant in the childs schema of action
(Nunes & Bryant, 1996; Piaget, 1972/1947; Vergnaud, 1985).
research (possibly using more difcult division problems,
or response times) would be required to distinguish
between these two possibilities.
Presenting children with models of division problems
in which the objects are grouped in the two different
ways Grouping-by-Divisor and Grouping-by-Quotient
should help them to go beyond sharing (and a simple
strategy of portion-allocation) to consider the structure
of the problem with respect to the dividend, divisor and
quotient. It may also help children to mentally reorgan-
ize the model that they are presented with (e.g. to reor-
ganize four groups of three into three groups of four)
6
and this could help to improve childrens understanding
of multiplicative relations. Since the difcult condition
in the partitive problems (Grouping-by-Quotient) is the
easy condition in the quotitive problems and vice versa,
the different conditions also provide the opportunity for
children to learn something about the relation between
partitive and quotitive division.
In the educational and the psychological literature
considerable emphasis is placed on providing children
with different problem representations. The NCTM
(2000) suggests that understanding of the meanings of
these operations [multiplication and division] should
grow deeper as they [children] encounter a range of rep-
resentations and problem situations (p. 148). This view
is also reected in the psychology literature about
childrens mathematics (e.g. Gravemeijer, 1997; Murray
et al., 1992; Nunes, 1999) and in other elds of psychology.
For example, Spiro, Feltovich, Coulson and Anderson
(1989) recommend that multiple analogies be used in
learning about complex concepts. Our study suggests
that children may have two different schemas for the
operation of division (sharing in partitive division
versus forming quotas in quotitive division). In order to
bridge the gap between their informal and formal under-
standing, children need to anchor their understanding of
the mathematical operation of division with the schemas
of action for both partitive and quotitive division and,
eventually, these actions schemas must also be related to
the conventional sign(s) for the operation of division.
Our study also highlights the importance of presenta-
tion in childrens problem solving; although the underly-
ing mathematical structure was the same for partitive
and quotitive problems, how the problem was presented
had an impact on problem difculty. Extensive research
in cognitive psychology has shown that the manner in
which problems are represented produces substantial
differences in difculty (Kotovsky & Simon, 1990). For
example, Hayes and Simon (1974, 1977) showed that
there were great differences in difculty between sets of
problems that were isomorphic (possessed the same struc-
ture) but which were described by different cover stories
and therefore engendered different representations.
Differences in problem representation have also been
used to explain some of the differences between experts
and novices (Adelson, 1984; Chi, Feltovich & Glaser,
1981). It has been argued (e.g. Novick, 1988) that
although surface information may be included in the
representations of both experts and novices, experts rep-
resentations include abstract, structural features of the
problem (e.g. how the quantities in the problem are
related to each other). For this reason, when two analog-
ical problems share surface, but not structural similarity,
one might expect spontaneous negative transfer to be
stronger for novices (focusing on surface similarities)
than for experts (Novick, 1988). However, this predic-
tion has not always been conrmed in the literature;
Novick (1988) found that experts were just as likely as
novices to think that the two complex arithmetic word
problems should be solved in a similar manner because
they had similar surface features. This could be because
surface similarities between problems are very salient
and readily learned (Lewis & Anderson, 1985; Medin &
Ortony, 1989). Our ndings tie in well with this research
because we found that even the older children (who
might be considered more expert) showed a difference
in difculty between the two conditions. The older
children continued to nd one condition easier than the
other and this may have been because they were not
always examining the underlying structure of the prob-
lem, but were instead relying on surface features (e.g.
both problems are about sitting girls around tables).
Interestingly, Novick found that the only response meas-
ure which was sensitive to experts superior performance
was the type of solution procedures used, not the time
taken to complete the problem, or accuracy of solutions
(which was the response measure in our experiment).
This raises an interesting question for future research,
which is whether any developmental changes might have
occurred if strategies used in the two conditions (and
two types of division problem) were considered as the
response measure.
To summarize, our results are consistent with the idea
that children begin to solve division problems by relying
on their mental model of the problem, which is built up
6
We have some anecdotal evidence that, in the difcult conditions,
some children tried to restructure the model. For example, in one par-
titive problem (20 girls who had to be seated fairly around 4 tables) in
the Grouping-by-Quotient condition (i.e. ve groups of four girls), a
Year 3 child explained that he was solving the problem by putting one
group of girls on each table and with last group, he was putting one
girl on the 1st table, one on the 2nd table, one on the 3rd table and so
on. In this way, the child mentally reorganized the model into a more
meaningful context, which was one that coincided with the end-point
of sharing (four equal groups of girls for the four tables). This strategy
resulted in him giving the correct answer.
from a schema of action that depends on the context.
Our claim is that the experience of sharing may inuence
childrens mental models of division. When sharing, chil-
dren allocate equal portions and we claim that children
found it easy to answer the problems that we gave them
when the sets in the model corresponded to the portions.
More generally, we have also argued that it may be
important to expose children to different problem rep-
resentations and problem contexts in order to improve
their ability to recognize the important variables in a
problem, to develop their conceptual understanding of
multiplicative relations and encourage them to think
exibly in particular and diverse contexts. Further
research, including longitudinal studies, is required to
establish whether there is a direct link between childrens
ability to share and their understanding of division.
Acknowledgements
We thank the Medical Research Council (UK) for pro-
viding a graduate studentship for the rst author. We
are also grateful to the teachers and children of North
Kidlington Primary School and Wolvercote County First
School for taking part in this project.
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Received: 2 February 2001
Accepted: 15 August 2001

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