Student’s completed Rational Number Interview Record Sheet:

Additional Notes: Olivia’s working out / thought processes:

Question 1: Olivia justified her answer using an understanding that fractions are
equal shares and then applying additive thinking (e.g. 1+1+1+1= 4…four equal parts
make a whole…part must equal ¼).

Question 2: - comfortable with the idea that the whole could change within the task
 Visual representation + additive thinking
a) Olivia outlined the blue rhombus with a pencil two times and then used
additive thinking to find the answer (3).
b) Explanation for correct answer: ”if yellow is one whole and you need three lots
of blue to make one yellow…one whole, then blue is one third because three
lots of one third equals one whole”.
c) Olivia used the same approach as question 2a. Pointed at the second half of
the rhombus and counted it as a whole – additive explanation of 1+1=2.
d) No attempt made
e) Same explanation as question b.
f) Explanation using answer for question e (demonstrates understanding of
fractions relative sizes + part-whole relationship of fractions): “two can be
written as a fraction as four over two because four is twice as big as two so
there are now two wholes)

Question 3:
a) Olivia counted 18 dots in the set and then counted 12 blacks dots before
noting “12 dots out the 18 dots are black so the fraction is twelve
eighteenths…looks like 12 over 18”  Additive thinking
b) Mentally (quickly): “sixth ninths because I halved both numbers”

Question 4: All questions solved mentally using multiplicative and additive thinking.
Justification for processes involved “knowing the rules” (procedural understanding).
No evidence of understanding the commutative property for multiplication (when
answering question e) or a conceptual understanding of procedures used for
questions involving fractions.

Explanations for question a + b + c: “you need to change the question to make an

equation, first one [one half of six] is really six divided by two….[one fifth of ten?]: ten
divided by 5…[two-thirds of nine?]: nine divided by three is three…three is one
third…two thirds is of nine is three plus three which is six”.
Explanation for d + e: “I know the rules so I changed the question to make my
equation…’of’ means times so you times the top numbers and then you times the
bottom numbers…one times one is one so that goes on the top…three times two is
six so that goes on the bottom” When asked why this works “it is the rule” – second
question answered/explained using the same procedural understanding.

Question 5: Calculations all were done mentally. Explained that she divided the
number line into three to find one third and then added two of those lengths (mental
positions) together to reach where 2/3 would be placed. Explained that if twelve
sixths was two then eleven sixths must be one sixth less than two AKA one and five
sixths – she then divided the space between 1 and 2 by 6 and counted these lengths
to five before determining eleven sixths (measurement of fractions + additive thinking
+ multiplicative thinking + fractions relative sizes)

Question 6: Explanation of mental iteration: “you need to use division to divide the
pizzas into the number of girls so if there are five girls, you divide each pizza into five
(however many girls is how many pieces you have to divide the pizzas). There are
three pizzas so each girls get one piece (which is one-fifth) of each pizza: 1/5 + 1/5 +
1/5 = 3/5)……I could do it faster by just telling you that the answer is 3 [points to
pizza] divided by 5 [points to girls] which can be written as three line five because the
line means division”

Question 7: Olivia knew two-thirds was less than a whole (so she had to draw the
shape bigger than the original shape) however focused on the “two” in “two-thirds”
and so outlined the shape twice, explaining that her shape was “two times the size of
the shape”. (unclear if she misunderstood the question how she did not that she
disliked all questions which used visual representations.).

Question 8: Identified that 3/6 = ½ (“because three is half of six”) and then
proceeded to construct a fraction which was close to ½ [4/7] (“because four is half of
eight and seven is close to eight….three and a half is half of seven and three is close
to three and a half”).

Question 9: All questions solved mentally, explained after:

 Olivia converted fractions to share the same denominator by multiplying both
denominators with each other before comparing the numerators for question c, d,
e, f, g and h.
 Olivia could not explain why her thinking processes worked when converting
fractions to share the same denominator, noting she was correct because she
knew “the rules”.
 Olivia understood that if fractions had the same denominator, she only had to
compare the numerator (to find the larger of the two fractions).
 Olivia identified fractions equivalent to ½ and explained she knew they were ½
“because the fraction line can mean divide so 2 divided by 4 is half and 4 divided
by 8 is half”)

Question 10:
a) Olivia said the answer was “one and a bit”, counted the lines between 1 and
2, identified there was ten, and then counted up to the arrow [4], before
identify the ‘bit’ of .4 so said 1.4.
b) She may not have seen that the arrow was slightly to the right of the 8
(appeared to be a mistake caused by eyesight) as she said the arrow was
pointing “right on 8”.
c) No counting of the lines, no explanation, just noting that it was between 1 and
2 so guessed 1.4

Question 11: Olivia applied whole number understanding and wrote .9 because “9 is
bigger than 1 and smaller than 11”. No demonstration of understanding the
continuous quantity of decimal notation / property of being dense (that there is an
infinite number of numbers between any two numbers which are not equal).

Question 12: Demonstrated understanding of the base-ten place-value system and

an understanding that a tenth is a fraction – verbalised: “two lots of tenths….ten lots
of tenths…twenty-seven lots of tenths”. 27 thousandths resulted in a lot of confusion
and multiple guesses.

Question 13:
Demonstration of the common misconception that if a numeral
has more digits it is larger (e.g. “9 is smaller than 10”). No
evidence of equivalence of 1.70 and 1.7 (said that “70 is larger
than 7”).

Question 14:
a) Olivia recognised that there were 100 squares however
subtracted 6 (for the 6 coloured squared) and said “the
whole is 94 so write 94 on the bottom [presumably of the
fraction]”.
b) Using mental calculations, Olivia halved the fraction 6/94
and successfully identified that 6/94 = 3/47 – the answer is
only incorrect because 6/94 is incorrect.
c) Olivia appeared to guess the answer when converting a
fraction into a decimal. Olivia’s reasoning: “it will be so
small that it is hardly a number. Just write lots of zeros and
then three…make it .000000003”).
 d) Olivia did not attempt to convert a fraction into a percentage

Question 15: Demonstration of the common misconception that if a numeral has

more digits it is larger. Explanations ignored the decimal point – applied whole
number understanding, e.g. “217 is bigger than 3”.

Question 16: Verbalised that she thought the “rule for decimals” was that there
would be no difference between multiplying or dividing a particular decimal.
Satisfactory explanation that 8 x 0.1= 0.08: showed additive and multiplicative
thinking (at first noted that 0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1=0.08 and then
explained this was the “same as” 8 lots of 0.1 which is 8 x 0.1).