How to teach fractions

The Guardian Teacher Network this week has all the resources you will ever
need for the successful teaching of fractions

Slices of pizza can be very handy for learning fractions! Photograph:

Getty Images

The very word fractions is enough to send a chill down a non-maths

specialist's spine and it's safe to say the topic is fraught with
misconceptions. Secondary school maths teacher Mel Muldowney
points out the Marmite quality of fractions: "It's a subject you either
love or hate to teach especially at secondary as students come to you
having been taught it before and are already sure they hate fractions
you have to overcome that reaction."
The Guardian Teacher Network has teaching resources to help add
fun and clarity to teaching fractions at school and at home.
Teachers (and parents) of primary school aged-children are
encouraged to play with their food by maths expert Rob
Eastaway. Sometimes it seems as if pizza was invented purely as an
aid to learning fractions and Eastaway's Pizzas and fractions primary
maths resource gives some mouthwatering ideas that will be equally
appropriate in the classroom or at home. Those with a sweeter tooth
can do the same with cake.
Children are expected to learn fractions in primary school but it's at
secondary school where these sometimes unwieldy foundations are
really tested because fractions feature so prominently in algebra and
probability. Eastaway suggests getting out the dice and converting to
real numbers in his resource on Fractions in secondary maths .

Parents with rusty or rotten maths skills really should check out
Eastaway's Math for Mums and Dads books. Eastaway and stand-up
mathematician Matt Parker have produced a series of inspirational
DVDs for teenagers that are a unique resource for the classroom
more details at [Link].
Thanks so much to secondary school maths teacher Mel Muldowney
(one of the teachers behind [Link]) for sharing some
of her teaching resources on fractions. The first thing to
overcome is a student's shaky application of "rules without
any conceptual understanding of the why these rules work:
"A very basic example would be: to find a quarter of something you
halve it, and halve it again this in itself isn't a bad thing ,except
students sometimes don't realise that halving something as the same
as dividing by two, and so when it comes to finding, say, 1/6 of
something they find it difficult to grasp that they need to divide by
six," points out Muldowney.
To help your fractions lessons go with a bang, find these
excellent Equivalent fractions snap cards, which Muldowney
suggests using as a standalone activity and then to choose specific
cards for students to stick in their book and find as many other
equivalents they can. Also find Equivalent fractions Connect 4
worksheet, which students play in pairs to connect four in a row in
the answer grid. This Fractions: four operations worksheet helps
students to "sort it" in relation to multiplying and dividing fractions,
then "nail it" when they move onto addition and subtraction and
finally to "master it" when they handle all four fractions operations
but with mixed numbers.
To get key stage 4 students in a fractions frenzy, look no further than
this maths treasure hunt consisting of 20 A4 posters ready to print
out and display around the room give students a starting number
and off they go. The resource promises to create a real learning buzz
in the classroom (and an answer sheet showing the correct order of
the cards is included). For real high-fliers (predicted grade A/A*)
here's a slightly tougher version of the game.

We've got some more maths fun for key stage 2 students thanks
to Mangahigh, which has shared an excellent ordering fractions
lessons plan. The plan is based on their maths game Flower Power
where students make money out of growing mathematically correct
beautiful flowers. This lesson plan focuses on the second part of the
game, which is about ordering halves and quarters. Who knew
ordering fractions, decimals and percentages could be such fun?
The Guardian Teacher Network also has some really clear interactive
resources on the site, great for practice. Key stage 2 students can
learn to recognise and understand unit fractions, such as 1/2, 1/3,
1/4, with online shading activities. They can also
practise comparing and ordering simple fractions then move onto
relating fractions to division, for example learn that half is the same
as divide by two. Here's a lesson on relating fractions to their decimal
representations that will help pupils make important links between
fractions, decimals and percentages and ratio. These subjects may
have been taught as different topics and to avoid problems later, it's
definitely time to join the dots. Here's an interactive to round decimal
fractions to the nearest whole number and students can also
practiseordering fractions such as 1/2 and 3/4 by converting them
using a common denominator.
Finally an invaluable worksheet generating tool for key stage 2
teachers ideal for assessment, consolidating learning or extension
work.
For key stage 3 students we have interactives on multiplication and
division of fractions, addition and subtraction of fractions, an
interactive on algebraic fractions where students can practise adding
and subtracting, multiplying and dividing algebraic fractions to
understand and be able to complete mixed exercises.
Or help for students wanting to convert between mixed numbers and
improper fractions, understand equivalent fractions or rewrite a
fraction.
We also have some more advanced interactives for key stage 4
including working with fractions where students can find a fraction

of an amount and use the fraction key on a calculator

and fractions and decimals where students get to work with
vulgar fractions.
Finally, check out this must-have for fractions fans: a fractions
bookmark.
Join the Guardian Teacher Network community for free access to
teaching resources and an opportunity to share your own as well as
read and comment on blogs. There are also thousands of teaching,
leadership and support jobs on the site.
Visit [Link]
[Link]

A componential view of children's difficulties in learning fractions

Florence Gabriel,1,2,* Frdric Coch,3 Dnes Szucs,1,* Vincent Carette,3 Bernard Rey,3 and Alain
Content2
Author information Article notes Copyright and License information
See commentary "The conceptual/procedural distinction belongs to strategies, not tasks: A comment on Gabriel et al.
(2013)" in volume 4, 820.
This article has been cited by other articles in PMC.

Abstract
Go to:

Introduction
As the joke goes, three out of two people have trouble with fractions. Fractions
have been known from ancient civilizations until current times, but they still pose
major problems when learning mathematics. Babylonian civilization and Egyptians of
4000 years ago already worked with fractions. The processing of fractions is part of
our everyday life and is used in situations such as the estimation of rebates, following
a recipe or reading a map. Moreover, fractions play a key role in mathematics, since
they are involved in probabilistic, proportional and algebraic reasoning. Then why is
it so hard for pupils to learn and represent fractions? Fractions have been used for
centuries and are manipulated in a great variety of everyday life situations and in
mathematics, and yet they are hard for students to grasp and master. In this article, we
will try to shed light on children's difficulties when they learn fractions.
Fractions are well-known to constitute a stumbling block for primary school children
(Behr et al., 1983; Moss and Case, 1999; Grgoire and Meert, 2005; Charalambous
and Pitta-Pantazi, 2007). Understanding difficulties in learning fractions seems
absolutely crucial as they can lead to mathematics anxiety, and affect opportunities for
further engagement in mathematics and science. Various hypotheses have been
proposed in order to explain those difficulties. In this research, we used a theoretical
framework based on psychological and educational theories to define problems
encountered by pupils when they learn fractions. We tested 4th, 5th, and 6th-graders in
order to identify children's difficulties more precisely.
Different obstacles in learning fraction

Whole number bias

Fractions are rational numbers. A rational number can be defined as a number

expressed by the quotient a/b of integers, where the denominator, b, is non-zero.
According to a recent theory of numerical development, children who have not yet
learned fractions generally believe that the properties of whole numbers are the same
for all numbers (Siegler et al., 2011). Indeed, one of the main difficulties when
learning fractions comes from the use of natural number properties to make inferences
on rational numbers, what Ni and Zhou (2005) called the whole numbers bias. This
bias leads to difficulties conceptualizing whole numbers as decomposable units.
From a mathematical viewpoint, there are fundamental differences between those two
types of numbers. Firstly, rational numbers are a densely ordered set, whereas whole
numbers form a discrete set. Between two rational numbers, there is an infinity of
other rational numbers, while between two natural numbers, there is no other natural
number (Vamvakoussi and Vosniadou, 2004). Secondly, another feature of rational
numbers is the possibility to write them from an infinity of fractions. This corresponds
to the notion of equivalent fractions. Thirdly, faction symbols are a/b types. Pupils
often process numerator and denominator as two separate whole numbers (Pitkethly
and Hunting, 1996). They apply procedures that can only be used with whole numbers
(Nunes and Bryant, 1996). Consequently, typical errors appear in addition or
subtraction tasks (e.g., 1/4 + 1/2 = 2/6), and also in fraction comparison (e.g., 1/5
>1/3). In this case, pupils' reasoning can be resumed as follows: if the number is
larger, then the magnitude it represents is larger. But when we think about fractions, a
larger denominator does not mean a larger magnitude, but a smaller one. Another
difficulty appears in multiplication tasks. Multiplying natural numbers always lead to
a larger answer, but it is not the case with fractions (e.g., 8 1/4 = 2).
The inappropriate generalization of the knowledge about natural numbers is even
more resistant as it is widely anterior to the one about rational numbers (Vamvakoussi
and Vosniadou, 2004). In order to overcome these mistakes, it would seem necessary
for students to perform a conceptual reorganisation which integrates rational numbers
as a new category of numbers, with their own rules and functioning (Stafylidou and
Vosniadou, 2004). Furthermore, even in adults, knowledge about natural numbers is
often preponderant when processing fractions (Bonato et al., 2007; Kallai and
Tzelgov, 2009).
Different meanings of fractions

Another major difficulty comes from the multifaceted notion of fractions

(Kieren, 1993; Brousseau et al.,2004; Grgoire and Meert, 2005). Kieren (1976) was
the first to separate fractions into four interrelated categories: ratio; operator; quotient;
and measure. The ratio category expresses the notion of a comparison between two
quantities, for example when there are three boys for every four girls in a group. So in

this case, the ratio of boys to girls is 3:4; the boys representing 3/7 of the group and
the girls 4/7 of the group. In the operator category, fractions are considered as
functions applied to objects, numbers or sets (Behr et al.,1983). The fraction operator
can enlarge or shrink a quantity to a new value. For example, finding 3/4 of a number
can be a function where the operation is multiply by 3 divided by 4, or divided by 4
and then multiply by 3. The quotient category refers to the result of a division. For
example, the fraction 3/4 may be considered as a quotient, 3/4. In the measure
category, fractions are associated with two interrelated notions. Firstly, they are
considered as numbers, which convey how big the fractions are. Secondly, they are
associated with the measure of an interval. According to Kieren (1976), the partwhole notion of fractions is implicated in these four categories. That is the reason why
he did not describe it as a fifth category.
Thereafter, Behr et al. (1983) proposed a theoretical model linking the different
categories of fractions. They recommend considering part-whole as an additional
category. They also associated partitioning to the part-whole notion. The part-whole
category can then be defined as a situation in which a continuous quantity is
partitioned into equal size (e.g., dividing a cake into equal parts), and partitioning
would be the same with a set of discrete objects (e.g., distributing the same amount of
sweets among a group of children).
Other models have been proposed to describe the multiple meanings of fractions
(Brissiaud, 1998; Rouche,1998; Mamede et al., 2005). These models partly overlap,
but are not entirely equivalent. For instance, Mamede et al. (2005) present four types
of fraction use: quantifying a part-whole relationship, quantifying a quotient,
representing an operator, representing a relation between quantities. Meanwhile
Grgoire (2008) suggests a different model, in which three categories correspond to
three acquisition stages. In the first stage, the fraction is seen as an operator. This
notion refers to sharing situations. The second one is the ratio stage which requires a
high level of abstraction because one needs to understand that different fractions can
represent the same ratio. This is linked to the notion of equivalent fractions. The third
and last stage is related to the numerical meaning of fractions. Fractions are here
conceived as a new category of numbers, with their own rules and properties.
Conceptual and procedural understanding

Another explanation of children's difficulties when learning fractions lies in the

articulation between conceptual and procedural knowledge. Previous studies have
shown that children would often perform calculations without knowing why
(Kerslake, 1986).
Conceptual knowledge can be defined as the explicit or implicit understanding of the
principles ruling a domain and the interrelations between the different parts of

knowledge in a domain (Rittle-Johnson and Alibali, 1999). It can also be considered

as the knowledge of central concepts and principles, and their interrelations in a
particular domain (Schneider and Stern, 2005). Conceptual knowledge is thought to
be mentally stored in a form of relational representations, such as semantic networks
(Hiebert, 1986). It is not tied to a specific problem, but can be generalized to a class of
problems (Hiebert, 1986; Schneider and Stern,2010).
Procedural knowledge can be defined as sequences of actions that are useful to solve
problems (Rittle-Johnson and Alibali, 1999). Some authors consider procedural
knowledge as the knowledge of symbolic representations, algorithms, and rules
(Byrnes and Wasik, 1991). Moreover, procedural knowledge would allow people to
solve problems in a quick and effective way as it can easily be automatized
(Schneider and Stern, 2010). Therefore, it can be used with few cognitive resources
(Schneider and Stern, 2010). However, procedural knowledge is not as flexible as
conceptual knowledge and is often bound to specific problem types (Baroody, 2003).
Those two types of knowledge may not evolve in independent ways. Many theories
on knowledge acquisition suggest that the generation of procedures is based on
conceptual understanding (Halford, 1993; Gelman and Williams, 1997). They argue
that children use their conceptual understanding to develop their discovery procedures
and adapt acquired procedures to new tasks. According to this approach, children's
difficulties when learning about fractions could be interpreted as a use of
mathematical symbols without access to their meaning. Procedural knowledge may
also influence conceptual understanding. Using procedures would lead to a better
conceptual understanding. But few studies support this idea. For instance, Byrnes and
Wasik (1991) argue that many children learn the right procedures to multiply
fractions, but they never seem to understand the underlying principles. Other authors
support a third point of view. Both types of knowledge might progress in an iterative
and interactive way (Rittle-Johnson et al., 2001). Conceptual and procedural
knowledge might continually and incrementally stimulate each other. Neither would
necessarily precede the other.
In mathematics education, teachers seem to focus more on procedural than conceptual
knowledge. Children usually learn rote procedures in a repetitive way. This leads to a
misunderstanding of mathematical symbols (Byrnes and Wasik, 1991). Consequently
many computational errors are due to an impoverished conceptual understanding.
Our theoretical framework

Taking into account the different theoretical models presented and the issues they
arise led us to build our own conceptual framework. In this study exploring the
difficulties in learning fractions, two main components were considered: a conceptual
component and a procedural component.

The conceptual component was divided in four distinct aspects: proportion, number,
measure and part-whole/partition. Part-whole/partition refers to how much of an
object (e.g., 1/2 pizza) or a collection (e.g., 1/2 of a bag of sweets) is represented by
the fraction symbol (Hecht et al., 2003; Kieren, 1988). Typical tasks used to assess
that kind of conceptual knowledge involve shading parts of a figure indicated by a
fraction, or the opposite exercise consisting of writing the fraction representing the
quantity of a figure that is shaded (Hiebert and Lefevre, 1986; Byrnes and
Wasik, 1991; Ni, 2001). Proportion represents the comparison between two quantities.
We used comparison of different expressions of the same ratio (e.g., 1/2, 2/4, and 3/?)
as it is an adequate way to assess the understanding of proportion. The numerical
meaning of fraction refers to the fact that fractions represent rational numbers that can
be ordered on a number line (Kieren,1988). Two relevant tasks were used to assess
children's understanding of the numerical meaning of fractions: firstly, number lines
on which they are asked to place a fraction, and secondly, indicating which of several
given fractions represents the largest quantity (Byrnes and Wasik, 1991; Ni, 2000).
Several variables also held our attention regarding the representation of fractions.
Discrete and continuous quantities were used. Children might have greater difficulties
to link 2/4 to 2 out 4 for elements of a set than 2/4 of a pie (Ni, 2001). Multiple
objects and figures, as well as numerical symbols were introduced to assess the
possible interference of certain types of representations (Coquin-Viennot and
Camos, 2006). For practical reasons, we did not examine fractions as a measure in
this study. This category is closely related to the metric system. The manipulation of
fractions as a measure can be made by splitting units of length, area, volume, time,
mass, etc. Understanding these measuring situations involves several concepts that are
not exclusively related to fractions, such as understanding different unit systems or a
good grasp of the decimal position system. Therefore, it is difficult to assess the
understanding of this category in isolation from these variables.
Procedural items were those that could be easily solved by applying a procedure that
could be implemented without checking for meaning outside that particular
procedure. The procedural component involved various operations on fractions,
namely the addition and subtraction with or without common denominators,
multiplication, and simplification of fractions. Children were given different
arithmetical operations to solve as well as simplification exercises.
Research questions

The main aim of this study was to provide empirical data that could explain
difficulties encountered by children when they learn fractions. Our first objective was
to analyse the mathematics curriculum of the French Community of Belgium, where
this study was conducted. Our second objective was to understand the nature of
pupils' difficulties through different categories.

We addressed several research questions regarding children's difficulties when

learning fraction. First, we wanted to define more precisely the difficulties
encountered by primary school children. Second, one of the goals of this study was to
clarify the relationship between conceptual and procedural knowledge of fractions.
Does conceptual knowledge of fractions influence procedural knowledge? Or is
procedural knowledge sufficient to understand fractions? Our hypothesis is that
children's difficulties come from a lack of conceptual understanding of fractions.
Their errors would come from the application of routine procedures, but they do not
understand the various underlying concepts.
Conceptual knowledge of fractions was assessed through tests about the different
meanings of fractions (part-whole, proportion, number), and the different
representations of fractions (e.g., association between figural, numeral, and verbal
representations). Procedural knowledge about fractions was evaluated through
operations on fractions and simplification tasks.
Go to:

Methods
Participants

The test was administered to eight Grade 4 classes (mean age: 9 years 11 months old),
eight Grade 5 (mean age: 11 years 1 month old) classes and eight Grade 6 classes
(mean age: 12 years old) from five different schools, representing a total sample of
439 participants (214 girls and 225 boys). The choice of these grades was deliberate,
as fraction learning usually starts from Grade 4 in the French Community of Belgium
where the study was conducted. Informed consent was obtained from parents and the
director of every school, as well as from the 24 teachers involved in this research.
Assent from children was obtained at the onset of both testing sessions.
The setting of the study

We analyzed 21 mathematics textbooks recognized by the Education Department of

the French Community of Belgium. Fraction concepts used in mathematics textbooks
in Grade 46 were listed. The goal was to analyse the progression of fraction learning
proposed by those textbooks. The most striking observation was that there was a great
variety of ways to introduce fractions. In most textbooks, the part-whole concept was
considered as the starting point, but in some cases, the measure concept was
introduced first. Every concept described in our theoretical framework was
represented in the textbooks, but the number of exercises concerning each one of them
varied greatly.

We also examined the official mathematics program of the French Community of

Belgium. The program presents, in a structured way, the basic skills for the first 8
years of compulsory education, and the skills pupils have to master by the end of each
stage (Ministre de la Communaut franaise, 1999). Fractions were divided into two
different categories, Numbers and Quantities. Any requirement at the end of primary
school (Grade 6) is briefly reviewed in this section. In the Number category, pupils
should be able count, enumerate and classify fractions as well as decimal numbers.
They should also be able to calculate, identify and solve operations involving
fractions and decimal numbers. In the Quantities category, children are supposed to
operate and fractionate different quantities in order to compare them. They should be
able to add up and subtract two fractions as well as calculating percentages. The
program also mentioned their ability to solve proportionality problems.
The official program offers a list of what pupils should know about fractions in
primary school. But what did not appear clearly was a logical progression between all
the meanings of fractions. For example, how and when should equivalent fractions be
introduced? There was not a clear development for teaching fraction. This situation
may be risky as teachers might present fractions as a succession of different
independent activities with no real underlying logical progression.
In order to complete the information found in the textbooks, we analyzed pedagogical
practices about the way teachers introduce and teach fractions. This investigation
revealed the great variety of ways to teach fractions. Our analysis was based on
different sources. Firstly, we asked the 24 teachers involved in this study to give us a
list of all the activities about fractions conducted in their classrooms. Secondly,
teachers gave us a sample of their lessons on fractions as well as pupils notebooks.
Thirdly, we made informal observations during the tests.
In Grade 4, pupils learn how to read and represent the value of a fraction. They start
placing fractions on a graduated number line. They learn how to simplify fractions
(i.e., introduction to equivalent fractions). They learn how to add and subtract of
fractions with small and common denominators. In Grade 5, children learn more
about fractions as numbers and how they represent quantities. Pupils are trained to
convert fractions into decimal numbers and vice versa. They use addition and
subtraction of fractions with different denominators. Improper fractions are
introduced. In Grade 6, multiplication of fractions is introduced.
Our analysis highlighted the fact that teachers are more inclined to use procedures
than what is recommended by the official program. The different conceptual meanings
are presented successively without any logical progression. The order in which they
are introduced depends on the teacher and on the textbook used by the teacher.

Furthermore, fractions seem isolated from mathematics lessons and are taught like a
separate topic.
Test

A test was designed to answer our research questions. Its construction has been guided
by our theoretical framework as well as the primary school curriculum in the French
Community of Belgium. The test was split into two parts. Part A was made of 19
questions, Part B of 20 questions. There were 1 to 8 items for each question. There
were 46 items in Part A and 48 in Part B. Part B was administered one week after Part
A. Pupils had 50 min to answer each part.
Conceptual knowledge assessment

Conceptual knowledge of fractions was assessed through different categories of

questions: part of a whole/partition, proportion and number. Three types of
representations have been used: symbolic (e.g., 1/4), verbal (e.g., one-quarter) and
figural representations (e.g., a square where the colored part represented 1/4). Discrete
and continuous quantities were used.
Multiple variables were taken into account regarding numerical and verbal
representations, such as the degree of familiarity, or the parity of the denominator and
the numerator. The following variables were controlled regarding figural
representations: the equivalence of the parts; the shape of the figure (square,
rectangle, triangle ); the size of the figure; and the contiguity of the colored parts of
the figure.
Part-whole/partition. Part-whole assessment included items for which children had to
link fractions to a figural representation. The first question consisted of 6 items for
which children were asked to represent a given fraction with a figure (e.g., draw a
figure representing 1/7). The items were familiar fractions (1/2 and 3/4), unfamiliar
fractions (1/7 and 4/5) and improper fractions (i.e., fractions larger than 1; 3/2 and
7/5). In the second question, pupils were asked to choose a figure representing a given
fraction (e.g., choose figures representing 1/4, see Appendix). In the third question,
they were asked to shade a certain portion of a figure. There were four items for this
question. In the first two items, children were asked to shade 3/4 of a square or a
rectangle. In the next two items, they were asked to shade 4/5 of a pentagon or a
square.
Proportion. For questions about proportion, children were asked to compare
quantities based on the rule of three. Five quantities were given in a table and they
had to give the sixth quantity. There were verbal representations, such as 3 cakes cost
6, 5 cakes cost 10, 7 cakes cost ? There were also figural representations. An

example of figural representation is given in Figure Figure1.1. The contextualization

of the items was introduced to make sure that children based their answer on both
columns of the tables.

Figure 1
Example of a figural proportion item.

Numbers. For the number category, there were four types of questions. The first
question was a comparison of fractions. Pupils had to decide which of two fractions
represented the larger quantity. There were fractions with the same numerator (e.g.,
2/3_2/7), fractions with the same denominator (e.g., 3/8_5/8) and fractions with no
common components (e.g., 2/5_1/4). In the second question, pupils were asked put
fractions in ascending order. This question also involved improper fractions and
natural numbers. The given numbers were the following: 3/4, 1/2, 8/4, and 1. The
third question involved finding a fraction between two given fractions (e.g., find a
fraction between 2/7 and 5/7). Fractions with common denominators, common
numerators, and no common components were included. For the fourth question,
pupils were asked to place a fraction or the unit on a graduated number line (e.g.,
given 0 and 1/4, place 3/4 on the number line). The given references were always 0
and another fraction.
Procedural knowledge assessment

We assessed the following procedures: addition and subtraction with or without the
same denominator; multiplication of fractions; multiplication of a fraction by an
integer; and simplification of fractions. Those procedures were assessed with typical
questions such as 1/2 + 1/4 = ?. Division of fractions was not included as it is not part
of the official curriculum.
Go to:

Results
General results

Descriptive statistics are reported for each category of fractions (part-whole,

proportion, numbers, operations, and simplification). Mean scores and standard
deviations are always expressed in percentage. As can be seen in Table Table1,1,

children performed better for questions about proportion and part-whole than for
questions about the other categories. There were still major difficulties in Grade 6 for
the part-whole category. Indeed, even in Grade 6, the percentage of correct responses
was still far from ceiling performance. Children were capable of resolving questions
on proportional reasoning from Grade 4. The main observed errors were linked to
additive reasoning. Children got the lower scores in Grade 4 for arithmetic operations.
This was not surprising as learning about operations on fractions usually start in
Grade 5.

Table 1
Mean percentage of correct responses and standard deviation for
each category in Grade 46.

A correlation analysis was run to assess the relations between conceptual (part of a
whole, proportion and numbers) and procedural categories (operations and
simplification). The correlation analysis revealed that conceptual categories correlated
significantly with each other (see Table Table2).2). They also correlated positively
with procedural categories.

Table 2
Correlations between conceptual items and procedural items.

We ran an ANOVA for repeated measures with category as a within-subjects factor

(part-whole; proportion; number; operations; simplification) and grade as a betweensubjects factor. There was a significant grade effect, F(2, 437) = 71.53, p < 0.001, 2p =
0.25. There was also a main effect of category, F(4, 1744) = 242.64, p < 0.001, 2p = 0.36,
and a significant grade x category interaction, F(8, 1744) = 19.85, p < 0.001, 2p = 0.08
(see Figure Figure2A).2A). Tukey post-hoc tests showed that accuracy for operations
and simplification was poorer in Grade 4 than in Grades 5 and 6 (p < 0.001).

Figure 2
The top two panels show the interaction between grade and
correct response rates for each category (A), and between grade
and each type of knowledge (B). Vertical bars denote 95% confidence
intervals. The bottom two panels show dendrograms depicting the ...

We ran another ANOVA for repeated measures on the type of knowledge (conceptual
and procedural) with grade as a between-subjects factor. There was a significant effect
of grade, F(2, 437) = 75.23, p < 0.001, 2p= 0.26. There was also a significant effect of the
type of knowledge, F(1, 438) = 459.5, p < 0.001, 2p = 0.51, and a significant grade x type
of knowledge interaction, F(2, 437) = 242.64, p < 0.001, 2p = 0.36 (see Figure
Figure2B).2B). Tukey post-hoc test was used to determine significant differences
between grade mean values for each type of knowledge, revealing that performance
was poorer for procedural knowledge in Grade 4 than in Grades 5 and 6 (p < 0.001).
We also ran cluster analyses to ensure that our categories reflected conceptual and
procedural knowledge. Since two patterns appeared in the results, we ran two separate
cluster analyses: one analysis for Grade 4 and one analysis for Grades 5 and 6. We ran
neighbor-joining analyses (single linkage method) to see if our categories formed
natural clusters that could be labeled according to a type of knowledge. These
analyses provide a tree-structured graph (i.e., dendrogram) that is used to visualize the
results of hierarchical clustering calculations. The dendrogram indicates at what level
of similarity any two clusters were joined. It was constructed using neighbor-joining
algorithm based on Euclidian distances. Both for Grade 4 and for Grades 5 and 6, the
dendrograms clustered the categories into two distinct groups that correspond to our
two types of knowledge, i.e., conceptual and procedural (see Figures 2C,D). Partwhole, number and proportion were the most similar and correspond to our
conceptual categories, whereas operations and simplification can be combined in a
different cluster, that is our procedural categories.
Part-whole/partition

Draw a representation for each given fraction

Table Table33 shows mean scores and standard deviation for the first question related
to the part- whole/partition meaning of fractions. Different variables were involved in
this question. Firstly, an ANOVA with the type of fraction as within-subject factor (2
levels: proper fraction vs. improper fraction) was run. Performance was worse for

improper fractions than for proper fractions, F(1, 438) = 2039.2, p < 0.001, 2p = 0.90.
Secondly, familiar (1/2, 3/4) and unfamiliar fractions (1/7, 4/5) were compared in
another ANOVA. Performance for familiar fractions was significantly better than for
unfamiliar fractions, F(1, 438) = 2406.9, p < 0.001, 2p = 0.92.

Table 3
Mean percentage and standard deviation for the question: Draw a
representation of the given fraction.

Despite potential graphic difficulties, pupils mostly divided a common continuous

shape (circle or square, see Figure Figure3).3). 90% of pupils represented continuous
quantities.

Figure 3
Illustration of the most common answer when pupils were asked
to draw a representation of a given fraction. 90% of them drew
continuous quantities such as a circle or a rectangle. In this particular
example, only 1/2 was represented correctly (A). Parts ...
Select the figures representing 1/4

In this task, pupils had to choose figures representing the quantity 1/4 (see Appendix).
Mean percentage of correct responses were high in every grade (Mean = 92% 6%).
But when figures were representing 2/8, we observed a dramatic drop of performance:
24 6% in Grade 4, 29 8% in Grade 5 and 59 9% in Grade 6. There was a
significant difference between continuous and discrete quantities, F(1, 438) = 2308.1, p <
0.001, 2p = 0.91. Performance was better for continuous quantities.
Shade a certain fraction of a figure

In this task, pupils had to shade 3/4 or 4/5 of a given figure. Mean scores per grade are
given in Table Table4.4. Mean scores for 3/4 (Mean = 83 2%) were higher than for
4/5 (Mean = 65 4%). An ANOVA with familiarity as a within-subject factor showed
a significant difference between 3/4 and 4/5, F(1, 438) = 3156.6,p < 0.001, 2p = 0.93.

Table 4
Mean scores and standard deviation for each item in which pupils
had to shade 3/4 or 4/5 of a given figure.
Proportion

As seen in Table Table1,1, performance for proportion items was better than in other
categories. However, 10% of the answers given by 4th-graders were based on additive
reasoning. This percentage dropped to 5% in Grade 5 and 2.6% in Grade 6. This type
of error was more present for numerical items (Grade 4 = 9%; Grade 5 = 7%; Grade 6
= 3%) than for figural items (Grade 4 = 2%; Grade 5 = 2%; Grade 6 = 1%). A singlefactor ANOVA was run and showed no significant difference between numerical and
figural items, F(1, 438) = 0.6,p = 0.8.
Number

Place a given fraction on a number line

Percentage of correct responses showed a clear difference between three groups of

items. In the first group of items, there were 3 number lines for which pupils only had
to count the number of graduations corresponding to numerators to succeed (e.g.,
knowing 0 and 5/9 on the fifth graduation, place 2/9). For these items, they could only
process the numerator and ignore the denominator. Mean percentage of correct
responses for these items was 89 6%. In the second group of items, there were two
number lines on which pupils had to place 1 (e.g., knowing 0 and 1/5 on the first
graduation, place 1). The mean score for this group of items was the following: Mean
= 40 22%. The third group of items involved equivalent fractions (e.g., knowing 0
and 1/6 on the second graduation, place 2/3). The mean score for these items was the
following: Mean = 31 24%. An ANOVA with the group of items as a within-subject
factor showed a significant difference between the first group of items compared to
unit items and items involving equivalent fractions, F(2, 437) = 2942.6, p < 0. 001, 2p =

0.95. Tukey post-hoc tests showed that the first group of items was higher than unit
items (p < 0.001) and equivalent fractions items (p < 0.001).
Error analysis showed that when asked to place 1 on a number line, pupils had a
tendency to place it at the beginning (12% of given responses) or at the end of the line
(43% of given responses).
Put these fractions in ascending order

Children were asked to sort the following numbers in ascending order: 3/4, 1/2, 8/4,
and 1. 55% of 4th-graders placed 1 at the end of the sequence, after 8/4. Furthermore,
22% of 4-graders placed 1 at the beginning of the sequence, before 1/2 and 3/4. This
error rate decreased in grades 5 and 6, but 30% of 6th-graders still put 1 at the end of
the sequence. These errors are consistent with the errors observed in the number line
task. Children struggled with the relation between fractions and the unit.
Comparison of fractions

Pupils had to choose which of two fractions was larger. There were three types of
items: same denominators (Mean = 83 2%); same numerators (Mean = 56 2%);
and no common components (Mean = 65 2%). An ANOVA on the type of fraction
(3 levels: same denominators; same numerators; and no common components)
revealed significant differences between types, F(2, 437) = 1346.4, p < 0.001, 2p = 0.90.
Tukey post-hoc tests showed that scores for fractions with common denominators
were higher than for fractions with common numerators (p < 0.001) and fractions
with no common components (p < 0.001).
Operations

Performance for addition and subtraction with same denominators was better than for
addition and subtraction with different denominators (see Table Table5).5). This is not
surprising as addition and subtraction with different denominators are not yet part of
the program in Grade 4. But the procedure to find the lowest common denominator
seems to pose problems in Grade 5 and 6. The most common error was based on the
natural number bias, that is, adding or subtracting numerators and denominators as if
there were natural numbers (e.g., = 1/3 + 1/4 = 2/7). 62% of 4th-graders made this
mistake for addition and subtraction with different denominators, and this percentage
still reached 22% in Grade 6. Surprisingly, performance for multiplication of fractions
was better in Grade 4 than in Grade 5. An ANOVA showed significant differences on
the types of operations, F(2, 437) = 135.5, p < 0.001, 2p = 0.45. Tukey post-hoc tests
showed that performance was better for addition and subtraction with common
denominators than for addition and subtraction with different denominators and
multiplication (p < 0.001).

Table 5
Mean percentage of correct responses and standard deviation for
each type of operations in Grade 46.
Simplification

As can be seen in Table Table6,6, performance in the simplification task was better for
fractions that could be divided by 2 (e.g., 4/8) than for fractions that could be divided
by 3 (e.g., 15/9), F(1, 438) = 384.4, p < 0.001, 2p = 0.64. There was no significant
difference between simplification of proper and improper fractions, fractions, F(1, 438) =
1.76, p = 0.19.

Table 6
Mean percentage of correct responses and standard deviation for
the simplification task in each grade.
Go to:

Discussion
In this study, we investigated the difficulties encountered by primary school children
when learning fractions. One of the main goals of this study was to clarify the
relationships between conceptual and procedural understanding of fractions. In order
to do so, a test was administered in Grade 46 in classes of the French Community of
Belgium. The test was based on the different conceptual meanings of fractions,
namely part-whole/partition, number, proportion, as well as on procedural questions
involving arithmetical operations and simplification of fractions.
Globally, the results showed large differences between categories. Pupils seemed to
master the part-whole concept, whereas numbers and operations posed tremendous
problems. Some conceptual meanings, such as numbers, were less used in primary
school classes. Part-whole seems to be a concept that is widely used in the

classrooms. Indeed, children performed well in the part-whole/partition category.

However, they seem to have a stereotypic representation of fractions. Indeed, when
they were asked to represent a given fraction, they mostly used a circle or a square,
even when drawing collections could have been easier (e.g., 1/7). Moreover, when
asked to select a figure representing a certain fraction, they performed better for
continuous than discrete quantities. Pupils performed well with proportion items.
These results contrast with textbooks and lessons given by teachers. In fact, the
connection between proportions and fractions is rarely made in textbooks and formal
lessons, even if some aspects of fractions are based upon proportional reasoning (e.g.,
the rule of three).
In the proportion category, most errors were linked to additive reasoning. For
example, when pupils are asked questions such as 3 cakes cost 12, 6 cakes cost 24,
8 cakes cost ? the most common error would be the answer 36. In this case,
children built their answer on only a subset of the given information and they applied
additive strategies where multiplicative strategies should be used. Mistakes linked to
additive reasoning are commonly reported during early stages of children's
understanding of proportional reasoning (Lesh et al., 1988). This kind of mistakes was
common in Grade 4, but could still be observed in Grade 6.
Pupils performed poorly in the numerical category. Even if children are trained to deal
with number lines from grade 4, results showed major difficulties when they were
asked to place a fraction on a graduated number line. They do not seem to have an
appropriate representation of the quantities of fractions. Other studies have reported
that many pupils experience difficulties when asked to locate a fraction on a number
line. Pupils often view the whole number line, irrespective of its magnitude as a single
unit instead of a scale (Ni, 2001). When they are asked to place a fraction between 0
and 1, pupils often place fractions disregarding any other reference point or known
fractions. Pearn and Stephens (2004) pointed out that the incorrect location of
fractions could also be the consequence of a lack of accuracy when dividing
segments.
The lack of accuracy in children's mental representations of the magnitude of
fractions seems to be confirmed by the weak percentage of correct response for
questions involving sorting out a range of fractions in ascending order. Furthermore,
mean percentage of correct responses for comparison of fractions were very low for
fractions with common numerators and fractions no common components. When
fractions share the same denominator (e.g., 2/5_4/5), the global magnitude of
fractions is congruent with the magnitude of the numerators (e.g., 4 is larger than 2).
In this case, pupils could only compare the numerators in order to choose the larger
fraction. When fractions share the same numerator, the global magnitude of fractions
is incongruent with the magnitude of denominators. Thus, pupils might not take the

incongruity into account and their judgment might have been influenced by the whole
number bias (Ni and Zhou, 2005). For fractions with no common components, pupils
probably only compared numerators and denominators separately. This strategy led to
larger error rates.
Focusing now on operations, children performed well in addition and subtraction of
fractions with the same denominator, while performance dropped dramatically in
addition and subtraction of fractions with different denominators. The most common
errors were dictated by the whole number bias (Ni and Zhou, 2005). For example,
when asked 3/4 + 2/5 = ?, the majority of pupils answers 5/9. Surprisingly, results
were poorer for items involving the multiplication of an integer by a fraction, than for
multiplication of two fractions. In the last case, pupils could successfully apply
procedures based on natural numbers knowledge, which would explain higher
percentage of correct response. Another surprising result was the better performance
in Grade 4 than Grade 5 when children were asked to multiply an integer by a
fraction. There might be a contamination of procedures applied to addition and
subtraction with different denominators learnt in Grade 5.
Results showed massive familiarity effects in every category. Children performed
significantly better on questions including familiar fractions, such as 1/2, 1/4, or 3/4
than on items with less familiar fractions. This could be due to the fact that the
magnitude of 1/2 is known better than other fractional magnitudes. We do not know
precisely when children start to quantify continuous quantities in informal contexts.
Bryant (1974) suggests that children are able to understand part/part relations before
part/whole relations. Relations such as larger than/smaller than and equals to
could be the first logical relationships used at the beginning of fraction learning.
Spinillo and Bryant (1991) designed experiments to analyse how 4- to 7-year-olds use
the concept of half in equivalence judgment tasks. Their results suggest that using
the concept of half would be the first step in relationships used by children to quantify
fractions.
Desli (1999) also investigated the role of half by examining part/whole relationships.
6- to 8-year-olds were told that two parties had been organized and that chocolate bars
would be equally distributed among children. They had to judge if they would receive
the same amount of chocolate bars in both parties, and if not, in which party they
would get more chocolate bars. Children had ceiling performance when they could
use half as a reference. In the condition where they could not use half as a reference,
only 8-year-olds had performance above chance. Desli (1999) also showed the
importance of the concept of half in the construction of fractions quantifications. In a
recent study using a fraction-based judgment task, Mazzocco et al. (2013) showed that
fractions equivalent to 1/2 were easier to conceptualize. Moreover, children as young
as 3 and 4 years old already have a good representation of the half boundary (Singer-

Freeman and Goswami,2001). As children are frequently exposed to 1/2 quite early in
life, the familiarity of that quantity might induce a different type of mental
representations compared to other less familiar fractions. Pupils might benefit from
lessons including a larger pool of fractions. Teaching programs mostly insist on
quantities that can be divided by 2. This limited vision of fractions seems to generate
difficulties when it comes to generalization. Teachers could diversify the number of
fractions used during lessons.
Improper fractions represented another major difficulty for primary school children
(Bright et al., 1988; Tzur,1999). The main difficulty appeared in the test when pupils
were asked to graphically represent an improper fraction or when an improper fraction
was presented in an ordering task. When pupils were asked to order 1 in a sequence
involving fractions, the most common error was to put it at the end of the sequence,
even if there was an improper fraction. This could mean that some children cannot
imagine fractions can be larger than 1. This is consistent with the results found by
Kallai and Tzelgov (2009) who showed that adults have a mental representation of
what they called a generalized fraction. A generalized fraction corresponds to an
entity smaller than one emerging from the common notation of fraction (Kallai and
Tzelgov, 2009).
Furthermore, children seem to have a limited conception of the relation between 1 and
fractions. Looking at questions on number lines and the ordering task, we observed
two different conceptions regarding the number 1. In the first case, 1 was put at the
beginning of the sequence. This can be interpreted as 1 being at the beginning of
counting sequence. This error is again linked to the whole number bias (Ni and
Zhou,2005). Indeed, pupils based their answer on prior knowledge and the
expectation that fractions follow the same rule of counting as whole numbers. In the
second case, 1 was placed at the end of the sequence. Children who made this mistake
considered fractions as being entities smaller than one.
Equivalent fractions were not understood by the majority of children (Kamii and
Clark, 1995; Arnon et al.,2001). For example, performance was poor when they were
asked to place 2/3 on a number line when the references were 0 and 1/6. Yet, their
score was high for questions involving simplification of fraction. There was a clear
dissociation between conceptual and procedural understanding. Children mastered the
procedure applied to simplify fractions, but did not seem to understand the underlying
concept of equivalent fractions.
To sum up, the test that we designed revealed many weaknesses in understanding
fractions in primary school. Teaching practice seems to focus more on procedures
than on conceptual understanding of fractions. But our results showed that procedures
are not sufficient to carry out operations with fractions for instance. Even if pupils are

intensively trained with finding the least common denominators procedure, the
percentage of correct responses for addition and subtraction with different
denominators remained low. Conceptual understanding is essential to ensure a deep
understanding of fractions. In the U.S., it is already been recommend for the teaching
of fractions (NCTM, 2000; Fazio and Siegler, 2012), and based on our results, we
would suggest this recommendation should also apply for the French Community of
Belgium.
We argue that children might benefit from a training based on concrete objects
manipulation and explicit learning of rational numbers characteristics. Teaching
children concrete activities could help them develop the corresponding abstract
concepts (Arnon et al., 2001; Gabriel et al., 2012). For example, most primary school
children consider fractions as being entities smaller than one (Behr et al., 1992;
Stafylidou and Vosniadou, 2004). Moreover, most of them do not seem to understand
equivalent fractions. These particular characteristics constitute the main differences
between fractions and natural numbers. Pupils might benefit from more training with
concrete objects to realize the necessary conceptual reorganisation and understand the
properties of fractions. Another interesting finding of this study is that children
performed better with familiar fractions. It could be interesting to introduce a larger
variety as well as diversified representations of fractions in lessons. By integrating a
larger range of fractions, children might get a more flexible representation of the
magnitude of fractions.
Unfortunately, our experiment did not allow us to draw conclusions on how
conceptual and procedural knowledge influence each other. Correlation analysis
revealed that every conceptual and procedural items were positively correlated with
each other. Therefore, links between conceptual and procedural understanding are
hard to interpret. This might mean that both types of knowledge are not independent
and could be equally important when learning fractions. Both types of knowledge
might evolve in an iterative way. Besides, individual differences have been reported in
the development of conceptual and procedural knowledge (Hallett et al., 2010; Hecht
and Vagi, 2012). Children differ in the use of conceptual and procedural knowledge to
solve fraction problems (Hallett et al., 2010). Another reason can account for the
difficulties to interpret findings obtained with a hypothetical measure of conceptual
and procedural knowledge. The assessment of conceptual knowledge might reflect, to
some extent, procedural knowledge and vice versa (Rittle-Johnson and Alibali, 1999).
Future investigations are required to shed light on the links between conceptual and
procedural knowledge in fraction learning and examine the possible reasons for
individual differences.
In conclusion, our results showed that primary school children master the part-whole
and proportion categories, but they struggle to understand fractions as numbers.

Equivalent and improper fractions are very difficult to grasp, and pupils seem to apply
procedures that they do not really understand. This might be linked to teaching
practice that allocates more time and exercises only based on procedures.
Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial
or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
Go to:

Acknowledgments
This research was supported by a research grant from the Service gnral du Pilotage
du systme ducatif du Ministre de la Communaut Franaise de Belgique to Alain
Content, Vincent Carette, and Bernard Rey and a grant from the Wiener-Anspach
Fund to Florence Gabriel. We thank the reviewers for their helpful and constructive
comments. Professor Vincent Carette, who helped initiate this research project, died
suddenly in January 2011. We would like to dedicate this publication to his memory.
Go to:

Appendix
Figure A1

Part-whole item: select fractions representing the same fraction as 1/4. To get full marks,
children had to select panels(A,B,D,E,G,H) and (J). In this particular example, the pupil failed to
spot fractions equivalence.

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