A qualitative approach was adopted to enable an in-depth
examination of the research question: What aspects of
fluency impact on students’ performance on a pie chart
item? Three sub-questions were associated with the
research question. The first two focussed on understanding
how students engaged in the item, with a particular focus
on the selection and employment of a strategy and its
appropriateness. These sub-questions related to retrieval
fluency. The final sub-question sought to identify additional
fluencies associated with success on this particular,
but typical, pie chart item.