Understanding of the Equality Symbol among Six-Year-Old Children
Chan Kar Lai & Sharifah Norul Akmar Syed Zamri
University of Malaya, Malaysia
karlai333@gmail.com & snorul@um.edu.my
Abstract
The aim of this study is to explore the meaning of the equality symbol among six-year-old children. The subjects comprised five six-year-old children and clinical interview method was used to assess the understanding of the equality symbol. Three different tasks were used in the interview. Result from this study shows that a few of the subjects generally do not see the equal sign as a symbol that expresses the relationship “is the same as”. The equal sign was seen as an indicator to carry out the calculation that precedes it and that the number after the equal sign is the answer to the calculation. Twelve different meanings of the equal sign were identified in this study. Misconceptions of the equality symbol were further reviewed when this study discussed about the strategies used by the subjects in solving simple addition equations.
Keywords: equality symbol, understanding, pre school
Introduction
Early number concept is one of the topics taught in the Cognitive Developmental component of the National Pre School Curriculum in Malaysia. Among others, children were introduced to relationships among numbers using the equality symbol. Many young children understand how to model a situation that involves making things equal such as linking cubes to make towers that are equal in quantity and thus equal in height. However at this stage it was reported that they still have difficulty relating this understanding to symbolic representations involving the equality symbol. In many cases also, teachers used the equality symbol to separate number sentences with an operation to the left of the symbol and one answer on the right. And this could lead to the skewed instead of the symmetrised meaning of the equality symbol among children.
Findings from previous research shows that many elementary students do not understand that the equality symbols denote the relation between two equal quantities (Carpenter, Franke & Levi, 2003). Rather, the equality symbol was seen as a command to carry out a calculation and ‘an operator symbol’ (Kieran, 2004). These interpretations were earlier reported to persist throughout elementary school and even into junior high school (Falkner, Levi & Carpenter ,1999).
Learning and understanding the correct conception of the equality symbol is the first step toward developing algebraic reasoning in young children. Limited conception of the equality sign among young children will be a stumbling block in learning algebraic concept when they start their formal learning of mathematics in the primary school. A child needs to be familiar with the relationships between and among numbers in an equation, in order to develop proper understanding of the equality symbol.
The purpose of this study was to explore the meaning of the equal sign among six year old children. Specifically this study was designed to answer the following research question:
a.
What is the understanding of the equality symbol among six-year old children?
Methodology
Subjects
The subjects for this study comprised 5 six year old children. Two of them are girls and the rest are boys. Table 1 shows the details of the subject involved.
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