The purpose of this research is to try to determine, through individual interview sessions,
the reasoning behind the adoption of certain strategies by several pupils as they are
engaged in simplifying a complex algebraic term.
The simplification of expressions was chosen as an area of study for two reasons. First,
this researcher has witnessed many instances of errors in the cancelling of terms. Second,
he has found much less literature on the simplification of complex algebraic terms than
on the solution of equations.