Abstract The purpose of this study was to identify the
pedagogical knowledge relevant to the successful completion
of a pie chart item. This purpose was achieved
through the identification of the essential fluencies that
12–13-year olds required for the successful solution of a
pie chart item. Fluency relates to ease of solution and is
particularly important in mathematics because it impacts
on performance. Although the majority of students were
successful on this multiple choice item, there was considerable
divergence in the strategies they employed.
Approximately two-thirds of the students employed efficient
multiplicative strategies, which recognised and capitalised
on the pie chart as a proportional representation. In contrast,
the remaining one-third of students used a less efficient
additive strategy that failed to capitalise on the representation
of the pie chart. The results of our investigation of
students’ performance on the pie chart item during individual
interviews revealed that five distinct fluencies were
involved in the solution process: conceptual (understanding
the question), linguistic (keywords), retrieval (strategy
selection), perceptual (orientation of a segment of the pie
chart) and graphical (recognising the pie chart as a proportional
representation). In addition, some students
exhibited mild disfluencies corresponding to the five fluencies
identified above. Three major outcomes emerged
from the study. First, a model of knowledge of content and
students for pie charts was developed. This model can be
used to inform instruction about the pie chart and guide
strategic support for students. Second, perceptual and
graphical fluency were identified as two aspects of the
curriculum, which should receive a greater emphasis in the
primary years, due to their importance in interpreting pie
charts. Finally, a working definition of fluency in mathematics
was derived from students’ responses to the pie
chart item.