Many students who gave highly accomplished responses to this question showed that they were able to apply compensation to the pair of terms involving literal symbols and to the two number terms to show equivalence,
whatever the value of n
Is there then a clear connection between relational thinking on number sentences and success on the question involving literal symbols?
One might expect a strong connection between those students who were classified as Stable Relational thinkers on the three groups of number sentences and their success in dealing with the question using literal symbol.
A consequence of this “strong” position, if it were true, is that students who were classified as SA on the three groups of number sentences would be unlikely to deal successfully with the question involving literal symbols.These two position will now be analysed by using data from the three cohorts.