Decimal point ignored. Students may also attempt to solve mathematical problems by
ignoring the decimal point. When ignoring the decimal point, students considered 0.5 to be
half of 10 (Glasgow, 2000). This also occurred when students were presented with decimals
such as 0.3658 and 0.65. Students saw these decimals to be 3658 and 65 respectively, thus
they consider 0.3658 to be the larger decimal. Those students who ignored the tenths,
hundredth etc. reverted back to their knowledge of whole numbers (Steinle, 1998a). This
misunderstanding may also contribute to a student’s difficulties in ordering and comparing
decimal numbers (Hiebert, 1983)