Students’ use of strategies when working on multiplication tasks with array representations: An eye-tracking study

Abstract

Students’ understanding of multiplication, especially the development of basic ideas (“Grundvorstellungen”), is an important aspect in mathematics education. The focus of this study is on the spatial-simultaneous basic idea, often supported by using array representations (AR). Through eye tracking, we investigated the strategies used by 163 fifth-graders on multiplication tasks with AR. We found that the students used a counting-all strategy in almost 20% of the tasks, i.e., they did not use multiplicative structures, indicating difficulties in their understanding of multiplication.